Secretary's Speech

Secretary of Commerce Carlos M. Gutierrez
National Retail Federation
Washington, D.C.

Thank you for inviting me to address your Washington Leadership Conference. The retail industry is vital to our nation’s economic strength and we appreciate your engagement in Washington. Your involvement helps us develop policies that allow you to continue to grow and create jobs for the American people.

Today I want to discuss a topic that is not typically the jurisdiction of the Commerce Secretary. Nonetheless, I believe it is the most important domestic social issue of our time.

It is an issue that impacts each and every one of us in this room, and it has been a top priority for President Bush since day one. And as he said in his radio address on Saturday:

“Democrats and Republicans agree that our current immigration system is in need of reform. We agree that we need a system where our laws are respected. We agree that we need a system that meets the legitimate needs of workers and employers. And we agree that we need a system that treats people with dignity and helps newcomers assimilate into our society.”

This issue has once again percolated to the surface and has become a dominant issue in our country. It cuts across all sectors and touches on every aspect of our society and our economy.

To date, the debate on this issue has bounced back and forth between two extremes—wholesale amnesty, or the mass deportation of 12 million people. Neither option is viable, workable or realistic.

The solution—as it often is—rests somewhere in the middle of these extremes. This is a complex, emotional issue in which every side has a stake. Businesses, human rights groups, religious organizations, foreign governments … the list is endless. And the solution is not easy and cannot be boiled down to a one-liner.

First and foremost we must secure the border, and know who enters our country and is already here. This includes strengthening interior enforcement and creating a verification system that allows employers—like all of you—to hire with confidence.

We need a system that allows employers to feel confident that the employees they hire are here legally. This system can not be a burden to employers—it has to be reliable and efficient. The business community should not be expected to serve as the “immigration police.”

We have made tremendous progress at our borders. In recent months we have:

• Ended the policy of “catch and release” of illegal immigrants at the border.
• Stepped up worksite enforcement. Arrests are up seven-fold since 2002.
• And we’re doubling the number of border patrol agents to 18,300 by 2009.

Second, we must also create a temporary worker program that acknowledges the increasing shortage of native-born workers and the reality that we cannot maintain economic growth without a workforce.

Finally, we must find a realistic and humane way to deal with the undocumented workers who are here. We are a society governed by the rule of law. We shouldn’t reward unlawful behavior. But, we need a solution that applies the law and brings workers into the mainstream.

And it must be a bipartisan solution. This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. This is an American issue. And honoring America’s great tradition and ensuring her future unity must be at the heart of the goal.

The lessons of the past are clear. We must address all elements of this issue together, or none of them will be solved. In the past we have failed to effectively secure our nation’s borders, address the underlying economic reasons behind illegal immigration, and provide sensible ways for employers to verify their workers.

This time we have the chance to do it right. The question is do we have the political will?

I have spent countless hours in the last two months in discussions on this issue. I have heard from all interests groups—including this one.

Over the past several months, members of the White House staff, Secretary Chertoff and I have been working with a bipartisan group of senators.

We’ve collaborated on a comprehensive solution that “will secure our borders, enact a workable employment verification system, bring millions of undocumented workers out of the shadows, and create a system to match foreign workers with jobs that have gone unfilled by Americans.”

Despite the complicated nature of these discussions, we are making substantial progress. We do not want to take up legislative proposals that have failed to be signed into law in the past. Instead, we must come to the middle on ways to solve this issue in the interest of security, and our economy.

Consider the economic case for immigration. Last year our economy grew at 3.1 percent. Our international trade skyrocketed, hitting an all time high of $1.4 trillion.

To create an environment for continued success, we in Washington are doing our part to continue to promote pro-business, pro-growth policies. In the private sector you are doing your part to continue to innovate and create jobs.

However, to keep on our current growth trajectory there is another piece to this puzzle. While we create the environment and you create the jobs, there must be a workforce to fuel the economic engine.

Unfortunately, the demographics are not on our side. We are near a historic low 4.5 percent unemployment, and there are thousands of jobs across the country left unfilled.

And the problem is only going to worsen:

• The number of people in the prime working years, ages 25-54, is expected to increase by a mere 0.3 percent per year over the next seven years.
• By 2010, 77 million baby boomers will begin to retire. Some are retiring already.

This is an issue of supply and demand. Our population will not be capable of sustaining economic growth, unless we continue embracing and assimilating legal immigrants.

In a report to Congress, the Congressional Budget Office acknowledged that, “Unless native fertility rates increase, it is likely that most of the growth in the U.S. labor force will come from immigration by the middle of the Century.”

While global trade and commerce are growing, advanced economies around the world face declining populations.

According to the UN, by 2150, China’s share of the world population will be reduced by a third. Europe’s share will shrink by more than half, down to just five percent. Russia’s population is already declining.

The reality is that every country around the world is going to have to embrace immigration in order to prosper. Those who welcome and assimilate immigrants will have an advantage.

We have seen that advantage make an impact on our economy. Consider these statistics:

• Immigrants have higher rates of entrepreneurship, contributing to the dynamic nature of our economy.
• 350 out of 100,000 immigrants started a business per month in 2005.
• The addition of these workers into the workforce has allowed the rate of employment to grow about twice as fast as it would have otherwise.

The retail industry employed just under two million foreign-born workers last year, and those figures have continued to grow each year. Immigrants are helping to fuel our economy.

The economic case is clear. Immigrants complement our native-born workforce, bring added creativity and entrepreneurship to our economy, and help drive overall economic growth through productivity and investment.

Forty-one years ago, I became a citizen of the United States of America. I came to this country from Cuba with my parents when I was six years old and learned English from a bellhop in a Miami hotel.

My family believed in the freedom and endless possibilities that America offers to all who embrace its ideals. We, like others before and after us, came in search of the American Dream.

But my story is far from unique. It has been repeated again and again with generations of immigrants from China, Egypt, Italy—we are truly a nation of immigrants.

For over two centuries people have come to our shores and assimilated into the fabric of American society. Immigrants have contributed to our strength, our culture and our economy.

The American Dream has nothing to do with being born in America—it is an ideal that rests on the belief that here in the land of opportunity, if you work hard and play by the rules, anything is possible.

In fact, some of the great American brands of the new economy were founded by immigrants—E-Bay, Intel, Google. The Retail Federation’s own Chairman, Farooq Kathwari, is a naturalized citizen from Kashmir, and was recently was honored by Secretary Rice as an “Outstanding American by Choice.”

Without the contributions of immigrants, we would not be the envy of economies around the world.

Assimilating immigrants has been our historic strength. While other nations struggle—often violently—to assimilate immigrants, becoming an American has been accessible because it is based on fidelity to a core set of beliefs, not religious values or an ethnic background.

In the end, we have an historic opportunity to ensure America’s economic competitiveness in the 21st century. We must keep our country secure, we must keep our country strong and we must also keep our country competitive.