America has always been a nation of immigrants, and throughout the nation’s history, immigrants and visitors from around the globe have kept our workforce vibrant, our businesses on the cutting edge, and helped to build the greatest economic engine in the world. However, America’s immigration system is broken and has not kept pace with changing times. Our outdated immigration system has hindered our ability to attract legitimate international travelers and the best foreign workers. This isn’t good for the economy or the country. This is why Congress needs to pass comprehensive reform to fix our broken immigration system: doing so would go a long way to grow our economy, create jobs and improve America’s ability to compete for the best global talent.
Today, we are highlighting another economic benefit of commonsense immigration reform: a boost to U.S. travel and tourism.
Travel and tourism, which is the number one service that we export and a key source of job creation, is reliant on a modern immigration system that allows us to efficiently welcome legitimate international visitors to America.
In 2012, international travel and tourism resulted in $165.6 billion in exports and the entire U.S. tourism and travel industry accounted for $1.4 trillion in economic activity and supported nearly 8 million jobs. That’s a contribution to the U.S. GDP and the job force that we should make every effort to grow.
In fact, this momentum has continued, the leisure and hospitality sector has created more than 450,000 jobs in the past twelve months. And tourism spending continues to be a key driver of economic growth for a number of regions throughout the country.
Fonte: White House