What to do about undocumented workers?

Looking forward to your responses to our in-depth analysis

I’m John Prideaux, US Editor for The Economist, and I want to hear what you think about one of the most controversial issues in this year’s presidential election: immigration. We’ve just published an article on this topic and I’m hoping that the many Medium bloggers who know about it will respond. I’d love to hear your ideas, your stories and your counter-arguments. This is a bit of experiment for The Economist; we’re still new to Medium.

Most of the debate around immigration in 2016 has concentrated on Donald Trump’s various statements on the subject. His primary campaign was fuelled by promises to build the wall and conduct a deportation exercise on a scale not seen in the world before. Last week he appeared to soften his approach a bit, to something closer the position held by most Republicans in Congress for the past three years. Next week his line may change again.

Following these shifts can distract from looking at a question that really matters, one of many questions that ought to be being debated in this election but is not: what should America do about all the roughly 11m undocumented migrants living in the country? This is a questions that touch on politics, ethics and economics. This week we published an article that looks at the economics part and, we hope, contributes to that debate.

Our story is in-depth look by our US Economics Editor Henry Curr. The article looks into whether immigration has held down wages and makes some surprise findings. It turns out that there are some economic losers from immigration in America, but they are mainly immigrants who crossed the border legally some time ago, rather than people born in America.

Are you an immigration lawyer, or an employer, or an economist? An undocumented worker or married to one? Or just someone interested in this controversial topic?

I would love to read your response to the story. It’s re-published in full on The Economist’s Medium page. Please take a look and respond there with your thoughts.