 Jason Furman, who was a top economist in the Obama White House, says it's largely thanks to those hardworking immigrants that the economy has been able to keep growing the way it has. If we didn't have immigrants in this country, the workforce would actually be shrinking. We would lose jobs every month, and economic growth would be very low. And the reason for that is simple demographics. You know, we have an aging population. A lot of baby boomers are retiring every day.