In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which made it extremely difficult to hire people to work without authorization in the U.S. Today the U.S. has more than 9 million open roles and only 5.8 million job seekers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, millions of people are in limbo, waiting to immigrate to the U.S. and even more are likely to come as climate change drives more people to migrate. While immigration alone is unlikely to fix the worker shortage, many advocates think it could help alleviate the labor crisis.

Chapters:
00:00 — Introduction
01:44 — Labor shortage
04:18 — Forbidding work
09:24 — Solutions

Produced and Edited by: Lindsey Jacobson
Animation: Christina Locopo
Additional Camera by: Mark Licea, Jack Hillyer
Additional Footage: Getty Images, Wikipedia/White House Photographic Collection, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, C-SPAN
Additional Sources: White House, Pew Research Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Department of State, Council on Foreign Relations, USA.gov, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

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Why The U.S. Won’t Put Immigrants To Work