As I was saying ...

Solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, someone once said, is not all that difficult. We know what the solution should be, so all we have to do is figure out what the problems are.

When it comes to U.S. immigration policy, we have a much different dynamic. We know what the problems are, but we have yet to figure out how to solve them.

For the roofing industry, the main problem has to do with facing our demographic realities. We employ about 200,000 roofing workers in the U.S., and the Department of Labor (DOL) projects we will need to add about 30,000 to our work force during the next seven years because of industry growth.

DOL also tells us we can expect to lose 40,000 workers during that same time period, mostly because they are getting older.

So we need to find a source for an additional 70,000 workers at a time when our country is experiencing zero growth in the native-born, 25- to 45-year-old segment of our population. The solution is not all that complicated—allowing a reasonable flow of immigrants into our industry—until we introduce politics into the equation.

And our politicians have developed serious proposals that would, among other things, require undocumented workers to return to their native countries, complete appropriate paperwork and return to the U.S. as legal "temporary" workers. We have loud calls for more border enforcement. We have volunteer "Minute Men" patrolling the borders of Arizona, Texas and even Vermont believing they are making our country safer.

Good grief. At least 40 percent of our work force comes from outside the U.S. A vast majority are law-abiding, tax-paying citizens trying to provide an improved quality of life for their families. They have children—U.S. citizens, by the way—who attend our schools. They attend our churches. They are reliable workers who not only earn a fair wage but also have been trained to assume leadership positions in their companies.

NRCA believes the best immigration policy is one that recognizes the realities of the industry. We can't attract workers through existing, tightly capped visa programs.

We can't pretend to imagine a law requiring undocumented workers to return home for even a short period of time is workable. And we can't allow legislators to impose more burdens on employers, as some would do, punishing only those who try the hardest to comply with the law.

There will be a lot of talk in Washington, D.C., about immigration "reform" in the coming months. Let's all work together to make sure the reform allows our legal system to catch up with the marketplace, which, on this issue, is well ahead of it.

Bill Good is NRCA's executive vice president.