Obama: Immigration Reform Will Shrink Deficit by $1 Trillion

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President Barack Obama delivers the State of Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber on Jan. 28, 2014, in Washington, D.C., as Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner listen.

Image: Larry Downing, Pool/Associated Press

By Fran Berkman2014-01-28 23:12:13 -0500

U.S. President Barack Obama renewed his call for immigration reform during his State of the Union address Tuesday.

Obama's argument for reworking what he called a "broken immigration system" was based solely on dollars and cents. Citing independent economists, the president said immigration reform can shrink the federal deficit by $1 trillion in the next two decades.

See also: The High-Tech Immigration Debate: Everything You Need to Know

"When people come here to fulfill their dreams — to study, invent and contribute to our culture — they make our country a more attractive place for businesses to locate and create jobs for everyone," Obama said. "So let’s get immigration reform done this year."

The legislative wheels began spinning for immigration reform last summer when the U.S. Senate approved a comprehensive immigration reform bill in June. The vote tally was 68 to 32 with 14 Republicans joining the Democrats in favor of the bill. The influential "Gang of Eight" senators, which includes prominent Republicans such as John McCain and Marco Rubio, drafted the bill.

That was the easy part for immigration advocates. The Republican-controlled House has yet to take up the issue.

"Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have acted," Obama said. "I know that members of both parties in the House want to do the same."

At the time the Senate bill passed, estimates for the economic impact of immigration reform were a bit more modest. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the Senate immigration bill would decrease the federal deficit by $900 billion in the next two decades.

The technology industry has been a particularly loud advocate for immigration reform.

Last year, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg called immigration reform "one of the biggest civil rights issues of our time." Zuckerberg is one of the leading supporters of FWD.us, a tech industry-powered lobbying group focused on immigration reform.

While groups like FWD.us often make a moral argument for immigration, the tech companies that back the group have a lot to gain from immigration reform. These companies have pushed to increase the number of H-1B work visas granted to college-educated immigrants on a yearly basis, which would help them further tap into foreign talent when hiring.

Opponents of immigration reform argue that there is no shortage of capable high-tech workers in the U.S. They say tech companies are simply trying to drive down wages by increasing the supply of potential employees.

Obama tried to build momentum for immigration reform late last year, but it didn't gain any traction in Congress.

"We invite the brightest minds from around the world to study here ... and then, we don't invite them to stay," Obama said in a Nov. 25 speech in San Francisco. "We end up sending them home to create new jobs, and start new businesses someplace else; so, we're training our own competition."

It might not be long before there are more answers on the future of immigration reform. House Speaker John Boehner said on Tuesday that Republican leaders in the house will pick up the conversation later this week.

In the official Republican response to Obama's speech, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wa.) also suggested that the House is on the verge of taking up immigration.

"It's time to honor our tradition of legal immigration," she said. "We're working on a step-by-step solution to immigration reform by first securing our borders, and making sure America will always attract the best, brightest and hardest-working from around the world."

Disclosure: Mashable was founded by Scottish-born Pete Cashmore, who has said he supports immigration reform.

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Topics: Barack Obama, immigration, Politics, state of the union address, U.S., US & World