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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning everyone. You know, a quick look at today's headlines could lead you to conclude that the United States in general, and New York City in particular, have two big problems. Too many migrants and not enough migrants. The too many migrants story gets most of the attention, right?

Just yesterday, Mayor Adams announced a new plan for a 24/7 intake facility.

For people arriving from the southern border, the mayor now says there have been more than 50,000 who have come to the city and the current wave just since last year but here's the other problem that doesn't get as much ink. An article in Crain’s New York Business last month had the headline, 56% Drop in Immigration, it's hampering New York's Recovery. 56% Drop in Immigration, it's hampering New York's Recovery.

Now that 56% reduction in immigrants number comes from the New York State Labor Department. It's the drop in immigration during the first two years of the pandemic. For example, 30,000 fewer people moved to New York in 2021 than moved here from abroad in 2016. According to those stats. The article says the resulting labor shortage from immigration cratering has played out across the city's economy as a silent headwind against the city's recovery.

The mayor, for his part, is trying to address those problems at the same time, at least to some degree because there's a potential match there. Listen to what he said yesterday and listen specifically to the end of this clip.

Mayor Adams: We're going to have a 24/7 arrival center so we can process asylum seekers can continue to receive assistance with basic needs like food and a safe place to sleep. Our goal is to help them to become self-sufficient as soon as possible.

Brian Lehrer: Self-sufficient as soon as possible. That also means getting them permission to work. In a related written statement yesterday, the mayor said currently, asylum seekers are federally mandated to apply for work permits, which can mean years of waiting before a permit is granted and issued. As the city continues to advocate for changes on the federal level to expedite work authorizations, the mayor's statement continues, the city will help asylees understand the process to move as quickly as possible through it and ensure they are ready to obtain employment when they are legally authorized to do so.

Let's talk about the immigration shortage hampering the city's recovery reported in Crain’s and how it connects with the general perception that too many immigrants are showing up here now. Crain’s senior technology reporter, Cara Eisenpress, joins us for this. She co-wrote the article in question with her colleague Carolyn Speedback. Also with us Columbia University Professor of Social Policy, Neeraj Kaushal, who is quoted in the article. She is an expert on immigration economics, and the author of the book Blaming immigrants, Nationalism and the Economics of Global Movement. Cara, welcome back. Professor Kaushal, welcome to WNYC.

Neeraj Kaushal: Thank you.

Cara Eisenpress: Thank you so much for having me on, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: The article mentioned several specific job categories facing labor shortages now. Jobs that are often filled by immigrants so Cara, would you cite some of those for our listeners?

Cara Eisenpress: Sure. New York City's labor force is still down by about 300,000 people since 2020, and you see those in particular in construction, which is down by about 6.5%. Accommodation and food services, which is, anything from hotels to sit-down restaurants and quick service restaurants that's down by almost 13%. Transportation and utilities is down by 9%.

It's very hard for employers in those industries to bank on what is kind of a counterfactual. I can't hire because there are fewer immigrants but those are also industries where there is usually an over-indexing of people who come to New York from other places outside the US

Brian Lehrer: Over-representation. A lot of the workers in those industries are people who come here from elsewhere. The ones you mentioned, health care, including home health aides, in particular, cited in the article where there's a growing shortage, retail workers, restaurant workers, technology workers at the higher education end with not enough Americans trained in math and science to meet demand to tech firms. Though, of course, there are layoffs in that sector at the moment.

Professor Kaushal, you're quoted in the article saying the city is in a strange situation. While there are a lot of migrants waiting at the border, we also have the scarcity of workers. How much do you think there is a potential match between the demand for workers and the desire of people to move here? To what degree do the people now arriving, have the skills that the employers with unfilled openings need?

Neeraj Kaushal: To understand that, first, you have to understand the economy of New York City. It is a gateway economy, which means that every year, every month, more and more immigrants get into the economy, to rejuvenate it to make it more agile. What we saw was because of COVID, immigration just suddenly stopped. Now you're right in saying that a lot of people who have been bused into the city from the border state may not exactly match, but how do we know until they actually are given a work permit?

There are some places, some very high-level, high-tech industries where you actually have to reduce the backlog of immigration permits or research but in terms of-- You see that there are two kinds of crisis. You know that one is a solution to the other. There may not be a perfect match for that. You might have to wait for a year but I think as soon as people come one is to reduce the backlogs of visas. The second would be to give them some temporary permit to work.

When I meet asylum seekers who are in the city, they are all really dying to work. They see the welfare or other things they get as a temporary thing. They didn't travel miles and thousands of miles to get benefits. They traveled thousands of miles to have a more respectable life here, to prosper here. They have huge potential so we should after that let the market forces decide.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners.

Neeraj Kaushal: Does that answer your question?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it does. Listeners, help us report this story. Are you an employer who can't find workers? Tell us what kinds of openings. Was it better before the pandemic and how much might a fall off in immigration have to do with it? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or are you an immigrant ready to work, but you can't get work authorization? Tell us your workforce story, 212-433-WNYC or anyone else with a comment or a question for Cara Eisenpress from Crain’s who wrote up the story, or professor Kaushal from Columbia, immigration economics expert, 212-433 WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Cara, that clip of the mayor that we played from yesterday and the statement from his office that I read from that they released yesterday make it sound like migrants who are ready to fill those jobs need authorization from the federal government but can't get it easily. Do you know what's involved in that process?

Cara Eisenpress: I don't know all the details of Federal Migration Policy but often what happens is there's a certain amount of time while an asylum claim is being processed when somebody who's recently arrived here is awaiting work authorization. I think that that is becoming just quite a paradox for the mayor and for the asylum seekers. Because as the professor says, people often want to work and so not being able to work feels like this big obstacle in the way.

To hear the mayor say we're really emphasizing work authorization. I heard that from people in industries in New York City in particular. I know the hospitality industry was pushing to say, well, why can't we speed up work authorizations a little bit because these are jobs that people can come into potentially without language skills, potentially without a perfect skills match, and start to make a living? I think it was very interesting to hear the mayor really emphasize that but at the same time, it's not something that New York City officials have the power to do.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Professor Kaushal with your expertise in immigration economics, can you put some more meat on those bones? What's involved in federal work authorization for asylum seekers and what is Mayor Adams specifically asking the federal government for?

Neeraj Kaushal: Asylum seekers, once they seek asylum, they have to wait until their application is looked into. If the government does not address the application for 150 days, they can then seek employment. Then it's legal for them to seek employment. Once their application is addressed, if it is within 150 days, then they have to follow the process. As to whether it's accepted, there is a huge backlog of applications for asylum.

There are two things, especially in a place like New York City, where you see a lot of people coming here, the backlog would be much more. They come here, even if they have high skill that can fill the needs of New York City various sectors, they would mostly take jobs where they can work under the table because they are not allowed to work legally and that creates a real dilemma when various sectors where these people can work, they have the skills to work, they're not able to do those jobs because they're legally not allowed. 150 days is like six months they have to wait till their application is looked into and the backlog is huge.

Brian Lehrer: Professor Kaushal, you're also quoted in the Crain's article. I think you said a version of this here a few minutes ago. The quote in the article is, "Whenever I meet migrants, especially those that have recently arrived, they get a job. I met one in the other day, she's got a job in six days' time. She was only in the city for six days and in the country for only two weeks and she was already working." That is your quote. How is that? Does that mean working illegally off the books for the moment? Is that widespread?

Neeraj Kaushal: I believe that's what it would be, although I did not ask that specific question. I had gone to meet at one of these NGO offices to see some migrants who have recently arrived in the city. It's a study that I'm trying to conduct. It is so inspiring to me, these people, because with all the problems, all the long journeys that they've had, as soon as they come here, they want to work so I was so surprised to hear from this lady that she had been in the country for two weeks and in the city for six days and she got a job in a restaurant.

Clearly, she would be working some low-skilled job, maybe much below the skill that she actually has because it's a job which would be underpaying her. She's getting paid under the table or something, but there is this desire to work. I was just so inspired talking to them that I was thinking I have a very privileged position in life, and here are these migrants who come here, and they are seeking whatever opportunity they can get.

Brian Lehrer:: Larry in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Larry.

Neeraj Kaushal: Hi, good morning, Brian, and your guest. Brian, you know something, sir, I don't understand this talk about fast-tracking these asylum seekers. There's a process. There was already 11 million, and maybe more, for the longest while that is ahead of them undocumented, a large swath in New York City here. I don't know why everybody's saying fast-forward them so they could have work, and you wouldn't have this own problem. I don't.

Brian Lehrer:: It's a fair question, Professor Kaushal, how would you put the mayor's request to fast-track work authorization for the newly arriving immigrants in the context of the conversation that the country has been having for years, decades? Eleven million is the number that Larry cites that we often hear in the press of the number of undocumented immigrants in the US, which means they don't have authorization to work.

The comprehensive immigration reform proposals that keep failing include a path to citizenship or at least a path to work authorization for all these folks who are here living overwhelmingly innocent lives, probably working off the books in many cases. You can hear the resentment, I guess, in Larry's voice that these new migrants are being jumped ahead of them.

Neeraj Kaushal: I think I'd like to make a slight distinction. I'm not saying that asylum case should be fast-tracked. I'm only saying that their work authorization should be. They should get temporary work authorization. I think the asylum case should be addressed through the normal process, but work authorization needs to be fast-tracked because we need them. I look at immigration from the perspective of US policy, US citizens, and from that perspective, I think at this stage, New York City needs migrants or needs workers. Let's not say migrants, let's say, workers. New York City needs them.

There are two things that we need to do. One is to get them temporary authorization, and the second is that if migrants are coming here through the border, if we could increase more, which I think the government did that but they need to put more emphasis on providing visa at the country of origin, increasing the number of visa and routing a lot of the people through that visa system so that we don't have a country where you have a situation where at the border, we are a laughing stock to the whole world because we have so many migrants waiting there, and the numbers look really large.

On the other hand, the US gets so many migrants every year through the legal system, and nobody is praising the United States for that. Everybody is focusing on the crisis at the border. I think we need to get credit for what we do right, and we do a lot of right on US immigration policy. I agree with the caller that there is a process that should be followed, but it's a temporary work visa to adjust labor market needs of New York City economy.

Brian Lehrer:: Can the Biden Administration do that at the level of the executive branch because we know nothing like that is going through Congress? Just as the 11 million undocumented immigrants who the Democrats would like to have and some Republicans would like to have work authorization for, a path to citizenship for, that doesn't get through Congress because of Republican opposition. Can Biden do this temporary work authorization for the newly arriving migrants with a sign of a pen?

Neeraj Kaushal: I think so.Everything can be time-bound that you get a work authorization for one year till your case is addressed. Once the Asylum case is adjudicated, we follow the rule of the law as to whether they can stay or not. New York City economy or from the US economy's perspective, we need workers for three years. Suddenly this economy gets rejuvenated with the flow of immigrants every year, every month, and suddenly we had 9/11, and everything stopped. The impact of that we can see it on the economy. Sometimes we say that we are on the brink of a recession, but still, the labor market is very tight, and I think immigration has got something to do with it.

Brian Lehrer:: We are talking about if you're just joining us, the paradox of two competing problems in New York City right now, in the country in general, but New York City, in particular, too many migrants arriving all at once as most people perceive it. The article in Crain's New York Business headline, The 56% drop in immigration is hampering New York's recovery and that big drop in Immigration is since the start of the pandemic. Stephen in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Stephen.

Stephen: Oh, hi, thanks for taking my call. I just want to express a bit of frustration with the conversation around this conflict between what's good and bad about immigration to New York City and this country in general. I run a small woodworking business in Brooklyn. Off and on over the years, I have employed undocumented immigrants. I'm a firm supporter of immigration and people who want to come here to make their lives better because I think our country is responsible for a lot of the issues that are going on in these countries between climate change, drug addiction, all of the above, drug dealing.

What I want to say is that undocumented immigrants put a downward pressure on wages and business owners like myself like that. We want that. That's part of the nature of doing business, that there's downward pressure on wages. The pandemic shined a light on this and changed a lot of the attitudes about the work that lower wage, entry-level, construction, whatever you want to call it, what people are willing to work for.

Brian Lehrer: Amazon workers, delivery [unintelligible 00:20:37], et cetera.

Stephen: Yes. I'm tired of hearing this conversation about how immigrants are good for the economy, and then on the other side, they're bad for our society. I'm just tired of it. If we would just agree that these people are willing to pay taxes, are willing to help us fund things like the services that we need, and put money into workers' compensation. That's what happens.

All of us business owners who employ undocumented workers, we're avoiding taxes, that are going to help make society a better place. I don't know 100% what the answer is, but I'm frustrated by hearing this conversation constantly. It seems obvious to me that if we document people faster, and more efficiently, and more fairly, sooner they're contributing to our economy in many ways.

Brian Lehrer: On the books, then the downward pressure on wages from so many undocumented people who can be exploited, won't be there in the same way. It's almost the opposite of the argument that the previous caller was making. Before those 11 million, whatever the real number is, undocumented immigrants can get their work authorizations, the mayor is trying to get it for the 50,000 newly arrived migrants, but in a way, the two callers would probably agree that if you had the work authorization for everybody, there wouldn't be this downward pressure on wages that comes from the ability of employers to exploit undocumented workers. How does that look to you as someone who covers the business community?

Cara Eisenpress: Yes, I think it's an interesting piece of the conversation. One thing I would point out is that while I believe some immigrants are paid under the table, many people do find a way to submit a social security number, and they do pay taxes and employers pay payroll taxes on them, and so they do contribute to the tax base in that sense. You know one thing I tried to do in this story, to break out a little bit of that trap was to think about immigration, not just as an economic and population engine for the city, but also as something that's a fundamental part of New York City's character.

Like, this is a city where, for a very long time, new immigrants have every year and every month revitalize the city. We are a net out-migration state. New York is a hard and expensive place to live, and many of us like it here and are committed to it, but a lot of people who are both Americans and New Yorkers, and foreign-born leave every month. Having new energy come in is really important to the city. As we've said a few times, not having that for about 18 months, was really the core of when people were not arriving, but not having it for a year and a half is part of the reason that the economy and a little bit of the spirit maybe has felt like it's under a great cloud.

Brian Lehrer: Let me follow up on that point because I found that an interesting part of the article too, that slower migration could stunt the city's population growth as an argument for increasing immigration to pre-pandemic levels, but is that potentially a good thing because the number one problem people usually cite for New York City is a shortage of housing compared to the growing population, which will soon hit 9 million. Could a slower-growing population for the city help ease the perennial housing affordability crisis for immigrants and everyone else already here?

Cara Eisenpress: Probably, but the city and the nation's economy are basically built on population growth. If you look at both the mayor and the governor's plans about housing, for them, they see the solution to build more housing to increase supply and to hopefully drive down prices, not just in New York City but in the metro area, but certainly, I think that's a big reason for the churn at some point as many people can't afford to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Hopefully, the new construction, especially new affordable housing construction, will keep up with the growing population, but Professor Kaushal, that's attention, right?

Neeraj Kaushal: Yes, but I look at people as hands to work, hands to grow, hands to increase productivity. I worry less about mouths to feed or people to provide shelter to. There was a thinking that you have to take care of these people. You will see throughout the country's economies, the cities that are growing, they will have increase in population. It's true that New York has high inflation, and that may be one of the reasons why a lot of migrants are leaving, but if the New York economy develops, grows, it will receive more and more people.

Another way of looking at people or worker is the hands that work, and the minds that create opportunities, that increase productivity, increase technology. I think that's the way to look at it. Then once you have those people, then they will also create wages and jobs, and housing. I look at the cycle in a different way.

Brian Lehrer: Certainly over the long run, it's the cities in the United States, whose populations are leaving, where the economy is really crashing and culturally is crashing too and opioid addiction at higher levels and everything, just look at many of the places in upstate New York, compared to New York City, which keeps replenishing because of all these waves of immigrants over the decades. Generally, the city is an economically extremely healthy place. All right, we'll continue this conversation in a minute. We have another interesting clip from Mayor Adams on this coming up right after the break. More of your calls, stay with us.

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Mayor Adams: I think it's imperative that we look at the employment. Think about this one moment, we're telling migrants and asylum seekers you can come to the country, but for six months, you can't work. What? Six months you can't work.

Brian Lehrer: Mayor Adams speaking at the National Press Club back in September. That's how long the same issue has been going unresolved. He appealed again to Washington yesterday for faster work authorization for the now 50,000-plus migrants and the current wave since last year, the mayor's estimate. We're talking about it, and we're talking about a Crain's New York Business article from just a couple of weeks ago, headlined, "56% Drop in Immigration is Hampering New York's Recovery."

We're looking at those two trends at the same time and the kind of easy assumption that people make that we have too many migrants coming to the city right now, when a lot of the business leaders quoted in this business publication, are saying the drop in immigration is hampering New York's recovery, largely because job openings can't be filled. Bob in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Bob.

Bob: Good morning. I just would like to be a little more clear on this. Are you also talking about professional people like doctors and nurses, and let's say architects, is there a shortage of these people?

Brian Lehrer: You usually report on tech, and that is referred to in your article as well, right?

Cara Eisenpress: Definitely. I think the way it plays out in tech in particular is that it's less that there's a shortage and more that there are a lot more people who might be here if it was easier to get a visa. One way you see this was there was a funny little footnote in some information from the department from Immigration Services, the US immigration where it showed that because the number of family visas didn't actually reach its cap in 2020.

There were so many family members who either couldn't apply because places were closed, or they didn't apply, or there were big backups. That it meant that in 2021 there was an increase in availability, a one-time increase for work visas, and that was immediately snapped up. There's a lot of unmet demand and New York suffers for that. Martin Mignot who's a partner at Index Ventures, which is a London and San Francisco-based venture capital firm that opened an office here in New York last fall. He's said New York is just depriving itself of a lot of talent who wants to move here and wants to be building in the high-tech space.

What I find a lot in tech in particular is that you have these companies that are based abroad. When they come to New York because they want to reach New York consumers and New York businesses, but they cannot afford to go through the visa process and also possibly pay living expenses for an entire team. They'll send maybe one co-founder or one or two executives often in business development or sales to live here but there's a lot of people who aren't coming. I think that [crosstalk] a different way of thinking about it.

Brian Lehrer: The more people with these in-demand skills, presumably the more tech companies locate here as New York tries to compete with Silicon Valley and other tech hubs but Cara, do you think this applies less in the last few months because of all these thousands of layoffs being announced by major tech companies?

Cara Eisenpress: I don't think so. The tech companies added so many new jobs in 2020 and 2021 and compared to that, the layoffs a relatively small, although obviously if you are a person laid off, it doesn't feel like that. A lot of the--

Brian Lehrer: No, it's a good thing to our attention to. There was so many headlines about Google laying off I think it was 12,000 people but Google hired 90,000 people just in the last 5 years.

Cara Eisenpress: There's a lot of tech jobs that are not at the most glamorous tech firms and insurance, let's say, they're snapping people up, who need visas or who need to [crosstalk].

Brian Lehrer: Because they're not having the same decline. Professor, before you go, is there another paradox here? The city's unemployment rate is 6% which is twice the national average right now. We keep hearing the city's unemployment rate is recovering more slowly than the more Slovanian countries but the problem we've been discussing is labor shortage due to the decline in immigration. If there's a labor shortage with unfilled opening such a problem, how can there be a high unemployment rate which of course is people looking for work who can't find it?

Neeraj Kaushal: Some of it could be mismatch. The whole conversation was about migrants, many migrants have the skills to take certain employments but they don't have the certification to do those jobs. Coming back to what you were talking about scarcity in sectors, I think healthcare is one area where there is scarcity. That scarcity is going to go up because of the aging of our population. We are going to need more and more people working in all levels of the healthcare sector.

Back to just one point on the tech sector, the problem with migration, immigrants is somewhat different. Immigrants work here, we bring them here, train them here, they work in our country for six years, get impressive experience in H1B visa, and then contribute to the economy. Also in turn we invest in them and after six years, many of them have to leave because they don't have the visa permit.

These are people we have invested so much. They have been integrated into an economy. After that, we say bye-bye. That is a problem, for our economy. We lose these people even though we've invested in them. That's another side of the tech sector where we lose a lot of experience and typically, we are not going to lose. The companies are not going to lose those workers. They're just going to move their operations to another country where they can hire them.

Brian Lehrer: Professor Kaushal, I know you have to go teach, we're going to let you go. Columbia University professor of Social Policy, Neeraj Kaushal, who's quoted in the Crain's article, whose co-author. We also still have for another couple of minutes. Professor Kaushal is an expert on immigration, economics, and author of the book, Blaming Immigrants: Nationalism and the Economics of Global Movement. Thank you so much for joining us today. On short notice, I know we only contacted you last night. Thank you very, very much.

Neeraj Kaushal: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Cara Eisenpress from Crain's is going to stay on for another couple of minutes. We have such interesting callers with stories. I want to just get one or two more of these on and get your reactions, Cara. Here's Elizabeth in Hackensack. Elizabeth, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Elizabeth: Hi. How are you doing? How you are doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Elizabeth: Hello?

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Doing good.

Elizabeth: Good. I just wanted to say a little bit of my story. I came here 20 years ago. I tried to seek asylum. I was giving my worker's permit and social security and with that, I was able to work legally with my social security for the last 20 years. I was able to buy property. I went to college, got a degree. I've been paying my taxes. However, on the other side, my asylum hasn't been approved yet for different delays.

One was waiting for my parents to establish their status and then my application being accepted and it has been accepted. I have had a visa waiting for me since 2011. I don't know how many years is that now. Then there were delays in courts because of the judge retired then my lawyer got disbarred and Donald Trump came. Then COVID came and all of these delays. It just makes me wonder, yes, you can work legally having your workers permit and social but what's going to happen if these petitions are not approved or stay stagnant like mine for over 20 years?

Brian Lehrer: We always hear that the asylum process is excruciatingly slow and there you've just humanized that with that almost unbelievable story. I'm glad you've been able to work at least, Elizabeth. Thank you for that. One more, here's an immigration attorney who wants to shed some light on a piece of this. Greg in Connecticut, you're on WNYC. Hi, Greg.

Greg: Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Just a couple of points that obviously asylum is something, it relates to really immigration throughout the world, and that's something that's gone on from the beginning of time and it'll go on forever anyway. The one thing that I think we're overlooking with asylum is the point of it was to allow people to immigrate from countries in which their survival was not guaranteed and they were under real severe threat. That's why they had this 150-day waiting period in effect while they process applications because at least the policy behind it was you're not coming here for economic reasons.

Now, the vast majority of asylum applications are for economic reasons. Like the last caller just said, I've been waiting 20 years to have this thing processed but what she's maybe not understanding is she's lucky because if let's say they had a streamlined process 20 years ago, she would've gone in, they would've said, and again, literally about 95% of the claims, they would've said, "You don't meet the standard required for asylum. Sorry, you have to go back."

If they did that, they fast-tracked her, she wouldn't have even applied or been eligible for work authorization and she would've been removed without a chance. Now that she's established, maybe she has kids, maybe she can apply for cancellation, maybe they can give her prosecutorial discretion because she's obviously a good citizen. The inefficiencies of the process work.

Brian Lehrer: Kind of work in some asylum seekers to their advantage, that's an interesting point that I certainly haven't thought of. Cara, of course, we don't know if the previous caller, Elizabeth would've been denied or her asylum application would've been granted all those years ago but Greg does remind us that most asylum applications are denied. Maybe it's in the interest of at least some asylum seekers that there be this gap between the work authorization and the ultimate outcome of their asylum application. Of course, what the mayor is looking for right now is the work authorization to come more quickly from DC.

Cara Eisenpress: You do see it, I think in the labor force participation rate. The non-citizen population accounted for almost 20% of New York City's labor force and that dropped during the pandemic because of the lack of arrivals but when there's this insecurity and lack of perhaps a safety net or lack of family and friends here, it is ever more crucial that somebody is in the labor force and can find a job.

Brian Lehrer: Cara Eisenpress is a senior technology reporter for Crain's New York business. Her article, which prompted this conversation, is called 56% Drop in Immigration, it's hampering New York's Recovery. Cara, thanks so much.

Cara Eisenpress: Thank you for having me. Thanks for the great call.

 

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