Immigration reform key to economic revival

Boston.com
August 19, 2012

Michael Bloomberg, the independent mayor of New York City, is no one’s idea of a hardline Republican conservative. Media titan Rupert Murdoch, whose empire includes Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, is no one’s idea of a squishy Republican moderate. And Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, a lifelong Democrat, is no one’s idea of a Republican at all.

It isn’t every day that three men with such disparate ideological profiles find common cause, let alone on a high-profile issue that has been roiling American politics for years. But there they were at Boston’s Seaport Hotel one evening last week, jointly making a nonpartisan case that reforming the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system is essential for economic revival. Without the growth fueled by immigrants — especially foreign-born entrepreneurs — the United States is unlikely to retain its preeminent position in the world. In Bloomberg’s vivid phrase, America is “committing economic suicide” by making it too hard for ambitious foreigners to enter the United States and unleash their drive and ingenuity.

Opening the Boston forum, Menino was effusive in his praise for Bloomberg, whose social liberalism, especially on gun control, complements his. “I am proud to call him my friend,” Menino said.

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