Border solution: America needs teens

The baby boom marked the generation of Americans born between 1946 and 1964, and a period of economic expansion. A second baby boom arrived when boomers got married and had children. For the last 20 years, that boom has been driving the inflation of college tuition and the rise of for-profit proprietary colleges that gamed the college financing system.

Children of the early 1960s boomers are graduating now, leaving colleges and universities in an enrollment crisis.

Although this enrollment decline was predicted, it now means early retirement incentives and diminished budgets for programs. So when educators see teens crossing the border, we see students.

They could train in the next decade for careers in renewable energies and green technology.

They could become taxpayers entering the job market to support Social Security costs, which will be higher as boomers enter senior care facilities.

We have a large sector of the population aging out of the workplace, and a significantly smaller generation in their peak earning years. We need young people to join the workforce during this qslump.

They should be welcomed to a country and an economy that needs them. They should be documented, reunited with their relatives or transported to host families, and enrolled in high schools and community colleges where we have ESL programs to help them succeed. Immigrants don’t drain the American economy; they fuel it.