Immigration
Michael Acosta
Composition I
Marissa Grippo
8 December 2012
Immigration High immigrant areas are not the only places being effected by the ever enlarging annual intake of both legal and illegal immigrants; the workplace is already harsh for the working poor in America as it is. The facts of the working poor life style are hard enough to understand but don’t compare to immigrant workers life style. This essay will discuss the financial and physical effects on the working poor and immigrants, and why immigration is doing more harm than good for our economy. I will put together a practical solution and express my feelings on the matters. The educated article by Steven Camarota, “Does immigration harm the poor?”, has multiple statistical points over immigration that come from a sturdy research council called the NRC. Each year the United States admits between 700k and 900k legal immigrants; additionally, the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that 5 million illegal aliens now live in the country with 400k new illegal aliens settling annually (Camarota 1). Those numbers are relatively small compared to the overall population of the country but they still have a big effect. Six states—California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois—which have only 38 percent of the nation 's total population, account for three-fourths of the immigrant population (Camarota 18). What happens in high immigration areas, usually very poor economic areas, when you have a multiple number of illegal immigrants using state and local public services? It is in these high-immigrant states that the negative fiscal effects of immigration are felt. In New Jersey, for example, the average household headed by an immigrant used $1,484 more in state and local public services than they paid in taxes each year; in California, the figure was $3,463 (Camarota 20). Due to these unpaid public services, the native, registered people in the local or state area, must pay.
Composition I
Marissa Grippo
8 December 2012
Immigration High immigrant areas are not the only places being effected by the ever enlarging annual intake of both legal and illegal immigrants; the workplace is already harsh for the working poor in America as it is. The facts of the working poor life style are hard enough to understand but don’t compare to immigrant workers life style. This essay will discuss the financial and physical effects on the working poor and immigrants, and why immigration is doing more harm than good for our economy. I will put together a practical solution and express my feelings on the matters. The educated article by Steven Camarota, “Does immigration harm the poor?”, has multiple statistical points over immigration that come from a sturdy research council called the NRC. Each year the United States admits between 700k and 900k legal immigrants; additionally, the Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that 5 million illegal aliens now live in the country with 400k new illegal aliens settling annually (Camarota 1). Those numbers are relatively small compared to the overall population of the country but they still have a big effect. Six states—California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois—which have only 38 percent of the nation 's total population, account for three-fourths of the immigrant population (Camarota 18). What happens in high immigration areas, usually very poor economic areas, when you have a multiple number of illegal immigrants using state and local public services? It is in these high-immigrant states that the negative fiscal effects of immigration are felt. In New Jersey, for example, the average household headed by an immigrant used $1,484 more in state and local public services than they paid in taxes each year; in California, the figure was $3,463 (Camarota 20). Due to these unpaid public services, the native, registered people in the local or state area, must pay.
Cited: Camarota, Steven A. "Does Immigration Harm the Poor?" Public Interest. 133.133 (1998): 23-32. Print. Franz, Barbara. "Guest Workers And Immigration Reform: The Rise Of A New Feudalism In America?." New Political Science 29.3 (2007): 349-368. Shipler, David K. The Working Poor: Invisible in America. New York: Knopf, 2004. Print Wilson, Matthew C. "The Economic Causes And Consequences Of Mexican Immigration To The United States." Denver University Law Review 84.4 (2007): 1099-1120.