With millions of people around the world on the move, it's tempting to see the immigration problem in the U.S. as a matter of what to do about the undocumented 11 million.
实际上，我们的错误是，总的来说，我们屈服于那些作为非熟练和低技能工人生活的人，并承认其中很少有临时工作签证，并有机会成为公民。搬家工人，园丁，老年工人，洗碗机，番茄采摘者，酒店管家和新建筑工人。这种拒绝合法的过程，并承认更多低技能和非熟练工人是一种自我造成的经济伤口和道德上的耻辱。
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that, in the decade ahead, the U.S. may need 3 million more unskilled workers to fill those jobs and others. With only 5,000 work-related visas available each year for low-skilled workers, the undocumented have entered anyway and often remained in the U.S.
It's middle-class blasphemy, calling for equal treatment of pushcart vendors and PhDs, but it's good policy. Scholar Michael Clemens, writing on the website of Foreign Policy magazine in 2013, said efforts at immigration reform that fail to address the need for more unskilled workers "will similarly herald a new wave of unauthorized immigration unless their low-skill work-visa caps are made much more flexible, starting from the essential labor needs of U.S. employers, and that's unlikely."
由于对劳动力较低的劳动如此明显的鄙视，我们会向世界传达什么信息？我们没有通过法律渠道引入这支劳动力，而是迫使雇主和移民在非法黑市工作。
So that you know my potential biases, my mother, the former Allegra Zacharia, entered the U.S. from Greece in 1948. She worked her way up the ladder of New York City's garment industry and sewed our family into the city's middle-class suburbs. How many other immigrants over the years have stitched dresses or mopped floors so their families, whether here or in another country, could sleep under a better roof or attend a better school?
“出售”移民
That's exactly the type of worker-immigrant U.S. law now shuns. Key parts of our immigration law remain built around the notion that we should admit only those with the "human capital" of education and training. Mass-immigration critic Mark Krikorian would go further. He says the U.S. should grant temporary work visas mainly to "the real Einsteins."
自1952年以来，国会向美国公众出售移民，为具有硕士学位，金钱或艺术区别的移民提供了“帮助”标志。结果，我们从班加罗尔获得了精通软件的工程师和北京的贫困人口。
The U.S. reserves about 80,000 work visas each year for "persons of extraordinary ability" in the arts, sciences, education, business, athletics and academics. It favors those with ability in international business, advanced professional degrees or a couple of years of training for skilled work.
至少有两年的培训或一些大学的熟练工人可以使用另外40,000名签证。将为至少投资500,000美元的创造工作企业投资的人提供一万次签证。
通过堆叠甲板以使受教育和金钱的人受益，我们的立法者会想到来宾工人的形象以及可能年轻，技术上敏锐和雇主友好的未来美国公民。肮脏的工作不算多。
What's worse, past serious attempts at national immigration reform included a "merit-based" point system that would have only deepened the injustice.
In other countries with similar systems that rely on immigrant workers, women also lose, having less education and fewer work credentials, according to the American Immigration Council. The middle-aged, elderly and anyone from a less-developed country are marginalized, too.
最好的选择是通过签证奖励各个技能水平的与工作相关的移民，并有机会获得公民身份，满足美国在美国更多低技能工人的需求，并结束种族，阶级和移民法中的性别偏见。
Without the revisions, immigration law and any future overhaul will reflect our economic fear and ambivalence about manual labor, rather than meeting our workforce needs and our desire to be a just people.
理查德·科尔曼（Richard Korman）is deputy editor of ENR and editor of the ENR RiskReview. He can be reached at kormanr@bnpmedia.com.
