What Manufacturers Want Out of an Immigration System
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Generations of immigrants have enriched and strengthened manufacturing in the United States. That’s why the NAM has long focused on supporting an immigration system that offers opportunity for workers, support for businesses and certainty for our economic future.
Our priorities: The NAM is interested in immigration rules that prioritize national security and address workforce realities, while also dealing compassionately with the people seeking to come here for a better life.
- That means establishing a safe and secure border, making reforms to the legal immigration system, offering opportunities to attract and keep talent in the U.S., addressing uncertainty in immigration status and clearing immigration backlogs so that new cases can be addressed efficiently.
Our solutions: To accomplish these goals, the NAM has offered a series of solutions for national policymakers and other leaders, including:
- Fund border security via consistent appropriations;
- Increase employment-based immigration;
- Reform nonimmigrant visas and temporary worker programs to reflect employer needs, including a fund to support domestic STEM education programs;
- Provide a permanent and compassionate solution for people facing uncertainty, including Dreamers (people brought here as children); and
- Reform asylum and refugee programs for a more orderly and humane system.
Making progress: Already, we’ve seen important success. Recently, after NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons pressed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the need to reduce the visa backlog to ensure the industry can get the workers it needs, U.S. Customs and Immigration Services announced that it is on track to disburse all available green cards this year.
- “Addressing the green card backlog and providing green cards to hardworking and talented immigrants in the manufacturing workforce is an important step to address the current workforce crisis and support a stronger economy,” said Timmons.
- “With the workforce crisis contributing to inflationary pressures and economic uncertainty, we truly cannot afford to let more green cards go to waste and leave talented individuals who contribute to our economy on the sidelines.”
Learn more: The NAM recently released an updated version of its immigration policy roadmap “A Way Forward.” You can also find more information in “Competing to Win”—the NAM’s blueprint for policies that support manufacturing in America.
Related
Manufacturers Unveil Competitiveness Agenda Ahead of Midterm Elections
“Competing to Win” offers a path for bringing the country together around policies, shared values and a unified purpose
Washington, D.C. – Ahead of the midterm elections, the National Association of Manufacturers released its policy roadmap, “Competing to Win,” a comprehensive blueprint featuring immediate solutions for bolstering manufacturers’ competitiveness. It is also a roadmap for policymakers on the laws and regulations needed to strengthen the manufacturing industry in the months and years ahead.
With the country facing rising prices, snarled supply chains and geopolitical turmoil, manufacturers are outlining an actionable competitiveness agenda that Americans across the political spectrum can support. “Competing to Win” includes the policies manufacturers in America will need in place to continue driving the country forward.
“‘Competing to Win’ offers a path for bringing our country together around policies, shared values and a unified purpose,” said NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons. “The NAM is putting forward a plan filled with ideas that policymakers could pursue immediately, including solutions to urgent problems, such as energy security, immigration reform, supply chain disruptions, the ongoing workforce shortage and more. Manufacturers have shown incredible resilience through difficult times, employing more workers now than before the pandemic, but continued resilience is not guaranteed without the policies that are critical to the state of manufacturing in America.”
The NAM and its members will leverage “Competing to Win” to shape policy debates ahead of the midterm elections, in the remainder of the 117th Congress and at the start of the 118th Congress—including in direct engagement with lawmakers, for grassroots activity, across traditional and digital media and through events in key states and districts as we did following the initial rollout of the roadmap in 2016.
The document focuses on 12 areas of action, and all policies are rooted in the values that have made America exceptional and keep manufacturing strong: free enterprise, competitiveness, individual liberty and equal opportunity.
Learn more about how manufacturers are leading and about the industry’s competitiveness agenda at nam.org/competing-to-win.
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The National Association of Manufacturers is the largest manufacturing association in the United States, representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector and in all 50 states. Manufacturing employs more than 12.8 million men and women, contributes $2.77 trillion to the U.S. economy annually and accounts for 58% of private-sector research and development. The NAM is the powerful voice of the manufacturing community and the leading advocate for a policy agenda that helps manufacturers compete in the global economy and create jobs across the United States. For more information about the NAM or to follow us on Twitter and Facebook, please visit www.nam.org
