IMMIGRATION | Rising Interest

January 14, 2015–Now that the incoming Republican majorities in the House and Senate have their leadership in place, they may be looking through the issues that absorbed the 2014 campaigns to ready their agenda for 2015.

According to the Gallup Poll (see chart), immigration is one of the top five issues in the United States, and it has been rising in importance relative to other issues.

It is one of the issues where bipartisan cooperation might be possible. The system in place needs to be fixed beyond what President Obama has done by executive order...

I receive a chart book every month from Risk Management Advisors LLC. They summarize economic data and often do some in-depth research on a topic of interest. The January Chart Book has some interesting data on the immigration issue. Noralyn Marshall and Alastair Hunter-Henderson take apart the issues facing the country on immigration and suggest some solutions.

To set the stage for their discussion, Marshall and Hunter-Henderson describe the "Waiting Line"

• 650 million people (i.e., the entire population of North and South America combined) according to Gallup surveys would like to leave their country permanently; Gallup has been polling on this issue since 2007.
• The United States is the #1 desired destination for nearly one-fourth of respondents, i.e., there are more than 150 million adults worldwide in line to come to the USA, increasing by 3 million per year assuming continued 2 percent annual population growth.
• Most eager to emigrate (38%) are sub-Saharan African residents, because of poverty and economic stagnation and high birth rates.
• Next most eager (23%) are people in the Middle East and North Africa, because of political unrest and persecution, and with the second-highest global birth rates.

To get the full chart book, contact Noralyn or Alastair: noralyn@att.net alastair@att.net.