Immigration

America is a nation of immigrants—and a nation with a broken immigration system. To grow and lead the world, manufacturers need a secure border and a legal immigration system that works. Fixing our system will strengthen our workforce, fuel innovation and ensure America remains the best place to make things.

Key Facts

94%
of the DACA-eligible population is employed
70%
of STEM graduates with advanced degrees are foreign born
$6.2B
in federal taxes contributed annually by DACA households
$3.3B
in state and local taxes contributed annually by DACA households

What Should We Do Now?

Whether Congress and the administration pursue solutions in a step-by-step manner or pursue a comprehensive approach, action cannot be delayed. Below are critical policy recommendations that Congress and the president should act on to uphold the values that make this nation of immigrants exceptional: free enterprise, competitiveness, individual liberty and equal opportunity.

  1. 1
    Fund border security through personnel, infrastructure, technology and enforcement via consistent appropriations that can address the needs and challenges of the southern border.
  2. 2
    Increase employment-based immigration as a percentage of overall new legal permanent residents in the U.S.
  3. 3
    Reform nonimmigrant visas and temporary worker programs to reflect employer needs, including a fund to support domestic STEM education programs to reduce the need for these types of visas in the future.
  4. 4
    Provide a permanent and compassionate solution for populations facing uncertainty, including Dreamers, who were brought here as children and know no other home, and individuals with Temporary Protected Status.
  5. 5
    Fix the problem of the unauthorized population with a realistic and compassionate solution that leads to a firm reset so that these challenges are not repeated year after year.
  6. 6
    Reform asylum and refugee programs for a more orderly and humane system.

We need to stop talking about immigration as a political issue—it’s a business issue. We don’t have enough people to grow this economy internally. And if we can’t grow it internally, we have to open factories elsewhere. So this isn’t a political need; it’s an economic need.
— Fernando Torres, Vice President of Operations, Greene Tweed
Our country’s population is shrinking. Immigration is one way to fix [the labor shortage]. We follow the NAM’s policy … there’s no reason for it to be this difficult for good people—who are not looking to come and be a drain on government resources, but rather are looking for good, stable employment and to become citizens.
— Eric Palomaki, Executive Vice President of Operations and R&D, Core Molding Technologies

Share Your Voice

By sharing our voices, manufacturers play a vital role in advocating for immigration reform that manufacturers have long advocated and expect from elected leaders. We encourage you to share with us your thoughts on why immigration reform will help to make our country safer and our economy stronger. In doing so, you’re helping to equip the NAM with our most powerful advocacy tool: the manufacturing voice.

“Immigrants are here to give, not to take away from this country—and we give a lot. If it wasn’t for the waves of immigration during the last century to the United States, we wouldn’t be the number one economy in the world.”

—Fernando Torres, Vice President of Operations, Greene Tweed