The Impact Of Immigration On The United States

The United States is a country that was built on immigration. The first settlers, Native Americans, represent less than 2% of the total population; the remaining 98% of the population are immigrants or decedents of immigrants. Today, the US still has the highest immigration rate in the world with 757,434 naturalizations in the 2012 fiscal year only (US Naturalizations 2012, Department of Homeland security). People try to immigrate to the United States for many reasons. Some people immigrate because they have been granted a refugee status or asylum and other people immigrate to fulfill their dreams. Immigration has an effect on the American society and economy. The US cannot survive without immigrants.

The border between the United States and Mexico consists of 1,952 miles of land border that divides a “first” world and “third” world nation. Any border is an environment of opportunity. People flock to borders around the world to exploit the regions’ resources and people. There are always plenty of people at the borders of nations to build large factories, or to traffic narcotics and weapons into neighboring nations.

The issue of illegal immigration is one of the hotly debated topics in almost every facet of society, especially among political leaders. This topic has also received huge media attention and reaction in the recent past including an article written by William Finnegan and published by The New Yorker. The article focuses on addressing the issue of borderlines and is based on the move by 17 Congress members, who wrote a letter on 28th April 2010 demanding an instant action from President Obama to enhance border security. While the increase in illegal immigration has declined in the recent past, there is still a great need to enhance border security, particularly in the as violence in the neighborhood of U.S. Mexico has continued to escalate at an alarming rate. Therefore, evaluating the need to improve border security to lessening illegal immigration is vital for enhancing the country's security and understanding its impacts on America's economy and labor force.

Although the issue with illegal immigration is prominent, the solution is not as clear. Some say the annual quota of 20,000 Mexicans should be raised (Anderson 65). This does not help the fact that there is a 5-9 year wait for over 1 million immigrants to enter the country legally (Anderson 57). "Most illegals are of working age and looking for jobs" (Anderson 57). They don't want to wait years to get a job. Otherwise, there would not be near as many people crossing the border every year. Some people call for a border fence in order to lower the number of illegals (Marcovitz 27). In 2006, Congress began a $2.5 billion project to fence nearly 700 miles of the Mexican border (Marcovitz 27). Many are still pushing for the entire border to be fenced off (Marcovitz 27). Currently, only about one third of the border has been fenced, and over 1,000 miles still remain open (Marcovitz 28). The fence is patrolled by border officers. In 1992 there were about 3,500 border patrol officers. In 2010 that number had grown to over 20,000 (Marcovitz

“In 2014, 5.8 million unauthorized immigrants from Mexico lived in the U.S.,” according to Pew Research Center (Krogstad). Regulating the number of illegal immigrants from entering the United States has become an increasingly significant issue for the federal government’s agenda after, the number of unauthorized immigrants reached a peak in 2007 at 12.2 million, when this group made up 4% of the U.S. population (Krogstad). An abundance of proposed solutions have been offered to limit the steadily increasing number of illegal immigrants from reaching American soil, such as: mandating E-verify, a system that determines whether or a not a person is eligible to work in the United states, strengthening border security, and fortifying interior enforcement measures in the United States (Illegal Immigration and Border Security). Another major plan sources from President Donald Trump, who hopes to build a wall spanning between the United States and Mexico. This idea has ignited numerous opposing arguments that have picked out its irrationalities, and display how Donald Trump’s proposal to erect a wall generates more complications than benefits.

Immigration has fueled the American society from the beginning of its creation. Without immigrants, there would be no America. From ones searching for religious freedom to others seeking economic prosperity, America would not be the successful country it is today without its foreign-born masses. This country has thrived on its people’s diverse contributions, and it has stimulated our economy greatly. It is the place, no matter who one is, to thrive in the acceptance of one another’s differences. Unfortunately, there are others that oppose the very thing that has made America what it is today. Despite certain disapproval, the impact immigration has on America is remarkably beneficial to the economy; this is evident when analyzing its positive effects on gross domestic product (GDP), wages and employment, and other economic contributions, which in turn has stimulated colossal economic growth for America.

Immigration policy is in the news again as Congress and President Obama wrestling with how best to deal with a rising tide of undocumented immigrants, particularly, children from Central American countries like El Salvador. Salvadoran immigration to the United States has been fairly recent, intensifying in the late 80’s and continuing today unabated. The movement has a profound significance for both countries. Salvadorans help make up the backbone of America by taking low paying jobs few others show interest in taking. They work long hours and send money back to family members in El Salvador. This cash flow is vital to sustaining the Salvadoran economy, and preserving peace in an area plagued by violence--- a goal long sought by policy makers in America beginning in the 1980s.

The impact of immigration is a highly controversial topic that gets touched on with the media outlets frequently. With the development of newfound criticism and the rise of popular slogans such as “Immigrants take Jobs,” immigration has become an increasingly prominent economic topic that contains multiple viewpoints and requires discussion. Many economics have noted that alterations in immigration impact a variety of economic policies that make it virtually impossible to make conclusive models on both it’s short-term and long-term effects. Yet, there seems to be agreement that rapid changes such as the ones occurring in our country right now may lead to a decline in economic growth. Therefore, as proposals of reducing legal immigration increase, it has become necessary to view immigration as a serious fiscal issue, that although on the surface may seem to solve a plethora of problems, really doesn’t.

The number of immigrants entering the United States legally is greater today than it was at the turn of the century, so as the US economy. US economy has proved to be raised dramatically in the past few years. This made me think about Immigration and the US economy on a same page in my mind. Many questions started populating in my head such as Does immigration in some way affect the US economy? If yes, how? After doing some research, I found that Immigration plays an important role in the US economy. I’ll start with my own background, how this question is connected to me and what other people think about immigration. Next, I’ll talk about my research findings and the unexpected answers I got to my question. Are those answers same as people’s view. As a final point, I’ll talk about what I learned in the process of researching the impact of immigration on the US economy before concluding my essay.

As our economy continues to grow, as does the world that we live in. With this more and more people are continuing to travel and immigrate across borders. With over 175 million people accounting for 3% of the world’s population (Kerr, Kerr 2011) living permanently overseas, the landscape of global business and economics is continuing to grow. This shift in demographic can leads to many changes and adjustments for countries, some of which can reap benefits others may cause financial harm. Major impacts of immigration can be observed in several forms of a countries economic system such as employment opportunities for both immigrated workers as well as current citizens along with unemployment rates, wages, profit margins, the ability of local and international business’ to grow and the overall GDP of the specific country. For this paper specifically the developed country that will be analysed will be Australia. Considered to be one of the worlds “major immigration nations” (together with New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America) (Phillips, Simon-Davies 2016) Australia is fast becoming a go-to country for those looking for a fresh start. Entering through either the “Migration Program” or “Humanitarian Program” depending on the specific level of expertise Australia is quick to start the process of entering these immigrants to the workforce. With a high percentage of Australians that have been born overseas (7.2 million) Australia needs to prepare and plan

On April 18, 1930, a young family of eighteen boarded a ship leaving their homeland of Chiette Abruzzi, Italy. Headed for a nation they had only heard about in the newspapers, each member of the family bore their own excitement and reservation. The history of immigration to the United States of America was seen at unprecedented numbers during the late eighteen hundreds and early twentieth century. Families from Italy, Ireland, Germany, Poland, and numerous other nations flocked to the west by the millions, in hopes of discovering a new life. Many sought freedom from religious persecution, unfair living standards, or a simple chance at the “American dream.” My grandmother, now 91 years old, was born an Italian citizen, but has lived the last 86 years as an American. She is an immigrant in every sense of the word, and this is her story.

With the rise of foreign people permanently settling in America, the immigration policy has affected all aspects of society in terms of growth and development of economy, societal issues, and national security. As the immigration policy is a broad topic among senators, it needs to be prioritize for it to be better understood. In doing so will improve the immigration policy and grasp the significance of its impact in America.

Immigration is one of the hot topics in today’s society: legal and illegal. According to, Philip E. Wolgin, in his article, “Immigration Polling Roundup: Americans of All Political Stripes Want Congress to Pass Immigration Reform”, there are 11.7 million unauthorized immigrants living in America today. From 1990 – 2007, immigration increased from 3.5 million to 12.2 million. Since 2007, immigration has decreased and fluctuated from 12.2 million illegal immigrants to 11.7 million illegal immigrants. In the article, “Splitting the Difference on Illegal Immigration”, Peter Skerry states that, included in the eleven million illegal immigrants, there are more than one million children under the age of eighteen. He also said that the illegal immigrants make up roughly four percent of our nation’s population, five percent of the work force, and twenty-eight percent of the foreign born residents.There are a lot of negative connotations that most people connect with illegal immigration. Some people will say that illegal immigrants take away from the economy by using government services and not paying any taxes, but they also tend to say that a lot of illegal immigrants will take the lower paying jobs that most Americans do not want. These two reasons are both negative and positive effects of legal and illegal immigration. Likewise, when people think about immigration they usually think about just the Mexicans that come over from Mexico, since Mexico is just right next door, but

Immigration has been a topic of discussion since the beginning of time. The question to let immigrants in or not to. Even till this day President Obama is still facing the immigration problems and whether to reform it or not. That should not be the problems since our country was started with Immigrants. The only people who were here were the Native Americans. So is it fair to say that we should not keep America doors open? Is this the land of the free and opportunities? Immigrants should not be kept out. They have contributed to America economy more than we know it. Immigrants came over to have a better life for their family. Immigrants are an important part of our international competitiveness, especially in technology-intensive and service industries. Furthermore, immigrants help to provide business leadership in developing new products and industries. Immigrants also play an important role in the economy by filling niches where the domestic supply of workers is limited.

One of the biggest issues facing the United States is the issue of illegal immigration. Recently, this topic has been heavily discussed in the presidential debates thanks to candidate Donald Trump, but exactly what is illegal immigration and how is it effecting us as citizens of the US? There are many aspects to this issue ranging from an economic standpoint to a moral standpoint so it is hard to say exactly what can be done about this issue especially for how sensitive of a topic this is. Illegal immigration has been affecting the United States for quite some time now but it seems like not much has been done about it until now. Although it is big issue, illegal immigration will not get any better unless some effort is made to try and lessen the effects of it. What is illegal immigration and what can be done to solve this issue that is being debated so much now? There’s a lot to talk about on this issue but let’s try to factor in some different perspectives to better understand this issue.