The Pros And Cons Of Immigration
Joseph Ebacher
Professor Folayan
English 100
5 May, 2010
Immigration: Is It Good? The United States catalogues one birth every seven seconds and one death every thirteen seconds, as reported in the latest national population appraisals. Furthermore, net international migration allegedly adds one person every thirty-one seconds. The end result is a total population increase of one person every eleven seconds. In one year’s time, this adds up to approximately 2.8 million people. About sixty percent of that population increase is caused by the birth to death ratio. The remaining forty percent is caused by immigration (Peng). One hundred thirty-nine years following the country’s official establishment, the population of the United States reached 100 million. Fifty-two years after that, in 1967, it reached 200 million. It was a mere thirty-nine years later, in October of 2006, that the population hit its 300 million mark. This makes the U.S. the world’s third most populous country, China and India being the first and second respectively (Peng).
More than 10 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, and 1,400 more arrive every day (Katel). This makes immigration laws a common topic for argument. According to public opinion polls, roughly two-thirds of Americans …show more content…
now believe the United States is being overrun and overburdened by the recent waves of newcomers (Griffin). Immigration, when left unsupervised, can be detrimental to economic health. This is why more and more Americans blame illegal immigration to be a primary culprit of America’s current state of depression.
Cheap labor is one of the obvious uses of illegal aliens. Foreigners unauthorized to work in the United States can be found in restaurant kitchens, garment factories, tomato fields, parking garages, and taxicabs. They may be pushing brooms or performing a host of other menial tasks whose common features are long hours and low pay (Griffin). Another common job an illegal immigrant might have is working as a day laborer outside of places like Home Depot. Employers are required to check the documentation of workers to prove their legal right to employment, but counterfeit documentation has increasingly rendered this program impractical. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, does not have the facilities to enforce this law, and some say, lawmakers do not really want them enforced (Myers). This should not be surprising. For example, an employer from a gardening company would not pay minimum wage for an American citizen to do his labor when he could easily hire an illegal immigrant who would do the job for a much cheaper rate. Greed is the root of all evil. Companies like this are only seeking to maximize their personal profit. They are not looking at how their actions affect the economy as a whole. Citizens of the U.S. should not have to compete with an illegal immigrant to get a job, and citizen employment must be better protected. The state of Arizona is currently in the process of trying to protect citizens’ employment rights. The new bill, SB 1070, requires all immigrants in Arizona to carry their alien registration documents at all times. Police have the ability to question anyone they reasonably suspect to be in the United States illegally. The bill also requires citizens employing day laborers to only hire those who can produce said documents (Judd).
Immigration also affects Welfare. During recessions in the past, American employees were laid off with the tacit assurance they would be hired again as soon as the demand for goods and services increased. Back then, unemployment benefits were typically sufficient enough to appease workers until they went back to work and their previous living standards were restored. Today, unemployment benefits are typically used to aid workers in finding and training in completely different vocations; all together, this is a process that generally lasts longer than the benefits themselves (Exporting Jobs). Terminated employees are frequently forced to take jobs that pay at much lower wages because those higher paying jobs are being taken by people entering the U.S. from other countries.
In most debates regarding immigration, the topic of overpopulation emerges. Two hundred years ago, a cleric in England named Thomas Robert Malthus compiled a work that would permanently alter the established idea people had of their standing on Planet Earth. Malthus noted that, like various other animal species, humans are more than capable of reproducing faster than their environment can provide sufficient resources to support. As a result, Malthus hypothesized, humans would eventually exhaust the environment’s supply of resources, and possibly become extinct (Population and the Environment). “Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature,” Malthus wrote. “The power of population is so superior to the power in the Earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must, in some shape or other, visit the human race.”
Some demographers, environmentalists, and political intellectuals believe the image of the U.S. as an immigrant nation is sorely outdated. Back when thousands of people were needed to claim the new land, advance the frontier westward, and operate the expanding industrial foundation, immigration was clearly favorable. Most of them agree that now, deforestation, pollution, and overflowing landfills are merely a few of the indications of U.S. overpopulation (Immigration Reform).
Perhaps immigration is not so bad for the U.S. economy. Consider this: there are two main groups of people who want to enter the U.S. and become employed. Group one scrutinizes the rules carefully. When they arrive here, they pay their taxes, sometimes in quite large amounts. By law, they are only here because there are no Americans available to do the work they are doing, and that work is so valuable that it helps U.S. companies create more jobs for Americans - an average of three to five jobs for every one of these workers. What is the government’s official stance toward them? It meticulously restricts the amount it admits into the country and very effectively keeps out any beyond the legal limit. Group two is the exact opposite. Many of them break the rules, not only in entering the U.S., but by using forged documents once they are here. Many of them also evade taxes, and some of them, by working illegally at submarket wages, take jobs from U.S. citizens who do follow the rules. What is the U.S. government’s stance toward these workers? Officially it does not allow them into the country, but in practice it lets hundreds of thousands enter every year (Colvin).
The workers in group one do high skilled jobs while the workers in group two do low skilled jobs, and while it seems as though group one is desirable and group two is not, they are actually both quite similar. The U.S. labor force has always had shortages at the very top and the very bottom because most Americans are trained and suited for a job somewhere in the middle. Foreigners help to fill some of those gaps at the extremes. The result is group one and group two, both of which are necessary. The reason group one looks good and group two looks bad is that by the nature of their work, companies are able to thwart market demand and keep group one out, but not group two. For example, Intel or Microsoft would not hire a highly skilled computer engineer who has illegally crossed the border. That could jeopardize the company. However, an American farmer may employ a Mexican farm worker without even asking how he arrived here. By this token, the government can more easily stop foreigners from falling into group one while group two is far more difficult to control. Yet, as previously stated, both groups are absolutely necessary for a thriving economy (Colvin).
Some political intellectuals might agree that, while critics are correct to claim that current immigration policies burden the welfare system, the solution to the problem is not to ban immigrants from entering the country, but rather to more properly administer the welfare system.
In the past, immigrants have contributed to the wealth and culture of the United States, and the government should adopt open immigration policies so that this trend may continue to enrich the nation. Besides, immigrants who run the gauntlet of fences, guards, and environmental hardships to illegally enter the United States would seem to be more unlikely to seek out welfare benefits. An illegal immigrant arriving in America is more likely to avoid contact with government authorities than to try to cheat the system. The bureaucracy normally requires those applying for welfare to show a birth certificate, visa, or passport to sign up for food stamps or cash assistance. Illegal immigrants would need to steal or forge such documents if they are to beat the system. Rather than go to the trouble of trying to defraud the welfare system, illegal immigrants are more likely to proceed directly to vacant, entry-level, low-paying jobs. Working illegal immigrants are not a burden to the economy. They provide useful services and pay taxes to help support the government (Semmens). Immigration reform has many facets.
It must protect national security, uphold the rule of law, strengthen citizenship, and benefit the American economy. The overall effect must be to reduce illegal immigration into the United States. Although border security generally receives more attention, serious enforcement of current laws prohibiting the employment of illegal immigrants is also an important tool in an overall strategy to reduce illegal immigration. The majority of people who illegally enter the U.S. or unlawfully overstay temporary visas do so for purposes of employment. Employment of such individuals has been illegal since 1986, although that law has never been seriously
enforced. Since employment is the magnet that draws illegal immigrants into the U.S., it only makes sense that the best way to reduce illegal immigration is to shrink the employment magnet. To accomplish this without resorting to the method of systematically rounding up and deporting thousands of illegal workers only to have them return and obtain other readily available jobs, policy should focus on the businesses that hire illegal immigrants and let general employment rules rather than individual arrests drive the reduction of illegal immigration. Furthermore, the policy should empower honest employers by freeing them from the burden of competing with dishonest businesses that deliberately hire illegal workers. This means that it must discourage dishonest employers who willfully employ unverified and unlawful workers by imposing substantial penalties on the employers when such hiring occurs. Immigration is a primary cause of overpopulation, terrorism, lack of jobs, and lack of Welfare. People must understand this and take action to prevent any further immigration into the United States. The U.S. is approaching a state where people will have very little room to move. Automobile traffic is becoming more and more unpleasant. The number of American citizens who get involved in car accidents involving illegal immigrants is gradually increasing. There was a time where immigration was truly essential for this country. That is just simply not the case anymore.
Works Cited
Colvin, Geoffrey. “On Immigration Policy, We’ve Got It Backward.” Fortune.
Academic Search Premier. 5 Sept. 2005. Web. 5 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Exporting Jobs.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 20 Feb. 2004: CQ
Researcher Online. Web. 3 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Immigration Reform.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 24 Sept. 1993:
CQ Researcher Online. Web. 4 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Population and The Environment.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 17
Jul. 1998: CQ Researcher Online. Web. 4 May 2010
Griffin, Rodman D. “Illegal Immigration.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 24 Apr. 1992:
CQ Researcher Online. Web. 3 May 2010
Judd, Amy. “Arizona Immigration Bill SB 1070: What does it mean?” Nowpublic.com
NowPublic News Network. 23 Apr. 2010. Web. 4 May 2010
Katel, Peter. “Illegal Immigration.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 6 May 2005: CQ
Researcher Online. Web. 2 May 2010
Myers, Amanda Lee. “Arizona Law Could Drive Day Laborers Out.” Msnbc.com.
Associated Press, 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 2 May 2010
Peng, Nie. “U.S. Population Hits 300 Million.” Chinaview.cn. Xinhua News Agency, 17
Oct. 2006. Web. 2 May 2010
Rector, Robert E. “Employment Verification Will Deter Illegal Immigration.” Opposing
Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press. 7 Oct. 2008. Web. 5 May 2010
Semmens, John. “Ending Welfare, Not Immigration, Will Eliminate Dependence.”
Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press. 31 Aug. 2006. Web. 5 May 2010
Works Cited
Peng, Nie. “U.S. Population Hits 300 Million.” Chinaview.cn. Xinhua News Agency, 17
Oct. 2006. Web. 2 May 2010
Myers, Amanda Lee. “Arizona Law Could Drive Day Laborers Out.” Msnbc.com.
Associated Press, 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 2 May 2010
Katel, Peter. “Illegal Immigration.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 6 May 2005: CQ
Researcher Online. Web. 2 May 2010
Griffin, Rodman D. “Illegal Immigration.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 24 Apr. 1992:
CQ Researcher Online. Web. 3 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Exporting Jobs.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 20 Feb. 2004: CQ
Researcher Online. Web. 3 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Population and The Environment.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 17
Jul. 1998: CQ Researcher Online. Web. 4 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Immigration Reform.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 24 Sept. 1993:
CQ Researcher Online. Web. 4 May 2010
Judd, Amy. “Arizona Immigration Bill SB 1070: What does it mean?” Nowpublic.com
NowPublic News Network. 23 Apr. 2010. Web. 4 May 2010
Colvin, Geoffrey. “On Immigration Policy, We’ve Got It Backward.” Fortune.
Academic Search Premier. 5 Sept. 2005. Web. 5 May 2010
Semmens, John. “Ending Welfare, Not Immigration, Will Eliminate Dependence.”
Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press. 31 Aug. 2006. Web. 5 May 2010
Rector, Robert E. “Employment Verification Will Deter Illegal Immigration.” Opposing
Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press. 7 Oct. 2008. Web. 5 May 2010
Professor Folayan
English 100
5 May, 2010
Immigration: Is It Good? The United States catalogues one birth every seven seconds and one death every thirteen seconds, as reported in the latest national population appraisals. Furthermore, net international migration allegedly adds one person every thirty-one seconds. The end result is a total population increase of one person every eleven seconds. In one year’s time, this adds up to approximately 2.8 million people. About sixty percent of that population increase is caused by the birth to death ratio. The remaining forty percent is caused by immigration (Peng). One hundred thirty-nine years following the country’s official establishment, the population of the United States reached 100 million. Fifty-two years after that, in 1967, it reached 200 million. It was a mere thirty-nine years later, in October of 2006, that the population hit its 300 million mark. This makes the U.S. the world’s third most populous country, China and India being the first and second respectively (Peng).
More than 10 million illegal immigrants live in the United States, and 1,400 more arrive every day (Katel). This makes immigration laws a common topic for argument. According to public opinion polls, roughly two-thirds of Americans …show more content…
now believe the United States is being overrun and overburdened by the recent waves of newcomers (Griffin). Immigration, when left unsupervised, can be detrimental to economic health. This is why more and more Americans blame illegal immigration to be a primary culprit of America’s current state of depression.
Cheap labor is one of the obvious uses of illegal aliens. Foreigners unauthorized to work in the United States can be found in restaurant kitchens, garment factories, tomato fields, parking garages, and taxicabs. They may be pushing brooms or performing a host of other menial tasks whose common features are long hours and low pay (Griffin). Another common job an illegal immigrant might have is working as a day laborer outside of places like Home Depot. Employers are required to check the documentation of workers to prove their legal right to employment, but counterfeit documentation has increasingly rendered this program impractical. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, does not have the facilities to enforce this law, and some say, lawmakers do not really want them enforced (Myers). This should not be surprising. For example, an employer from a gardening company would not pay minimum wage for an American citizen to do his labor when he could easily hire an illegal immigrant who would do the job for a much cheaper rate. Greed is the root of all evil. Companies like this are only seeking to maximize their personal profit. They are not looking at how their actions affect the economy as a whole. Citizens of the U.S. should not have to compete with an illegal immigrant to get a job, and citizen employment must be better protected. The state of Arizona is currently in the process of trying to protect citizens’ employment rights. The new bill, SB 1070, requires all immigrants in Arizona to carry their alien registration documents at all times. Police have the ability to question anyone they reasonably suspect to be in the United States illegally. The bill also requires citizens employing day laborers to only hire those who can produce said documents (Judd).
Immigration also affects Welfare. During recessions in the past, American employees were laid off with the tacit assurance they would be hired again as soon as the demand for goods and services increased. Back then, unemployment benefits were typically sufficient enough to appease workers until they went back to work and their previous living standards were restored. Today, unemployment benefits are typically used to aid workers in finding and training in completely different vocations; all together, this is a process that generally lasts longer than the benefits themselves (Exporting Jobs). Terminated employees are frequently forced to take jobs that pay at much lower wages because those higher paying jobs are being taken by people entering the U.S. from other countries.
In most debates regarding immigration, the topic of overpopulation emerges. Two hundred years ago, a cleric in England named Thomas Robert Malthus compiled a work that would permanently alter the established idea people had of their standing on Planet Earth. Malthus noted that, like various other animal species, humans are more than capable of reproducing faster than their environment can provide sufficient resources to support. As a result, Malthus hypothesized, humans would eventually exhaust the environment’s supply of resources, and possibly become extinct (Population and the Environment). “Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature,” Malthus wrote. “The power of population is so superior to the power in the Earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must, in some shape or other, visit the human race.”
Some demographers, environmentalists, and political intellectuals believe the image of the U.S. as an immigrant nation is sorely outdated. Back when thousands of people were needed to claim the new land, advance the frontier westward, and operate the expanding industrial foundation, immigration was clearly favorable. Most of them agree that now, deforestation, pollution, and overflowing landfills are merely a few of the indications of U.S. overpopulation (Immigration Reform).
Perhaps immigration is not so bad for the U.S. economy. Consider this: there are two main groups of people who want to enter the U.S. and become employed. Group one scrutinizes the rules carefully. When they arrive here, they pay their taxes, sometimes in quite large amounts. By law, they are only here because there are no Americans available to do the work they are doing, and that work is so valuable that it helps U.S. companies create more jobs for Americans - an average of three to five jobs for every one of these workers. What is the government’s official stance toward them? It meticulously restricts the amount it admits into the country and very effectively keeps out any beyond the legal limit. Group two is the exact opposite. Many of them break the rules, not only in entering the U.S., but by using forged documents once they are here. Many of them also evade taxes, and some of them, by working illegally at submarket wages, take jobs from U.S. citizens who do follow the rules. What is the U.S. government’s stance toward these workers? Officially it does not allow them into the country, but in practice it lets hundreds of thousands enter every year (Colvin).
The workers in group one do high skilled jobs while the workers in group two do low skilled jobs, and while it seems as though group one is desirable and group two is not, they are actually both quite similar. The U.S. labor force has always had shortages at the very top and the very bottom because most Americans are trained and suited for a job somewhere in the middle. Foreigners help to fill some of those gaps at the extremes. The result is group one and group two, both of which are necessary. The reason group one looks good and group two looks bad is that by the nature of their work, companies are able to thwart market demand and keep group one out, but not group two. For example, Intel or Microsoft would not hire a highly skilled computer engineer who has illegally crossed the border. That could jeopardize the company. However, an American farmer may employ a Mexican farm worker without even asking how he arrived here. By this token, the government can more easily stop foreigners from falling into group one while group two is far more difficult to control. Yet, as previously stated, both groups are absolutely necessary for a thriving economy (Colvin).
Some political intellectuals might agree that, while critics are correct to claim that current immigration policies burden the welfare system, the solution to the problem is not to ban immigrants from entering the country, but rather to more properly administer the welfare system.
In the past, immigrants have contributed to the wealth and culture of the United States, and the government should adopt open immigration policies so that this trend may continue to enrich the nation. Besides, immigrants who run the gauntlet of fences, guards, and environmental hardships to illegally enter the United States would seem to be more unlikely to seek out welfare benefits. An illegal immigrant arriving in America is more likely to avoid contact with government authorities than to try to cheat the system. The bureaucracy normally requires those applying for welfare to show a birth certificate, visa, or passport to sign up for food stamps or cash assistance. Illegal immigrants would need to steal or forge such documents if they are to beat the system. Rather than go to the trouble of trying to defraud the welfare system, illegal immigrants are more likely to proceed directly to vacant, entry-level, low-paying jobs. Working illegal immigrants are not a burden to the economy. They provide useful services and pay taxes to help support the government (Semmens). Immigration reform has many facets.
It must protect national security, uphold the rule of law, strengthen citizenship, and benefit the American economy. The overall effect must be to reduce illegal immigration into the United States. Although border security generally receives more attention, serious enforcement of current laws prohibiting the employment of illegal immigrants is also an important tool in an overall strategy to reduce illegal immigration. The majority of people who illegally enter the U.S. or unlawfully overstay temporary visas do so for purposes of employment. Employment of such individuals has been illegal since 1986, although that law has never been seriously
enforced. Since employment is the magnet that draws illegal immigrants into the U.S., it only makes sense that the best way to reduce illegal immigration is to shrink the employment magnet. To accomplish this without resorting to the method of systematically rounding up and deporting thousands of illegal workers only to have them return and obtain other readily available jobs, policy should focus on the businesses that hire illegal immigrants and let general employment rules rather than individual arrests drive the reduction of illegal immigration. Furthermore, the policy should empower honest employers by freeing them from the burden of competing with dishonest businesses that deliberately hire illegal workers. This means that it must discourage dishonest employers who willfully employ unverified and unlawful workers by imposing substantial penalties on the employers when such hiring occurs. Immigration is a primary cause of overpopulation, terrorism, lack of jobs, and lack of Welfare. People must understand this and take action to prevent any further immigration into the United States. The U.S. is approaching a state where people will have very little room to move. Automobile traffic is becoming more and more unpleasant. The number of American citizens who get involved in car accidents involving illegal immigrants is gradually increasing. There was a time where immigration was truly essential for this country. That is just simply not the case anymore.
Works Cited
Colvin, Geoffrey. “On Immigration Policy, We’ve Got It Backward.” Fortune.
Academic Search Premier. 5 Sept. 2005. Web. 5 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Exporting Jobs.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 20 Feb. 2004: CQ
Researcher Online. Web. 3 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Immigration Reform.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 24 Sept. 1993:
CQ Researcher Online. Web. 4 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Population and The Environment.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 17
Jul. 1998: CQ Researcher Online. Web. 4 May 2010
Griffin, Rodman D. “Illegal Immigration.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 24 Apr. 1992:
CQ Researcher Online. Web. 3 May 2010
Judd, Amy. “Arizona Immigration Bill SB 1070: What does it mean?” Nowpublic.com
NowPublic News Network. 23 Apr. 2010. Web. 4 May 2010
Katel, Peter. “Illegal Immigration.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 6 May 2005: CQ
Researcher Online. Web. 2 May 2010
Myers, Amanda Lee. “Arizona Law Could Drive Day Laborers Out.” Msnbc.com.
Associated Press, 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 2 May 2010
Peng, Nie. “U.S. Population Hits 300 Million.” Chinaview.cn. Xinhua News Agency, 17
Oct. 2006. Web. 2 May 2010
Rector, Robert E. “Employment Verification Will Deter Illegal Immigration.” Opposing
Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press. 7 Oct. 2008. Web. 5 May 2010
Semmens, John. “Ending Welfare, Not Immigration, Will Eliminate Dependence.”
Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press. 31 Aug. 2006. Web. 5 May 2010
Works Cited
Peng, Nie. “U.S. Population Hits 300 Million.” Chinaview.cn. Xinhua News Agency, 17
Oct. 2006. Web. 2 May 2010
Myers, Amanda Lee. “Arizona Law Could Drive Day Laborers Out.” Msnbc.com.
Associated Press, 28 Apr. 2010. Web. 2 May 2010
Katel, Peter. “Illegal Immigration.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 6 May 2005: CQ
Researcher Online. Web. 2 May 2010
Griffin, Rodman D. “Illegal Immigration.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 24 Apr. 1992:
CQ Researcher Online. Web. 3 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Exporting Jobs.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 20 Feb. 2004: CQ
Researcher Online. Web. 3 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Population and The Environment.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 17
Jul. 1998: CQ Researcher Online. Web. 4 May 2010
Cooper, Mary H. “Immigration Reform.” The CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 24 Sept. 1993:
CQ Researcher Online. Web. 4 May 2010
Judd, Amy. “Arizona Immigration Bill SB 1070: What does it mean?” Nowpublic.com
NowPublic News Network. 23 Apr. 2010. Web. 4 May 2010
Colvin, Geoffrey. “On Immigration Policy, We’ve Got It Backward.” Fortune.
Academic Search Premier. 5 Sept. 2005. Web. 5 May 2010
Semmens, John. “Ending Welfare, Not Immigration, Will Eliminate Dependence.”
Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press. 31 Aug. 2006. Web. 5 May 2010
Rector, Robert E. “Employment Verification Will Deter Illegal Immigration.” Opposing
Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press. 7 Oct. 2008. Web. 5 May 2010