Study promotes legalized immigrants

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Laws to make undocumented immigrants legal and a plan to base migration on the labor market would lift the U.S. economy, a study released Thursday projects.

Such legislative reform, the UCLA study said, would create jobs, increase wages and generate more tax revenue. The researchers estimate an additional $1.5 trillion would be added to the U.S. gross domestic product over a 10-year period.

The report is based, in part, on surveys conducted over the past 20 years, dating to the amnesty movement of 1986. Those surveys indicated immigrants who become legal citizens make more money, become better educated and generate more tax revenue, Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, an associate professor at UCLA and author of the study, told the Los Angeles Times.

Hinojosa-Ojeda also projected that the economy would benefit from a temporary worker program, by raising the gross domestic product by $792 billion.

Some feel, however, that those supporting the 1986 immigration amnesty program know it would be a hard sell in this economy.