RealClearPolicy first published this opinion piece.

The United States and its leading industries have been in a global war for skilled labor for decades. And it has not gone especially well for the ol’ red, white, and blue.

The most recent labor battles have been fought in the technology sector generally and semiconductor microchips specifically — industries that have become vital to the country’s economy and national security. And without reinforcements, America’s high-stakes investments may never reach the beach-head.

Semiconductor microchips run the world. Controlling modern commerce, cell phones, computers, cars and transportation systems, airplanes, satellites, and national defense weapons systems, very little can be done in today’s economy without them. Nevertheless, America’s semiconductor manufacturing capacity has not kept pace, ceding chip production to Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and China.

Once responsible for making 37 percent of the world’s semiconductors, the United States produces a mere 12 percent today. The U.S. still contributes more than half of the industry’s research and development and remains a dominant player in the supply chain, but Taiwan’s manufacturing powerhouse, TSMC, now makes a majority of the world’s chips and 90 percent of its most advanced chips. That means that the United States relies heavily on a company perpetually at risk of a hostile Chinese takeover. Should tensions between China and Taiwan escalate, the global semiconductor supply chain could collapse and take U.S. access to vital technology down with it.

The obvious solution is for U.S. tech companies to ramp-up chip manufacturing here at home. Intel recently announced plans to build two semiconductor manufacturing plants in central Ohio, which should provide a significant production boost, but given the industry’s on-going global fight for skilled labor, finding the manpower to run those plants will be easier said than done. The semiconductor arms race has America competing for the same high-skill talent as its international allies, and federal immigration policy has U.S. companies fighting with one arm tied behind their back. That needs to change.

Legal immigration is controlled by Congress and designated federal agencies. But the central planners in Washington have failed—once again—to anticipate changing market conditions and keep pace with consumer and producer needs. A less centralized, more nuanced approach to legal immigration would give state policymakers a seat at the table to better inform federal immigration decisions.  

As The Buckeye Institute detailed recently, a collaborative state-federal effort could design a state-based visa program that allows states to tailor legal migration to fit their local labor markets. Such a program could allow Ohio, for example, to help Intel strategically staff its new semiconductor plants with domestic and international skilled labor. How Intel’s investment in central Ohio will ultimately playout, what new businesses it will attract to the region, and what new market opportunities and labor needs will be created in the area are impossibly difficult to predict — especially from Washington — which is all the more reason for local Ohio policymakers to work side-by-side with federal authorities to craft immigration policies that will actually meet those new opportunities and demands.

A state-based visa program has been proposed in Congress before. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) floated the idea in 2017, and John Curtis (R-UT) reintroduced the concept in the House of Representatives two years later. But Congress failed to act, kicked the can down the road, and jeopardized the semiconductor supply chain in the process. Had Congress adopted Representative Curtis’s plan, Ohio’s 8,000-person population decline would have been at least a 5,000-person increase, and eight of the 18 states with net population-loss according to the last census estimate would have seen net population-gains instead. Those forfeited gains have only made the fight for skilled labor in strategic markets across the country much harder to win.

Fortunately, state lawmakers in Utah, Indiana, and Ohio, have recognized the threat and significance of the problem and have begun calling on Congress to hear them out. As manufacturing concerns deepen and workers become even more difficult to find, more states will join that call. It is time for Congress to listen.

Logan Kolas is an economic policy analyst with The Buckeye Institute’s Economic Research Center and the author of “Ohio’s Global Fight for Talent.”