Immigrations to the United States has not only started to decline following former President Donald Trump’s restrictive immigration policies, but it has also been virtually paralyzed for 18 months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The NBC Los Angeles published information from the Associated Press that there are about two million fewer immigrants in the country. The situation contributed to the beginning of a desperate search for workers in many sectors and inflation increased.

According to the publication, Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California at Davis, noted that “These 2 million missing immigrants are part of the reason we have a labor shortage. In the short run, we are going to adjust to these shortages in the labor market through an increase in wages and in prices”. 

The labor issue, as mentioned, is one of the quite considerable factors for the country's current inflation to be the highest in the last forty years.

Immigration is rapidly returning to pre-pandemic levels, the researchers say, but the US would need a significant acceleration to make up for its shortfall. Given a sharp decline in births in the United States over the past two decades, some economists predict that the overall pool of potential workers will begin to decline by 2025.

The immigrant worker shortage comes as the U.S. political system is showing less of an appetite for increasing immigration. Democrats — who control all branches of the federal government and more recently have been the party more friendly to immigration — haven’t tried to advance major legislation permitting more new residents to the country. […] With a tough election for their party looming in November, Democrats are increasingly divided about the Biden administration’s attempt to end pandemic-related restrictions on seeking asylum”.

In the state of Texas, politically dominated by Republicans, the legislature in 2017 forced municipalities to obey the measures of federal immigration agents looking for people who are in the US illegally. It is noted that Governor Greg Abbott sent the Texas National Guard to patrol the border and ordered more inspections at border ports, causing some logistical problems, according to NBC.

The issue of immigration as a driver of the US economy has divided opinions in the Senate, according to a publication by Latino Rebels.

Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) said he was in favor of increasing legal immigration in the skilled and unskilled categories. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) agreed with Blunt's view and mentioned to the publication that he has a bill that would double the number of employment-based visas. However, he admits that not every Republican senator supports his proposals to expand work visas.

Despite the economic benefits of increased immigration, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) “doesn’t see a path forward for immigration reforms that would ease inflationary pressures”.

On the Democratic side, Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) told Latino Rebels that immigration reform in the current Congress was basically closed, “because Republicans were negotiating in bad faith on the issue”. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) hopes that something can still be done.