The coronavirus pandemic has been the catalyst for a number of different crises, from a worker shortage to supply chain disruption. However, COVID-19 isn't the only factor contributing to these issues. 11 million jobs currently sit unfilled, and experts say that a significant portion of the vacancies would normally be filled by immigrant workers.

"If you can't get the key workers you need, the whole industry slows down. And the whole economy slows down," executive director of the American Immigration Council Jeremy Robbins said in an interview.

Currently, the U.S. economy is short 1 million immigrant workers. The drop in immigration can be blamed in part on the pandemic itself, but cuts in legal immigration made during the Trump Administration exacerbated the problem. Now, employers struggling to find workers are facing supply chain problems and inflation, partially due to that decrease in immigrant workers.

"That has a real impact," Robbins said. "Not just on [workers] themselves, and not just on the industries that they are going to work on, but on the whole economy."

While the fact that immigration is down isn't under debate, according to some anti-immigration activists, the impact of that decrease isn't as clear.

"It is proven that you tighten the labor market and wages go up. It always happens," said Roy Beck, the founder and president of NumbersUSA, an anti-immigration non-profit. "The fact that we had one year of less immigration contributed to that. And that's good. It's one of the most positive things that could happen for tackling economic inequality."

The tightness in the labor market can be blamed on more than just the drop in immigration. In the past year, millions of workers have retired, and many others are hesitant to return to the workforce with the pandemic still ongoing. However, experts say that this combination of depressing forces only makes the decrease in immigration more impactful on the labor market.

"If you had a slowdown in immigration when there's very little demand for labor, you're not going to see that much of an effect," public policy professor at the University of California, Karthick Ramakrishnan, said, adding that the current shortage has driven up demand. "So absolutely. The slowdown in immigration is making a difference."