Give This Law an ‘A'

In the House, the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration will hear today from a 26-year old financial analyst with the New York Public Library, Mwanj Kalaw. A native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo who has lived in America since the age of 4, Ms. Kalaw overcame the threat of deportation.

Last week, she won the right to stay in America from the Board of Immigration Appeals. And yesterday there was more good news for other people in her situation; late in the afternoon the White House and Senate leaders reached agreement on immigration reform.

It's high time. For Ms. Kalaw's experience illustrates the plight of ambitious, well-educated young immigrants who have grown up here but who have fallen through the cracks of our immigration system.

Her stepfather, a U.S. citizen, died when she was 12. Her mother, who had permanent residency, died when she was 15. Since her family had not filed her immigration papers, she was left, in her words, "not only without parents, but also without a path to citizenship."

Even so, Ms. Kalaw managed to graduate from St. Anne's Belfield School in Charlottesville, Virg., then get a B.A. from Hamilton College and an M.P.A. from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

One would think that Ms. Kalaw is the kind of person whom America would welcome. She speaks perfect English, has two college degrees, and loves our country. She broke no laws by coming here. But it took 6 years of fighting deportation to achieve legal status.

There are other young people, equally talented and persevering, in the same situation. Harlem resident Dan-el Padilla, a brilliant classicist who came from the Dominican Republic at the age of 4 and who was second in his graduating class at Princeton in 2006, also could not get legal status.

His mother, a housecleaner, filed immigration papers with help from a lawyer, according to newspaper reports, but never heard anything. His brother is a U.S. citizen by birth.

Mr. Padilla won a two-year scholarship at Oxford University and left the country last fall knowing that he might not be able to return to rejoin his family. Last month he received an H-1B visa, good for a year, to pursue research at Princeton with a former mentor.

No doubt, Mr. Padilla is glad to have a one-year visa. But why cannot such talent be rewarded with a green card? Does America really want him to teach at Oxford rather than at an American university?

Many undocumented immigrant children such as Ms. Kalaw and Mr. Padilla do not have the right papers due to missed deadlines and bureaucratic error. Nevertheless, their presence in America would benefit us because they are hard-working and talented, and they produce streams of income and social security taxes.

Of course, immigrants without college degrees also make important contributions to our society. Some have technical skills, such as computer-assisted design and automotive mechanics. Some do less sophisticated but equally demanding jobs, such as construction and health care support.

One indication of the potential benefits of undocumented immigrant children is to look at how well some of their peers — legal immigrant children — do.

Many, such as top students at Stuyvesant High School, become high-achieving students, and later become outstanding workers and entrepreneurs. The undocumented immigrant children might do just as well, if not better, in light of the especially difficult circumstances that they had to overcome.

The Senate and White House agreement seeks to regularize the status of young persons between the ages of 18 and 24 who came to America before the age of 16; who have been in the country for five years or longer; and who have a high school diploma or GED.

They would immediately receive a visa, and would not have to pay a fine or return to their country in order to get a green card. A House bill with the same provisions is sponsored by Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida, Howard Berman of California, and Lucille Roybal-Allard of California.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., 360,000 young people fit these criteria, and about 715,000 other young people between the ages of five and 17 could become eligible in the future. This total of 1,075,000 potential workers represents less than 1% of our labor force. Even if the true figure were double the estimate, the percentage would only rise to 1.4%.

Even though these undocumented young people are a small group, they have the potential to make an important contribution to our economy. If their status is regularized, and they are placed on a path to becoming U.S. citizens, they will be able to get a college education and a well-paying job.

This will help all of us. We will have more productive citizens who will fill vacant job openings and who will pay taxes. The more young workers in our economy, the better the outlook will be for our Medicare and Social Security programs.

We live in a global economy. We compete daily against other countries. We want new firms to locate and expand in America and create jobs here rather than offshore. In order to do that, we want to keep the smartest entrepreneurs and workers here.

As Washington tries to complete immigration reform, it should keep one question in mind: why send the Martine Kalaws and Dan-el Padillas of the world back to their home countries to compete against us?

Ms. Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.