Watching the Super Bowl and David Beckham commercial after President Obama’s appeal for immigration reform in his State of The Union address I, as an immigrant soccer fan-player, couldn’t help think about the soccer equivalent – The World Cup – and how many hundreds of millions more fans than American football it has worldwide and what immigration did to soccer in England and globally.
Obama needs Republican support to pass any significant legislation in the GOP-held House. Polling shows that a majority of Republican voters would support a plan that simultaneously tightens border security, requires employers to check the immigration status of new hires and creates a path to legal status for immigrants who have paid a fine and back taxes.
Soccer figured out the benefits of immigration long ago. Soccer embodies globalization like no other sport or profession. From advertisers, spectators and players. The market for professional soccer players is, by far, the most globalized labor market. A Nigerian or Brazilian soccer player can land a job more easily in America or Europe than a skilled surgeon or engineer.
Taking a closer look at how soccer has changed in England, and globally when England allowed foreign players to play there, is a good example of what can happen in every profession and occupation, skilled and unskilled. Modified to the field of endeavor, it is a workable solution in any arena.
Soccer played by Englishmen in England, the country that invented the game, is disappearing. When the English Premier League decided it had to raise the level of its game, it did so by allowing foreign players to play in its league because they were better and cheaper. From just 11 foreign players in the first year of the Premier League – the 1992-1993 season – in 2011 there were more than 280 spread across the 20 teams, including some 60 first-team players. They have definitely raised the playing standards of the game and the league.
Imported talent in the U.K. has made a difference not only in the game of soccer, but in politics. Listening to how African, Caribbean, or South Asian Muslims complain about the Eastern European migrants from Poland ─ and how they could swing the U.K. vote ─ made me chuckle. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
In the U.S., the proposed Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act could plant the right seed in the quest for sensible immigration reform. It would create a pilot program to give certain immigrant farmworkers, legal and illegal, the opportunity to obtain a “blue card” ─ a temporary work permit ─ and, later, the possibility of permanent legal residency. It would also provide blue cards to the spouses and minor children of such farmworkers. It is not a cure for all that ails agriculture or national immigration policy, but it a big first step.
Why leave desperately needed food crops to rot on the vine because of a lack of migrant pickers?
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell supports immigration because it is “what’s keeping this country’s lifeblood moving forward.” He says illegal immigrants do essential work in the U.S. and he has firsthand knowledge of that ─ because they fix his house.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told Congress that the public is tired of their talking and not doing anything. “This is all about leadership. We need immigrants. That’s the future of this country. And whether the public understands that or not, it’s Congress’ job to lead and to explain to them why. … We’re going to become a second-rate power … unless we fix our public-education system and fix immigration.”
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said in support of immigration reform that as an immigrant, he felt “an obligation to speak up for immigration policies that will keep America the most economically robust, creative and freedom-loving nation in the world.”
So many companies that we view as American icons were started by immigrants, including Aussie-born Murdoch’s Fox News. Since 2000, more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants. These immigrant-founded tech companies employed 450,000 workers and had sales of $52 billion in 2005.
Doesn’t America need more jobs for unemployed Americans? Immigration reform that welcomes immigrants, legal and illegal, to America is a sure path to an employed America.