It’s bad news for New York that immigration reform has stalled in Congress. New York is home to over 2 million foreign-born workers, over a quarter of the work force. It’s second only to California in the percent of foreign-born workers living within its borders, with New Jersey a close third. New York’s economy relies on immigrant talent, both high-skilled in research, finance, and innovation, and low-skilled in hotels and restaurants.

Last November, Senator Reid, then the leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate, announced plans to consider a comprehensive immigration bill at the beginning of the new Congress. “I think we have no choice — we must address this most perplexing issue that faces America, it’s something that must be done, it’s something we will do,” Mr. Reid said.

But it’s March, Senator Reid is in his third month as majority leader, and immigration bills have been absent not only from the floor of the Senate and the House, but also from the committees. Rumor has it that Senator Kennedy is drafting legislation, but none has appeared.

This missing legislation shows that governing is harder than it looks. Democrats swept to victory beholden to groups that have different views on many issues, immigration included. A broad base of support has advantages, but it slows down legislation.

The AFL-CIO and Change to Win, two large associations of unions, spent millions to support Democratic candidates in 2006. But they have dissimilar views on immigration. The AFL-CIO sees immigrants as lowering members’ wages. Change to Win sees immigrants as potentially bolstering unions’ declining ranks.

Democratic members of Congress are also split on immigration. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which controls immigration legislation in the House, is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. No immigration reform news appears on the Judiciary Committee’s Web site. Hispanics strongly favor immigration, and their support will be crucial to Democrats in the future.

While Democrats squabble, the big loser is the economy, which needs more low- and high-skilled workers. Today’s employment data are expected to show that the American labor market remains tight, with about an additional 100,000 jobs having been created in the last three months and an unemployment rate below 5%. And earlier this week, unit labor costs jumped at an annual rate of 6.6% in the fourth quarter, adding to pressures in certain occupations that more immigrants would ameliorate.

Entrepreneurs complain they can’t find enough high-skilled workers. Microsoft’s chairman, Bill Gates, testified on Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. He said that “America’s need for highly skilled workers has never been greater,” and called for an increase in the number of permanent residents, skipping the bureaucratic H1-B visa process altogether.

Mr. Gates said: “Barring high skilled immigrants from entry to the U.S., and forcing the ones that are here to leave because they cannot obtain a visa, ultimately forces U.S. employers to shift development work and other critical projects offshore. … we can retain these research projects in the United States, by contrast, we can stimulate domestic job and economic growth.”

The economy needs low-skilled workers too. The president of the Rochester Hotel Association, Bill Gunther, said, “Although the general economy in Rochester, New York is relatively poor compared to its peer cities in the United States, finding employees to fill the positions of Room Attendant, Front Office Clerks, Custodial and Maintenance is extremely difficult, even with a full medical health care insurance premium.”

And last summer, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, worker shortages kept the number of hired workers below that of 2005. Fields in the Pajaro Valley in Santa Cruz County were abandoned because farmers couldn’t find help. Farmers estimated that between 10% and 20% fewer workers were available to harvest strawberry, raspberry, and vegetable crops due to immigration restrictions. Dick Peixoto of Lakeside Organic Gardens had losses of $200,000, the worst in 31 years. He tore out about 30 acres of vegetables, and had about 100 acres ruined by weeds.

Most economic studies show that in the long run, immigrants don’t lower Americans’ wages, they raise them. According to a study by Professor Giovanni Peri of the University of California at Davis, forthcoming next week from the National Bureau of Economic Research, immigrants raised the wages of most native-born workers in California by 4% over 14 years, with no change for low-skilled workers and a 7% change for high-skilled workers.

These wage increases are based on changes in the long-run productivity of the economy. They occur because most immigrants have either lower or higher skills than native-born workers and are not competing for the same kinds of jobs. Most Americans don’t want to pick fruit in California or get PhDs in science. With more immigrant talent, American businesses can expand, creating more jobs for everyone.

Democrats, when they were in the minority, promised to reform immigration, and criticized Republicans for failing to do so. Now is their chance.

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