Jeff Barker’s insightful story on the lack of guest workers to help process this year’s crab harvest (“Only one Maryland crab processor won the guest worker ‘lottery,’ and the rest worry about their futures,” March 11) points not only to an issue with the H-2B visa lottery, but the wider problem with immigration in America. Last year marked the smallest number of immigrants entering the U.S. since 2010. That’s at the same time as the country recorded more than 11 million job openings in January 2022.
Immigrants in the United States are hardworking and entrepreneurial, and they often work in positions that would otherwise go unfilled. The 23 million immigrants working in health care, agriculture, food services and other critical industries make up nearly 20% of the essential workforce. Study after study has shown that immigrants tend to be younger, work for longer, and create a substantial number of jobs as entrepreneurs. In 2014 alone, immigrants contributed $328.2 billion in taxes, including $32.9 billion in Medicare taxes and $123.7 billion in Social Security taxes.
Righting these wrongs is not as complicated as some claim. In many cases, the solutions already exist. Lawmakers should significantly expand employment-based immigration by, for example, making available more H-2B visas, which allow foreign-born workers to fill temporary nonagricultural jobs. Policymakers should allow more people of working age to immigrate by removing dependents and children from the numbers of employment-based immigrants who count toward visa caps. Simple solutions are possible — for Maryland and the U.S. workforce.
Krish O’Mara Vignarajah
The writer is president and CEO of Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services.
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