Pure BS. We have the lowest labor participation rates in 38 years. Our immigration policies don't bring in the best and brightest. If we had a labor shortage, wages would be going up, not down. We don't need mass immigration to boost our population numbers.
Given the numbers and composition of the legal immigrants we bring in, 87% are minorities as defined by the USG, we are rapidly changing the demographics of the country from predominantly non-Hispanic whites to predominantly minorities. By 2043 half of the population will be non-Hispanic white compared to 63% today and 89% in 1970. From the Census Bureau:
The U.S. is projected to become a majority-minority nation for the first time in 2043. While the non-Hispanic white population will remain the largest single group, no group will make up a majority.
All in all, minorities, now 37 percent of the U.S. population, are projected to comprise 57 percent of the population in 2060. (Minorities consist of all but the single-race, non-Hispanic white population.) The total minority population would more than double, from 116.2 million to 241.3 million over the period.
The nation’s total population would cross the 400 million mark in 2051, reaching 420.3 million in 2060.
What we have is too many incentives for people not to work for a living.
No, we don't have a shortage of workers, we have a shortage of jobs.
Government data collected in December 2014 show 18 million immigrants (legal and illegal) living in the United States who arrived in January 2000 or later. But only 9.3 million jobs were added over this time period. In addition, the native-born population 16 and older grew by 25.2 million. Because job growth has not come close to matching immigration and population growth, the share of Americans in the labor force has declined dramatically — a clear indication there is no labor shortage. Despite this, Congress is considering proposals to increase legal immigration even further; and during the last Congress the Senate actually passed the Schumer-Rubio bill (S.744), which would have doubled legal immigration and legalized illegal immigrants.1 Congress's disregard for the absorption capacity of the U.S. labor market has profound consequences for American workers.