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Since immigrants are disproportionately poorly educated, any overhaul needs to focus on bringing in fewer but more talented people.

Reuters

At a Hollywood conference on innovation on Friday, Vice President Joe Biden credited constant and overwhelming immigration for American creativity. Obviously, immigrants have contributed hugely to Americas legendary dynamism. From Alexander Hamilton to Sergey Brin, people born off these shores have founded new companies, invented new products, and disseminated new ideas.

All the most enthusiastic tributes to immigration as a source of renewal are true.

But those tributes are not the whole truth.

Since 1965, American immigration policy has tilted further and further in favor of the poorly educated and the unskilled. In consequenceand with full acknowledgement of the many, many spectacular individual success storiesAmerican immigration policy in the aggregate has degraded the countrys skill levels and pushed the United States down to the bottom of the developed world in literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving.

A new OECD report delivers grim news about how poorly Americans score in the skills necessary to a modern economy: Larger proportions of adults in the United States than in other [advanced] countries have poor literacy and numeracy skills, and the proportion of adults with poor skills in problem solving is slightly larger than average, despite the relatively high educational attainments among adults in the United States.

In literacy, for example, the OECD graded populations into five categories, 1 and 2 being the lowest. One in six American adults scored below level 2 for literacy, as compared to one in 20 adults in Japan. Nearly one in three scored below level 2 for numeracy. One in three scored at the lowest level for problem-solving in an advanced technical environment.

Why did Americans score so uniquely badly?

Immigration isnt the whole answer, but it is the largestand fastest-growingpart of the explanation of the deskilling of the American labor force.

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Immigration Reform Isn't Just About NumbersIt's About Skills, Too

By Andrew Rafferty

The White House used Cinco de Mayo celebrations on Monday to continue the push for immigration reform and slam Republicans in the House for blocking a comprehensive reform bill passed by the Senate last year.

"So far, the Republicans in the House have refused to let meaningful immigration reform to move forward at all, Obama said during a reception at the White House. We know there are Republicans in the House who want to do the right thing."

The president called on those in attendance to pressure Congress in the coming months to address an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, saying it is time the GOP "catch up with the rest of the country."

The Senate passed an immigration bill in 2013, but the Republican-led House has failed to move on the legislation. House Speaker John Boehner has said Congress cannot trust the administration to implement the law as passed, citing changes to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act as proof.

Earlier in the day, Vice President Joe Biden even more forcefully called for reform at a breakfast highlighting the success of Hispanic Americans.

Its time for [Boehner] to stand up, stand up and not let the minorityI think its a minorityof the Republican Party in the House keep us from moving in a way that will change the circumstances for millions and millions of lives, Biden said.

First published May 5 2014, 3:40 PM

Andrew Rafferty has been a political reporter for NBCNews.com since 2013. Rafferty writes and reports on politics for the web, and shoots and produces video for all NBC platforms.

Prior to joining NBCNews.com, Rafferty was a campaign reporter covering the 2012 presidential election. Rafferty was on the road for both the Republican primaries and general election, providing content for both the web and television.

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White House Uses Cinco de Mayo to Renew Push for Immigration Reform

Renee Ellmers is in a highly unusual position for a House Republican: She is the only GOP incumbent facing a primary challenge centered on her support for immigration reform.

The North Carolina Republican is one of a handful of House GOP lawmakers to publicly advocate legalizing the millions of immigrants who are here illegally. Her views sparked a Republican challenge from economic commentator Frank Roche, who is skewering Ellmers for favoring amnesty.

Most observers think Ellmers a nurse and former tea party favorite is likely to win the intraparty fight on Tuesday. Still, reform advocates, particularly those on the center-right, are closely watching her race as a test case of how much the politically charged issue of immigration will matter in GOP primaries. Republicans had feared that conservatives, stoked by grass-roots anger and help from outside groups, would descend on the districts of members who sided with the reformers.

(ELECTION CENTRAL: Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio primaries)

But in a surprise to some, Ellmers fight has been the exception to the rule in this years House GOP primary contests. Despite conservative threats, the slew of anti-immigration primary challenges for the most part simply havent materialized. Of course, Democrats could still badger Republicans on immigration come November.

Filing deadlines for more than 80 percent of sitting House Republicans elapsed as of the end of April. And advocates closely tracking GOP primaries could name only Ellmers race as one where an incumbent House Republican is facing a primary precisely over his or her immigration stance.

Reps. Sam Johnson and John Carter of Texas two Republican negotiators in a bipartisan House group that painstakingly tried to negotiate a House immigration bill with a pathway to citizenship breezed through their March 4 primaries without much being made of their advocacy. Johnson walloped his challenger by 80 percent, and Carter didnt even have an opponent.

(Also on POLITICO: Little hope for Keystone vote)

The Mark Zuckerberg-backed advocacy group FWD.us argued earlier this year that only one incumbent congressional Republican lost to a primary opponent primarily because of immigration in the past decade: then-Utah Rep. Chris Cannon to Rep. Jason Chaffetz in 2008.

Its essentially a nonissue in most of these races, said Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of the Michael Bloomberg-backed Partnership for a New American Economy, which supports immigration reform. But he added: It concerns me any time that someone who is very, very good on this issue is challenged.

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The race where immigration matters

11 - Immigration Reform
The rights of legal and illegal aliens to employment and to medical and educational services are debated by U.S. Court of Appeals judge Arlin Adams, Notre Da...

By: David A.

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11 - Immigration Reform - Video

Vice President Joe Biden renewed the administration's push for immigration reform Monday, saying legislation to legalize some of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally would provide a "considerable shot in the arm" to the United States.

The vice president's remarks came at a Cinco de Mayo breakfast he hosted at the Naval Observatory, where about 100 lawmakers, advocates and representatives of the U.S. and Mexican governments had gathered. He ticked through a list of economic benefits he said would accompany broad reform legislation, including an increase in the gross domestic product (GDP), a reduction in the deficit and more money for the Social Security Trust.

His remarks were aimed in part at House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who seemed poised to offer a Republican response to the Senate's bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year, but ended up backing away when there was insufficient support among his conference. Boehner blames the president for the delay, saying his repeated use of executive action on a range of issues has bred mistrust among Republicans that he would enforce any immigration laws they might pass.

"The message is simple: we don't have to redouble our efforts, we have to redouble our demand that the House of Representatives takes up legislation that's going to match the strong bill that came out of the United States Senate," Biden said at the breakfast. "It's time for John--he's a good man, John Boehner--to stand up and other Republicans to stand up. Not for us to stand up...It's time for him to stand up, stand up at not let the minority--I think it's a minority--of the Republican Party in the House keep us from moving in a way that will change the circumstances for millions and millions of lives."

Boehner found himself in hot water last month after he mimicked House Republicans crying over the prospect of tackling immigration reform during a speech in his home district.

Last week, told reporters that there was no mocking, although, "you tease the ones you love." He reiterated that he believed that Americans' mistrust of the president was the biggest impediment to reform.

Biden has found himself in hot water for immigration remarks on the other end of the spectrum. At a speech to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in March, he said that 11 million undocumented immigrants, "are already Americans, in my view."

He defended those remarks at the Cinco de Mayo breakfast.

"They may not be citizens, but they are Americans," Biden said. "In the definition of Teddy Roosevelt, he said Americanism is not a question of birthplace or creed or line of descent, it's a question of principles, idealism, and character. And I would argue that those 11 million folks who have been here breaking their neck, working hard, they are Americans."

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Joe Biden: It's time to demand action from the House on immigration