As Andrea Shalal of Reuters reports, the council found that increasing immigration, as well as public spending on childcare, is essential to meet labor supply needs moving forward. 

"If we want to continue the kinds of economic prosperity that we count on ... we have to have all hands-on deck," said CEA Chair Cecilia Rouse.  

We have some resources for going deeper on the need for reforms amid an aging U.S. workforce, slowing population growth and declining labor force participation: 

• Last year we wrote about how immigration solutions can help address labor shortages.  
• And back in 2021, in our Room to Grow paper, we offered "a recommendation for setting evidence-backed immigration levels that combat the worst effects of demographic decline and protect the nation’s social and economic health."   

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Dynahlee Padilla-Vasquez and Katie Lutz. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected]. 

SPEAKING OF GROWTH — Providing in-state tuition to all Texas students regardless of immigration status is crucial to securing and strengthening the state’s economic future, Dennis Nixon and Michael Hinojosa write in a column for The Dallas Morning News. "Dreamers are a crucial part of our state’s future growth, wealth and workforce needs," write Nixon, the CEO of IBC Bank, and Hinojosa, former superintendent of the Dallas Independent School District. "We Texans do not want to see our home state lose its competitive edge to other states because we signed onto an anti-commonsense policy similar to what [Republican Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis supports." 

TOPLINE CONCERNS — And speaking of DeSantis, our policy expert Christian Penichet-Paul just published an explainer detailing five key concerns in the governor’s hardline immigration proposal. One of them, a requirement that hospitals collect information on the immigration status of its patients, is "dangerous and short-sighted," investor and digital health consultant Bill Lucia opines in the Miami Herald. "This particular proposal is dangerous and can only result in lost lives, diminished quality of care and higher healthcare costs for all Florida patients," Lucia writes.  

REASONS FOR REFORMS — In case you’re wondering, broad immigration reforms would still really help us. That’s according to a fresh look at the kinds of reforms Senate Republicans and Democrats worked together to pass in 2013, by Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum. His last line: "[R]eform would have broad benefits for labor force growth, employment, economic output, and the federal budget."  

A HEART FOR IMMIGRANTS — May the late Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell’s heart and help for immigrants inspire us all. Mike Cisneros and Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Diocese’s Angelus News write about it as part of a broader commemoration of the bishop, who was murdered last month. 

Thanks for reading,  

Dan