Nearly every developed country has a demographic problem: baby boomers are retiring but birth rates have fallen so much that there aren’t enough workers to replace the retirees.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is implementing a plan that the U.S. could emulate.

On the one hand, Meloni is taking a tougher approach to migrant boat crossings and fraudulent employment and asylum applications. But she has also increased Italy’s annual quota for non-European Union work permits, including 10,000 new spots for caregivers for the elderly.

Last week, Italy also passed a new law to dramatically simplify the stifling bureaucracy that comes with applying for a work permit.

Donald Trump has floated combining a crackdown on illegal immigration with more opportunities for legal job seekers. “It’s so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools also,” Trump told a Silicon Valley podcast last June. “What I want to do, and what I will do, is… Anybody graduates from a college, you go in there for two years or four years, if you graduate, or you get a doctorate degree from a college, you should be able to stay in this country.”

The U.S. National Science Board has found that in 2021 temporary visa holders earned 7% of U.S. science and engineering bachelor’s degrees, 34% of master’s degrees, and 35% of doctoral degrees. It’s self-destructive behavior for the U.S. to educate these students and then see them return home and help our trading partners outcompete the U.S.

Kamala Harris has not commented on the Trump proposal but did endorse the failed Senate bill that would have increased employment-based visas by 13 percent.

It’s simple: legal immigration yes. Illegal immigration no.