Bloomberg: Feds Should Make Cities Take Immigrants

America's immigration system is turning away the very workers it needs for economic growth, Michael Bloomberg warned at a panel discussion yesterday. The New York City mayor, pointing to a report showing that other countries are snapping up skilled migrants, argued that states should be allowed to set immigration standards in the same way that Canadian provinces do, and suggested that declining cities like Detroit be forced to accept immigrants to turn their fortunes around, reports the New York Post.

"That’s the only solution for these big, hollowed-out cities where industry has left and is never going to come back unless you get some people to move there," said Bloomberg, who blamed both parties for failed immigration policies but singled out President Obama for criticism, accusing him of failing to lead on the issue. "Today, with a liberal Democratic administration on Pennsylvania Avenue, we are deporting more people than the last four or five presidents put together," he said, according to Crains. "Somehow or other, I missed where all of this came from or is going." (More President Obama stories.)