By Pastor Herrera Macurán
Horizonte Cubano News
August 27, 2026 — Afternoon Edition
America has spent years arguing about immigration as though it were exclusively a border problem.
It is also a labor problem.
Walk into restaurants, hotels, construction sites, farms, warehouses, landscaping companies, cleaning services and many other American workplaces and another reality becomes impossible to ignore:
The United States depends heavily on immigrant labor.
Yet the country’s political system continues debating immigration without adequately connecting immigration policy to the actual needs of the American economy.
That contradiction cannot continue indefinitely.
America needs secure borders.
It needs immigration laws that are enforceable.
But it also needs workers.
A serious immigration policy must be capable of recognizing all three realities simultaneously.
Look Inside America’s Kitchens
Consider the restaurant industry.
Millions of Americans enjoy restaurants every day without thinking about the workforce behind the dining room.
Someone prepares the ingredients.
Someone cooks the food.
Someone washes the dishes.
Someone cleans the kitchen.
Someone receives deliveries.
Someone removes the garbage at closing time.
These jobs are physically demanding.
Many involve long hours, nights, weekends and holidays.
Immigrant workers have become an important part of that labor force.
The same reality appears in hotels.
Housekeeping.
Laundry.
Maintenance.
Food service.
Building services.
These workers are not abstract numbers in an immigration debate.
They are part of the infrastructure of everyday American life.
Construction Tells the Same Story
America says it needs more housing.
Cities need apartments.
Families need homes.
Infrastructure requires repair.
Businesses need commercial buildings.
But none of those projects construct themselves.
Electricians.
Carpenters.
Painters.
Roofers.
Concrete workers.
Plumbers.
Laborers.
Equipment operators.
The construction industry requires enormous numbers of skilled and semi-skilled workers.
Immigrants are deeply represented in that workforce.
If policymakers want America to build more housing and infrastructure, workforce availability must be part of the conversation.
You cannot demand faster construction while ignoring the people required to perform the work.
America Needs Agricultural Workers Too
The contradiction becomes even clearer in agriculture.
Americans expect grocery stores filled with affordable food.
But food must be planted.
Harvested.
Processed.
Packed.
Transported.
And distributed.
Agricultural employers have long relied heavily on immigrant workers, particularly for difficult seasonal jobs.
The political debate often focuses on who crosses the border.
The economic debate must also ask:
Who harvests the food?
If the United States wants a secure domestic food supply, labor policy and immigration policy cannot be treated as completely separate subjects.
Enforcement Alone Does Not Create Workers
Suppose the United States dramatically increases immigration enforcement.
Businesses still need employees the following morning.
The hotel still needs rooms cleaned.
The restaurant still needs dishes washed.
The farm still needs crops harvested.
The construction company still needs workers.
Enforcement may remove people from the labor market.
It does not automatically create replacements.
That does not mean immigration laws should be ignored because an industry wants inexpensive labor.
Quite the opposite.
It means Congress should create lawful systems capable of supplying workers when legitimate labor shortages exist.
Otherwise America creates an economic demand for immigrant labor while maintaining an immigration system incapable of responding adequately to that demand.
That is a recipe for disorder.
Businesses Have Responsibilities
Employers cannot demand immigration reform while benefiting from illegal employment practices.
Businesses must follow the law.
Workers should be properly documented where required.
Wages should comply with labor standards.
Payroll taxes should be paid.
Workplace protections should apply.
Immigrant workers should not become a permanent underclass that employers can exploit because they are afraid of government authorities.
A legal workforce protects responsible employers as well.
Businesses that follow labor laws should not have to compete against companies that reduce costs by exploiting undocumented workers.
Immigration reform and labor enforcement therefore belong in the same conversation.
More Legal Pathways Could Mean More Control
This is where the political debate often becomes unnecessarily ideological.
Creating lawful employment pathways does not mean opening the border.
It can mean exactly the opposite.
When employers have functioning legal mechanisms to obtain workers, there is less incentive to depend on unauthorized labor.
When workers can enter through regulated programs, the government knows who they are.
They can be screened.
Their employment can be documented.
Taxes can be collected.
Employers can be monitored.
Workers can have enforceable rights.
And visas can contain clear conditions.
A controlled legal pathway is fundamentally different from uncontrolled migration.
The United States should be capable of understanding that distinction.
Immigration Policy Should Respond to the Labor Market
America already has employment-based immigration and temporary-worker programs.
The larger question is whether the overall system responds effectively enough to changing labor demands.
Congress should regularly examine where genuine shortages exist.
Not every employer claiming a shortage should automatically receive foreign workers.
Businesses should first have incentives to recruit Americans and offer competitive wages.
But when persistent shortages remain, legal immigration should be capable of responding.
A modern economy requires a modern workforce policy.
Immigration is part of that policy whether politicians acknowledge it or not.
Protect American Workers
Any expansion of employment-based immigration must also protect American workers.
Immigration should not become a mechanism for suppressing wages.
Employers should not be allowed to replace American workers simply because another worker can be paid less.
Prevailing wage requirements, labor protections, enforcement against abusive employers and transparent recruitment rules can help prevent that.
The objective should be filling genuine economic needs, not creating cheap labor.
An immigration system that exploits immigrants eventually harms citizens as well.
Workers have more in common with one another than political rhetoric sometimes suggests.
Both benefit when labor standards are enforced.
Congress Needs to Connect the Two Debates
For too long, Washington has treated immigration policy and workforce policy as separate political conversations.
They are not.
If America needs workers, immigration policy matters.
If America wants higher wages, labor enforcement matters.
If America wants secure borders, legal immigration pathways matter.
If America wants businesses to follow immigration laws, those businesses need systems that are understandable and workable.
Congress should stop legislating as though these realities exist independently.
They are parts of the same system.
America Should Decide What It Actually Wants
The country cannot simultaneously say:
We need immigrant workers.
We do not have enough workers.
We want businesses to grow.
We want more housing built.
We want restaurants, hotels and farms operating.
But we refuse to seriously modernize the legal immigration system through which needed workers could enter.
Something eventually has to give.
Secure borders and legal immigration are not enemies.
They should complement each other.
The stronger the lawful system becomes, the easier it becomes to insist that immigration occur through that system.
America does not need uncontrolled immigration.
It needs controlled, legal and economically rational immigration.
And after decades of political arguments, Congress should finally recognize what millions of American workplaces already know:
Immigrant labor is part of the American economy.
The question is not whether that reality exists.
The question is whether Washington will finally build an immigration system capable of managing it.
Pastor Herrera Macurán is the founder of Horizonte Cubano News. The views expressed in this article are those of the author.