Why I Changed My Mind About Heartland Worker Visas
Biden's new pilot program will help revitalize depressed areas of the country without creating an unreasonable burden on immigrants.
Small towns need skilled immigrants more than New York or San Francisco.
Photographer: Bloomberg
President Joe Biden’s big immigration bill includes a small pilot program for a very interesting idea: A visa that would send foreign workers to specific downtrodden places in the U.S. When people first started suggesting this approach, I was opposed to it, but now I’m a wholehearted supporter.
Over the past few years, the Heartland Visa concept (named thus because more of the declining areas are in the middle of the country) has rocketed out of think-tank land and into the public policy discussion. The U.S. Conference of Mayors has embraced it. So have prominent chief executive officers. The Trump era convinced many people that something needs to be done about regional inequality and decline, and skilled immigration is an easy place to start.