Immigration Affects all Americans
Heather Long
Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College
Summer 2015
Immigration Affects all Americans With an election year just a year away, the topic of immigration and how it affects us as a nation will be one of the more controversial and hotly debated subjects. The United States deficit has reached 18 trillion dollars, this has made many question the financial implications of President Obamas executive order on immigration. Social programs are paid for by federal, state, and local governments and policy makers and the public want to know how these programs will be affected by his executive order. Those that defend the order state that the nation only stands to gain on tax revenue that had
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These taxes were not to discourage immigration, they were set in place to help defer some of the costs the federal government had to pay for immigration officials (Alchin, 2015). It wasn’t until 1996 that President Clinton signed a welfare reform bill that excluded legal immigrants from social programs such as food stamps, welfare payments, and Supplemental Security Income (Creekmore, 2004). If legal immigrants do not qualify for social programs, what are the issues and debated costs of immigration and of President Obamas executive order?
President Obamas’ Executive Order
Due to the lack of Congress passing new immigration reform policies, President Obama took the controversial step and signed an executive order to alter the current immigration policy to provide a pathway for undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status and to increase boarder security along with other features. President Obama did not want to pass the executive order, he would have preferred that Congress had acted on their own. When President Obama addressed Congress he stated "To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better," he said, "or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill." (Facts on File, 2015, Para 11) Congress failed to act, President
Despite the years of Republican obstructionism in Congress, as well as a breathtaking lack of respect from his political opponent, President Obama reformed the healthcare and immigration system. President Obama signed the ACA into law in March 2010 and promoted a broad immigration reform. Although it did not become law, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, (DREAM Act) set the stage for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. “Immigration and Executive Action” article writes:
Throughout history more often than not, many men have committed controversial acts affecting the United States greatly while holding the mantle of President. Every job has its perks and being the commander and chief of the free world comes with one known as Executive powers. With Obama using this to introduce his new Immigration policy plan he has stirred up far more conflict than any of his predecessors ever did. Well, except for Nixon of course but that’s a different story.
President Obama’s executive action was met with mixed reactions across the nation when it was proposed. There were many who felt that granting deferred action to illegal immigrants would only put a greater strain on the economy, the healthcare system, and the job market while others felt it would allow those living in the shadows an opportunity to come forward, and stop living in fear of deportation.
On November 20, 2014, President Obama signaled a significant turn in U.S. immigration policy. Acknowledging Congress's failure to adopt a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's "broken immigration system," the President announced measures to "help make our immigration system fairer and more just." (1) The centerpiece of the announcement was a program allowing certain illegal immigrants with children who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents "to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of
With elections coming up, the candidates are trying to enhance their personalities to reach Americans. Politicians need to calculate what they would say thus the American people reflect on their beliefs. Therefore politicians are willing to say what they experience Americans desire to hear. Nevertheless, certain ideas these politicians say possibly will not able to happen since it all has to pass on through the Congress. The utmost of Americans reflect that the President has a great amount power for the reason that he stands as the person that represents us, nonetheless in reality he doesn’t. Even if the President takes out an executive order, it still has to survive through congress. An executive order must proceed through both chamber houses,
The immigration reform by our president will turn undocumented workers into American tax paying citizens. Another aspect of the economic immigration challenge is that Congress has been unable to balance a budget and continues to raise the debt ceiling. The national debt is a huge setback for congressional budgeting. The hottest topic among the
In 1986 Ronald Regan signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act, an amnesty act that would alleviate the current immigration problems. Through this law, out of five million illegal immigrants, an estimated four million could have applied to become legal U.S. Citizens. This law was supposed to put a definite stop to illegal immigration into the United States. However, ever since the law was enacted, statistics show that the numbers of illegal immigrants in the United States have ascended from an estimated 5 million in 1986, to about 11 million today. Therefore because of these rising numbers, immigration has been one of the most popular topics in U.S. elections and debates. So on November 20th 2014, President Obama announced to the nation the executive actions that he 's planning to take to fix our nation 's broken immigration system.
The reforming of America?s immigration policy is something that can no longer be avoided and must be dealt with as soon as possible. Years of neglect by governmental agencies and policies makers have now made this issue one of the biggest in American politics. First of it must be understood that immigration does no only effect curtain areas of the country and curtain aspect of public life but rather all of American life. Both legal and illegal immigration affect major issues such as jobs availability for all citizens, wages, education in public schools system and in general, health care issues, and the homeland security.
“Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than 26.3 billion dollars in costs on the federal government…and paid only 16 billion dollars in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost 10.4 billion dollars, or two thousand seven hundred dollars per illegal household” (Miller 1). Some people would argue that immigrants come to America to take jobs that no one else will do, but the illegal immigrants are in fact draining social services and stealing free health care benefits. In addition, immigrants pay little or no taxes to benefit the social services and health care providers that they drain. By doing so, the American tax payers must take on the high price of the American
He also said that he was going to use his power of executive orders to reform immigration. If Congress does not make the laws then there are no laws to execute. This executive order may help more than five million “undocumented” immigrates residing in the United States along with countless, “Dreamers” (immigrates brought to the U.S. as children). Mr. Obama believes that the system cannot get much worse and see his executive order as a way to reform. The President reminded the other two branches of the government that Congress is to pass laws while the judiciary has to translate those laws using the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Obama does not intent to change laws concerning immigration but he does plan to use those laws to support undocumented persons and children. The President said, “We didn’t raise the Statue of Liberty with her back to the world; we did it with her light shining as a beacon to the world.” He put Congress and the Courts on notice that he would use his power for reform. The United States supported an immigration bill that mapped out a way for millions of illegal’s a way to become citizens. Most of the
Throughout the years there has been and increasing number of illegal immigrants in this country. Just recently Obama took executive action to shield illegal immigrants from deportation. A Texas Judge though blocked his executive action on immigration. Illegal immigration is a huge controversy here in the United States partly due to Americans thinking that illegal immigrates are taking jobs, causing lower wages, and the costs of education. In Immigration and the American Worker, George Borjas found that the presence of immigrant workers, whether they are legal or illegal, made the U.S economy about 11 percent larger each year. If overall the U.S economy is better off with illegal immigrant workers, then why is there a push for harsher immigration policies? The controversy is due to the fact that the impact of illegal immigration changes from state to state. I hypothesize that the problem is the distribution of illegal immigrants across the United States. I believe that the benefits outweigh the costs and that because of the distribution of illegal immigrants, the costs are only felt by a few. By granting amnesty to the undocumented workers we could increase the level of tax payers and better the lives of those who feel the costs of illegal immigrants the most. I will test this hypothesis out by looking at the impact illegal immigrant on the labor market, the cost of illegal immigration, cost of ant-immigrant policies, impact of legalization, and impact of amnesty.
Lastly, Obama’s final aspiration is to break our old fashioned system and bring it to the 21st century. The president’s opinion about visa card laws was that they are “outdated” and “make no sense,” (Fox News, The Associated Press, foxnews.com). He hopes to join family members with those who have come to earn a living already and to avoid the prolonged wait of future immigrants. Having to wait years before being able to send one’s family to America is absurd to the President and surely to a majority of others (CNN Political Unit, CNN.com).
Another negative impact is on expenditures by the government. This is because illegal immigrants do not pay taxes but their children go to public schools and they use other services. So many people perceive them as a strain on government spending. If you averaged all the negative and positive effects over the whole economy, the effect is a small positive, according to George Borjas a Harvard professor, the average American’s wealth will increase by less than 1% because of illegal immigration. In February 2011, article the “Federation for American Immigration Reform”
In today's world, the president of the United States holds the most important position with significant political power in other parts of the world. The president's job description expands further than the United States; he or she holds significant influence in the world. Furthermore, the position allows the president to shape foreign policy, which can affect global decisions such as immigration. For many decades, immigrants from around the world have come to help build America. For example, statistics show how working immigrants have increased the GDP as a result of their employment in the states. Nevertheless, immigrants have not always been welcomed to the country for several reasons such controversy has caused divide among Americans. Those who support banning immigrants cite social and economic drawbacks to the nation. While those who are in favor of immigration applaud their contribution to the nation's economy. Although immigration has some disadvantages, the United States benefits significantly from immigration and it needs control to foster these benefits.
One of the most controversial issues in politics today is that of illegal immigration. “Immigration has been a constant source of economic vitality and demographic dynamism throughout our nation’s history.” (CAP Immigration Team, 2014) There are thousands of immigrants that arrive in the United States each year. Over the years, illegal immigration has been growing despite policies made to prevent this growth. In my opinion, immigration will continue to be a social issue that is fiercely debated during the 2016 Presidential elections in the United States. There are people who support immigration while others are against it. Many arguments about this debate involve how the economy is affected. We will discuss the many implications from immigration, both positive and negative.