In reviewing the positions of Republican candidates vying for the 2nd Congressional District, I frequently have to double-check I’m still in Kansas. As in 855 miles from the Rio Grande River in El Paso, Texas.
That’s because of the five candidates, all regard immigration to the U.S. as their Number One concern.
Not the lack of affordable housing or healthcare. Not the threat of the U.S. getting pulled into another Mideast conflict. Nor the growing concern that individual freedoms such as reproductive healthcare are being trampled.
Instead, the drumbeat grows louder that “illegals” are taking our jobs and threatening our way of life.
But is that true? Or are immigrants a convenient bogeyman because they’re too intimidated to speak up for themselves?
Currently, there are 10 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. now that the economy has recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. In Kansas, the unemployment rate is a rock-bottom 3.1 percent. Though some 43,000 Kansans are unemployed, there are 86,000 job openings.
Locally, all major industries are looking for employees.
Because we are an aging country with a low birthrate, the prospects of meeting this challenge are unrealistic. Today’s couples typically have two children, basically offsetting the death rate. In 2021, the country saw its lowest birthrate in history.
With economic growth poised at 3 percent, we’ll be unable to fill those jobs on our own.
Kansas has an estimated 137,542 foreign-born workers, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Of those, almost 80,000 are non-citizens. Their direct economic impact to the state is more than $16.2 billion. When multiplier effects are considered, such as what an expanded workforce means to a community, the economic boon is $46 billion and a total of 419,500 jobs.
In rural Kansas, there are currently more than 32,000 foreign-born workers who provide an economic benefit of more than $3.7 billion, according to a study commissioned by Health Forward, a nonprofit based in Kansas City, Mo. Add the multiplier component, and the numbers jump to 92,100 jobs and an annual gross product of $9.9 billion for rural areas.
Getting these valuable employees to become ingrained into our communities is paramount to local employers.
As for immigrants posing a threat to the “American” way of life, being that we’re a country of immigrants that’s a specious claim.
I suspect what some may mean to be “American” is really “white,” which frankly is an insult to the ideals many of us hold as to what makes this country so beautiful in the first place.
Unfortunately, that’s not the message we’re hearing from the Republican candidates, who all say they align with former President Donald Trump’s stances on immigration.
