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It's Time for Immigration Reform Essay

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It's Time for Immigration Reform

News article after news article on immigration characterizes anyone who

opposes the current level of immigration as anti-immigrant. This is

biased and deceitful. It's like saying that anyone who doesn't want 10

or 12 children is anti-children. The truth is that many people are

pro-immigration but recognize that the present level of immigration is

unsustainable and will eventually be detrimental to Americans and

immigrants alike.

One often-used irrelevant argument is that we are a nation of

immigrants. While true, it does not shed light on the question of how

many immigrants should be admitted annually and what should be the

criteria for admission. To …show more content…

Given the present

immigration trends, which will account for 70 to 80 percent of the

population growth in the next century, it is only a matter of time

before the population of the U.S. surpasses that of India and China.

Why would any nation want to implement such a disastrous policy?

The answer is that few Americans, especially politicians, look past the

next couple of years. It is sometimes suggested that if we find we are

overpopulated we can then cut back on immigration. But even if we

halted all immigration today, it would take at least 50 years before

U.S. population would level out. The reason is, of course, the

fertility rate of immigrants is far higher than that of native-born

Americans. It takes two to three generations before the rate drops to

about the national American average,

The argument that without immigration there will be nobody to do the

jobs that immigrants do is the same logic that was used to justify

slavery: "Without slaves, who will pick the cotton?" The answer, as any

economist knows, is that in a market economy wage rates will always

adjust to the level necessary to attract sufficient labor or stimulate

innovation to mechanize the jobs.

The persons most hurt by excessive immigration are low-skilled

Americans

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