Our debate about immigration in this country has been hijacked by a fear-mongering egomaniac who keeps demonizing Mexicans and talking about building a 2,000-mile-long wall. I think by looking at our economic history we can establish there is a better way to handle immigrants. If we look at countries like Japan or Italy we see countries with stagnant economies saddled by too many retired and not enough workers. This inverted demographic pyramid results in too few people in their maximum wage-earning and spending years (25-50) and too many people in their retirement years (50+). The economy responds by stagnating, which can be seen in both of these countries. In the United States we have avoided this problem of a contracting working population and a bulge at the top of the demographic pyramid through immigration. The immigrants who come to America have always rejuvenated our economy by injecting people into the youngest and most productive demographic. These newcomers often take the low-paying jobs which Americans refuse. At the moment, fruit is decaying on the vine as farmers are not able to hire enough immigrant workers due to Obama’s crackdown on border security. Jobs in the service industry go unfilled as too few immigrants are allowed into our country. These problems have a very simple solution. Let them all in.

The real solution to our “immigration problem” is to open up the borders. Let everyone in. I say this as someone who works in hi-tech and sees the damage temporary worker visas have wrought to my field. People from other countries who want to work in and be Americans are forced to work at lower wages in order to get jobs in the U.S.. If we simply allowed them to file for citizenship immediately upon arriving the companies they worked for wouldn’t be in the position to pay them below the going wage. If farm workers were allowed to sign up for citizenship upon entering the country, farmers wouldn’t be able to hire them for less than minimum wage and threaten to deport them in order for them to work. There are tens of thousands of jobs that need to be filled with workers who are still treated fairly, and these jobs are across the entire spectrum. Immigrants can fill these jobs without displacing Americans (as they have done for 100+ years). As proof for this theory there was recently a study done on the impact Cuban immigrants had on the Miami economy after the influx of over 100,000 new immigrants within a few months in 1980. The result of the study found absolutely no impact to the economy. The new immigrants integrated into South Florida, creating jobs and buying goods, and the economy didn’t change. One might then ask what would have happened if there had not been any immigrants. Based on our history and the economy of other countries that are even stricter than us on immigrants it could be inferred that the Miami economy would not have done as well as it did.

So let’s make the path to citizenship simple and lower the barriers to immigrants from applying. Make the wait short, the paperwork simple, and let them take the citizenship test within the first year of applying. Give applications to all 11 million illegal immigrants and let them become citizens quickly. Don’t let them “line jump,” because those who are in line need to be quickly ushered into the country. We can do background checks to make sure the new citizens don’t have felony records and aren’t terrorists, and we can require someone within a family to have a job lined up before they enter. This country was built on immigrants, it was made strong by immigrants, and our economy has been surpassing all the others in the world because we still allow immigrants. Let’s bolster our economy even more by opening up the flood gates and let them all in. This kind of “open-border” policy isn’t even in the debate right now, but it should be. We need to stop fearing the rest of the world and understand that all of us, even Native Americans 15,000 years ago, emigrated here. This is what has made us great. This is what has made our economy strong. This is what will take us into the future. Stop being fearful and embrace the reality we need.

J.V. Rudd lives in Louisville.