Peter Skerry’s article, ‘A Third Way On Immigration’, sheds light on one of the most pressing issues faced by the United States of America and is the central issue of the 2016 presidential campaign. According to the Department of Homeland Security office of illegal immigrants, there were around ten million, seven hundred and fifty thousand illegal residents in the United States, as of January 2009. The numbers are now surely higher. Although it is true that illegal immigration is a danger to the security of the country, I believe that most views held on this matter are on two extremes of the scale. Whilst some people firmly believe that the United States needs to be rid of all its illegal immigrants, others believe that these immigrants should …show more content…
However, the Americans are also under the impression that their entry and their influence on the economy would put their own jobs at risk. This is, however, not true. The Center for American Progress shows that the immigrants don’t have a negative impact on the jobs of the native-born, because there is less competition with the immigrants for jobs. Rather, the jobs of the immigrants and the Americans complement each other, as the immigrants possess a different set of skills from the natives. American employers and consumers, however, have thoroughly benefitted from their labor. Thus, it is ironic to see that while certain Americans worry about their own jobs because of the inflow of illegal immigrants, the others benefit from this greatly.
Moreover, it is interesting to note that the influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico has actually decreased and has, in fact, reversed. According to Timothy Egan’s article, ‘Not Like Us’, “The pouring is actually going the other way. Since 2006, more Mexicans have left the United States than have arrived, according to a Pew Research Center study in 2012.” In my opinion, the amount of time spent trying to come up with such a complex solution, when there are such simplistic and pragmatic approaches like Skerry’s, is too
Considering the ideas that both authors have brought to the table, I have concluded that in order to make progress in solving the problem of undocumented immigrants, we as a country must decide what’s best for our country. We either look at undocumented immigrants as an asset or a parasite. America is the ‘land of opportunity’ where millions of people want to live there and pursue the ‘American Dream’. We should not let people stop from achieving their dreams. But on the other hand, a quantity of immigrants leave their country because it does not have “stable democracies and free markets” that “ensure economic growth, rising standards of living and thus, lots of jobs”, because the countries of these immigrants “birth rates and native populations fall”.
In The Immigration Paradox, I saw how the historical themes of immigration continue to influence the vulnerability of undocumented migrants, which made me reflect on the effectiveness of our current immigration system. In the beginning of the movie, there was an unauthorized migrant, who tried to cross through the Arizona desert, pleading for help and asking bystander to call border control. This reflects our discussions about prevention through deterrence, in which the government tries to discourage migrants by directing them to routes with deadly conditions. Similarly, there are other systematic problems with our immigration policies. For example, I thought it was very frustrating that the construction contractors who abide by the laws cannot fairly compete against others who pay
Illegal immigration has been a problem that has plagued the United States for many years. This problem is not new to the country because thousands of immigrants have crossed over the oceans and Mexican border since our country was founded. The underlying problem is the lack of assimilation to the American ways of life and the acceptance of existing rules and laws. With the already fragile economy and the largely growing unemployment rate Americans must make every effort to close its borders to undocumented workers to ease the strain and retain any available jobs for unemployed Americans and legal workers. Aviva Chomsky writes “immigration plays a much more complex role in the employment picture, and many different factors affecting employment and unemployment.”(4). Chomsky so on to say, “it indeed seems to be the case that immigrants and low-skilled citizens are competing for the same jobs”(11). Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants enter the country and start working either under illegal names or take agricultural jobs in which they are paid under the table. Chomsky solidifies this fact when she say “some immigrants work in the informal economy, and are paid under the table in-cash, so they don’t have federal and state income taxes, or social security taxes, deducted from their paychecks”(36).Which a lot of employers are catching on to because on doing this they don’t have to pay taxes and can turn more of a profit This also hurts the country’s economy because no one is paying their taxes and so there is no money flowing to pull the country out of the current recession. This burden indefinitely falls on the shoulders of the rest of the legal citizens of America who are inevitable paying the way for this one sided labor for...
Immigration has been a topic that people have struggled to accept for centuries. The questions often asked are, what are we going to do about it? And should we allow them in? The problem here is that technically most Americans were immigrants at one point unless they are Native American. With every new wave of immigrants, there is a reemergence of fears that control our views. Both David Cole and Barry R. Chiswick agree to allow immigration and convey that the views most people hold aren't properly based on real evidence.
In 2007, the White House issued this statement in hopes to influence a Congressional debate: “Immigration has a positive effect on the American economy as a whole and on the income of native-born American workers” (Pear). This statement relates to the idea that immigrants actually enhance the productivity of American workers and increase their earnings in a significant amount, estimated at $37 billion a year (Pear). This is just one way in which immigrants support economic development in the United States. Since the U.S. is an i...
The lack of enforcement of immigration policies will cause the greatest impact on America’s economy. One of the most controversial topics is how immigrants affect jobs and wages. Many argue that immigrants help the economy by working for the people that will not, but in reality they are taking Americans jobs and legal immigrants that have earned their rights. The main issue is wages: illegal immigrants are desperate for jobs and will do anything. Businessmen will take advantage of this and pay them significantly lower wages. Cheap labor negatively affects other workers. Studies show that immigrants push down wages and may cause other workers to leave a certain industry.
Supporters of letting more immigrants come into the country claim that immigrants do not take away jobs from the hard working American. They have a claim that it actually helps boost America’s economy by increasing the purchasing of goods. Advocates of immigration, claim that Americans think they are too good to hold certain jobs and immigrants fill the jobs Americans do not want. The Director of Workforce Success, Phylis Eisen states, “Tens of thousands of jobs go unfilled in the high tech industry. The Hewlett-Packards, the Intels, the Motorollas, the entire semi-conducting industry has to fill forty-thousand jobs in the next three years. If they can’t do this, they have to go overseas. The companies always prefer to stay in America.” (Immigration: Promise and Hope for Generations. 1998).
The United States cannot afford to lose the economic gains that come from immigrant labor. The economy would be suffering a greater loss if it weren’t for immigrants and their labor contributions, especially during the 2008 U.S. recession. The U.S. economy would most likely worsen if it weren’t for the strong labor force immigrants have provided this country. Despite the mostly negative views native-born Americans have towards immigrants and the economy, their strong representation in the labor forces continues today. Immigrants aren’t taking “American” jobs, they are taking the jobs that Americans don’t want (Delener & Ventilato, 2008). Immigrants contribute to various aspects of the economy, including brining valuable skills to their jobs, contributing to the cost of living through taxes, and the lacked use of welfare, healthcare, and social security when compared to native-born Americans, showing that the United States cannot afford to lose the contribution immigrants bring into the economy.
Immigration is one of the most trending topics in the presidential campaign, generating furious debate over the situations that America faces. Whether it be deporting illegal immigrations, granting them a form of amnesty, or building a wall between the United States and Mexico, the immigration process is constantly deliberated. A total of 300,000 jobs were created in the December of 2015. However, there is a constant argument about the income distribution, with the amount of jobs that are supposedly being lost to immigrants. At the top of the social classes, wages are increasing. In the middle and bottom strata, wages are stagnate. However, there is more complexity in order to understand how immigrants are truly impacting our economy and our lives.
The issue of undocumented immigrants has been a huge debate in the 2016 Presidential Debate. The increase in undocumented immigrants to the US has Americans scared that the increase is more like an invasion, but there are so many other reasons on why it is better to keep our undocumented immigrant population than deport them. The fact they better our economy, by taking low end jobs, or increasing our GDP per capita by 4% is a great place to start(). Most Americans say that deporting the undocumented immigrants is in America’s best interest, but in reality, the undocumented immigrants help America and even Americans themselves.
America is sometimes referred to as a "nation of immigrants" because of our largely open-door policy toward accepting foreigners pursuing their vision of the American Dream. Recently, there has been a clamor by some politicians and citizens toward creating a predominantly closed-door policy on immigration, arguing that immigrants "threaten" American life by creating unemployment by taking jobs from American workers, using much-needed social services, and encroaching on the "American way of life." While these arguments may seem valid to many, they are almost overwhelmingly false, and more than likely confused with the subject of illegal immigration. In fact, immigrants actually enhance American life by creating, not taking jobs, bolster social service funds through tax payments, and bring valuable technical knowledge and skills to our country. If we are to continue to excel as a nation, the traditionalists who fear an encroachment of foreign-born Americans must learn to accept that we achieved our greatness as a result of being "a nation of immigrants."
Recently, the U.S. government has been cracking down on illegal aliens and employers are in danger of raids and lawsuits for hiring illegal immigrants. Many employers either do not require any documentation or accept copies of documents (Rousmaniere 24-25), regarding legalization. Immigrants are desired employees and companies continue to hire them even with the risks. By working for lower wages, they keep the costs of goods and services down; the illegal alien work force helps improve the U.S. economy (Nadadur 1037-1052). However, illegal immigrants can have a negative effect when they encroach on American job opportunities (Carter 8). Some economists argue that illegal aliens actually help the host-country’s economy by adding to the labor force. However, other economists state that too many illegal...
In recent discussions, the topic of immigration and the fundamental question of what is to be done with immigration? has been circulating in many american homes today, especially the closer we get to election day. As David Cole puts it in his essay Five Myths about Immigration “But just as in the 1850’s, passion, misinformation, and shortsighted fear often substitute for reason, fairness, and human dignity in today’s immigration debates”(185). Despite misconceptions of immigrants, Cole believes that immigrants positively affect society in several ways. In addition, Cole challenges and questions the beliefs of others in his essay. Whereas, Victor Davis Hanson’s essay Our Brave New World of Immigration focuses
The United States of America, being a country founded by immigrants, is known all over the world as the land of great opportunities. People from all walks of life travelled across the globe, taking a chance to find a better life for them and their family. Over the years, the population of immigrants has grown immensely, resulting in the currently controversial issue of illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants are the people who have overstayed the time granted on their US, visa or those who have broken the federal law by crossing the border illegally. Matt O’Brien stated in his article “The government thinks that 10.8 million illegal immigrants lived in the country in January 2009, down from a peak of nearly 12 million in 2007.”(Para, 2) While some argue that illegal immigrants burden the United States of America and its economy, others believe that they have become essential and are an important part of the US, economy.
Immigrants not only represent the low-income jobs but also the high wages jobs. For instance, we find immigrants in the labor field of dentists, engineers, or nurses. They are part of the three sectors of the economy, the low, the middle and the high paid jobs. Now, there is enough evidence that shows that in the long run, immigrants do not reduce employments for Americans. According to Costa (et al), “in the short run immigrants may reduce Americans’ unemployment because the economy takes time to adjust to new immigration.” Of course this depends on the economic, politic, and social environment. Nevertheless, if the economy is growing and there are creations of firms, products, or services, there will also be a creation of new jobs, including for those Americans who are less