Historically, as civilizations developed, they became more and more reliant on people from somewhere else to keep their economies and their lifestyles growing. The longer the civilization lasted, the more dependent they became.
I should add here that I use the term civilizations in the generic sense, which does not necessarily mean I am assigning the word “civilized” to them.
In many of these civilizations, the imported manpower eventually had the right to become full citizens of their new country. The most documented of these civilizations, that most of us are aware of, are Rome and Britain.
You will notice that I have avoided classifying how people are imported from other areas. I am talking about their importation in a generic sense as part of the development cycle of all civilizations.
As civilizations grow, they need more and more basic manpower. There are never enough of their own citizens to fill this need. Also, as their own citizens gradually acquire a more comfortable lifestyle, they refuse to do essential basic, menial, work.
The other major factor involved here is age. As civilizations grow, the lifestyles of their populations improve, the people live longer and the older parts of the population gradually cease to be part of the necessary workforce. The gap between a workforce required to sustain the civilization, and that available from the original base, only increases, and has to be filled, if the civilization is to continue. If that gap is not addressed, the civilization will eventually perish.
Today, in what we hopefully call “the civilized world”, this need can only be filled by immigration.
In the United States today, there is a huge shortage of workers in almost all fields. You can hardly drive anywhere without seeing multiple “Hiring Now” notices. Many offer salaries that would have been unheard of a few years ago.
The sudden lack of employees seems to have been created by early retirement and career upgrades after people have had time to think about their futures during the COVID19 pandemic. Whatever the reason, the U.S. needs more workers.
The combined trends created by a growing civilization (I said I was using the term loosely!), and the surprising impact of the pandemic, has created a crisis that can only, realistically, be solved by immigration.
Fortunately, the supply of immigrants seems to be fairly unlimited at this point. We would be in a far worse situation if no-one wanted to come to the U.S. We, luckily, have the short, and long term, solution to the American experiment, if we can handle it properly.
The problem we currently have is psychological not logistical. We need to learn from historical precedent, before what we have created comes tumbling down around our ears from lack of vision and maintenance. We need a sensible, attractive, welcoming and transparent immigration and training system that can be advertised in all potential immigrant locations, and we need it now.
Certainly, potential immigrants have to be vetted for security reasons, but that is a purely logistical issue. Far more important is that all immigrants should be provided with free English language instruction and free technical training in disciplines the country needs. This is not charity, this is an essential requirement for the future of the country, as well as for its potentially new citizens. It’s not rocket science, it’s obvious, relatively simple, and absolutely essential. The country was built on slaves and immigration, you would think it might have a national memory of how America grew and became a world-class power. If we could only educate our politicians to put the country ahead of their own ambitions, it might work.
