An economist has told the United States government that immigration quotas should be increased to help to assist with the revival of the economy. Charles Kenny, who is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the Center for Global Development, says that the United States is in need of more unskilled migrants to work in a number of sectors including agriculture, as well as more skilled immigrants for high technology industries. Kenny says that the US should also be encouraging the immigration of foreign investors as well as to encourage students who have graduated from university in the United States to stay in the country.
Kenny believes that the current US immigration policies are decidedly unwelcome and are actually hampering the attempts to revive the economy, noting that policies intending to prevent illegal immigration that have been enacted in a number of US states have damaged the agricultural sector already by scaring away the low paid illegal immigrants who were willing to work in the fields.
The limits on the amount of H1-B visas being issued are also having an adverse affect on industry, in particular the high technology sector, according to Kenny, while the US is also simultaneously making it more difficult for foreign students who graduate in the United States to remain in the country.
Kenny points out that a number of countries all around the world such as the likes of Singapore, Canada and Australia are trying to persuade entrepreneurs and bright young graduates to stay there, while the US is actively turning them away.