OPINION: We should recognize immigrants as positive contributors to our nation

The Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce’s vision is to improve lives through commerce, community and culture.

Coincidentally, this vision is aligned with Professor Zeke Hernandez’s recent book, “The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers.”

Hernandez teaches at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and is an immigrant from Uruguay. He will be speaking at a Hispano Chamber luncheon on Feb. 21.

Currently, the discussion regarding immigration is fraught with emotion. The source of people’s information often originates from the 24-hour news channels. We should take the time to be better-informed citizens.

As discussed in Hernandez’s book, immigrants are net-positive contributors to everything that makes for a prosperous society. Immigrants do not just fill job shortages — immigrants foster investment, create jobs, make us more innovative, fill our public coffers, reduce crime and successfully integrate culturally.

In 1924, as a reaction to fears of economic and national insecurity, President Calvin Coolidge signed the National Origins Act. The act’s restrictions caused significant job losses, obliterating innovation by American scientists and companies, lowering investment across our communities and gave rise to the border problems we still experience to this day.

And yet now we face the risk of repeating the same blunder. Forces identical to those that led to the 1924 law are at play. Let’s not repeat history; rather let’s be smarter and recognize the positive contributions immigrants make to our country.

Ernie C’deBaca is president and CEO of the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce, a board member of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the Journal’s Community Council. For more information about the Feb. 21 Hispano Chamber luncheon, go to www.ahcnm.org. Professor Hernandez, whose research links immigration to investment and economic growth, is the Max and Bernice Garchik Family Presidential Associate Professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.