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Immigration Problem In America

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Since its founding, America has been a land of opportunity for immigrants from across the globe. Our country grew and prospered because we welcomed large numbers of immigrants, who helped grow local economies, shared cultural traditions, and helped define the American traditions. According to the American Immigration Council, “immigration to the United States is based upon the following principles: the reunification of families, admitting immigrants with skills that are valuable to the U.S. economy, protecting refugees, and promoting diversity”. (American Immigration Council). One of the many current immigration problems, I would say, is the ending of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousand of immigrants. It will eventually create a devastating labor shortage. How? According to the research done by the University of Kansas, it is estimated that 23 percent (out of 436,866) of male TPS holders work in construction. (Menjivar, 2017). By telling these workers they must leave the country, about 100,000 American construction jobs are threatened and our construction industry will be hard hit, despite that it is already in the …show more content…

According to Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the TPS holders from El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti contribute a combined $4.5 billion in pre-tax wages or salary income annually to our nation’s gross domestic product. (Baran, 2017). Total Social Security and Medicare contributions of those individuals are estimated at more than $6.9 billion over a decade. (Baran, 2017). The possible economic solutions would be to extend this program or to offer those immigrants a path to permanent residency. The thing is that most immigrants will try to stay in the United States regardless of their legal status and this could lead to different outcomes. By allowing such immigrants to stay in the U. S. will continue to bring $4.5 billion in pre-tax wages or salary income annually to the U.S.

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