Immigration Effects in the US, Research Paper Example

Immigration is a topic of concern in the United States.  For one, there has been an increase in a rise in the number of immigrants to the United States.  In fact, as of 2007, there was a total of 1.25 million people per year immigrating to the United States.  This population count was estimated to make up 40% of the total population growth per year.  The major concern with the effect of illegal immigration in the United States is the number of undocumented, illegal immigrants arriving from Mexico and Central America.  Research has indicated that these immigrants have low education and little to no English skills.  Although there are immigrants entering from other countries, such as India and China, with skills and education, the negative effects of the lower skilled immigrants are affecting the overall economy in the United States.  (Card 1)  The resulting effects are unhappy Americans, who are concerned about what the law is going to do about illegal immigration in the United States.  Political answers to this problem have been answers such as provided by Ali Noorani, “The longer this economic doldrum continues, the more likely you are to see some real pushback on immigration levels as such, not just illegal immigration,” (Jost).  The current paper discusses the effect of immigration on the economy of the United States.

Here is some background information on immigration from Hanson: 

Illegal immigration has increase from five to twelve million in ten years.  This increase has brought concern over border control.   In fact, the United States Congress began to enforce the United States-Mexico border in order to decrease the amount of illegal immigrants.  In addition, more efforts were supposed to occur in the future.  It was also indicated that legal immigration is good for the country, but only illegal immigration has negative effects.  Overall, Congress consensus suggested that the United States decrease the number of illegal immigrants through either converting them to legal residents or stopping them at the border.  The consequence of illegal immigrants has been a concern on the economy, such as jobs.  Illegal immigrants take jobs at a lower under the table job and thereby taking jobs from citizens in need. Although there are economic consequences, there is also a consequence of national security as well.  It is said that the continuing increasing levels of illegal immigrants from Mexico also increases the United States to international terrorism, although there has been no links to terrorisms and illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Based on the information provided, the increase in immigration has therefore lead to questions about immigration policies in the United States on whether or not legal immigration would be better than illegal immigration.  Can reforms on legal immigration solve the problem or does illegal immigration still have a better outcome than legally entering immigrants. Overall, the biggest effect seems to be the effect on job market and economy.  The increase in immigration is particularly of concern in the city areas, as this is where most of the immigrants end up and live.  As seen in Table 1., population surveys from different cities are illustrated.  The average number of immigrants living in the different cities are almost two times that of the United States in other non-city places.  In addition, Table 1 shows the number of minorities in each city and also shows the generation status.  The number of minorities is greater in the cities and the generation status shows that the minorities are from immigration.

The overall analysis of illegal to legal immigration is controversial and has no evidence.  It has been said that illegal immigration is helping the job market and economy.  However, a second effect of Illegal immigrants is coming to the United States and taking the low level paying jobs that are in need and that the Americans can’t afford to take.  It is also said that illegal immigration happens more when the United States is in a good standing of economy.  Legal immigration, on the other hand mostly occurs on specific selection criteria with administrative delays and depends on the number of people trying to come to the United States and the United States job market conditions.  (Hanson 5)  However, some disagree, in an article written in 2013 by the Federation of American Immigration Reform, illegal aliens are coming to America and taking jobs that offer them a good opportunity at the expense of U.S. workers.  The U.S. employers are hiring them at low wages then they would have had to pay a U.S. worker.  The hiring of the illegal immigrants is illegal in itself, but some of the employers are hiring the workers underground or allowing fake documents, because there is no law requiring documents to be verified.   The debate is that the illegal aliens are coming in and taking the jobs that are unwanted by the U.S citizens.  The Federation of American Immigration Reform disagrees with this.  They think that this is a false statement because the illegal immigrants are taking jobs that United States citizens also have, such as construction, agriculture, service, etc.   Also, the increase in illegal workers in the United States, particularly in the crop occupations has shown that there are people that will accept extremely low wages due to their illegal status.  This then makes employment in that job department not much attractive to United States citizens.  Also, the more that illegal aliens take these jobs, the less the U.S. citizens are going to take the job.  Therefore, the Federation of American Immigration Reform believes that by enforcing immigration laws against employment to illegal immigrants can help employers to be forced to increase wages and working environment back to the level that will want U.S. citizens to work, as well as increase legal foreign immigrant workers. (Federation of American Immigration Reform)

The Federation of American Immigration Reform has also conducted research in order to find out how many jobs are taken by Illegal Aliens.  The amount of jobs taken was estimated on the illegal immigrant population estimation.  The estimation was calculated at 8 million out of an overall population of 11.2 million illegal immigrants.  As seen in Table 2, the number of jobs taken by illegal immigrants is broken down by state.

A third effect of illegal immigration is national security.  “At the heart of any Nation’s immigration policy is the imperative to know who lives and works within its national border.” — Quadrennial Homeland Security Review 2010. The problem with illegal immigrants is that an Identification card or driver’s license is the legal status in the United States, as well as the social security number. However, many of these are stolen and used to obtain jobs and are not checked. This aids in the migration of illegal immigrants into the county. Also, the 9/11 attack in the United States was committed by terrorists. In this case, U.S. identification was used for the boarding of the flights. It was found that 19 of the terrorists on Sept 11, 2001 had 63 state driver’s licenses to use as identification.  Also, it was found that other people in connection with the terrorist act were detained specifically for immigration violations.  (Federation for American Immigration Reform b)

Although there is debate of the negative effects of illegal immigrations, other research shows that it can positively affect the economy.  The rationalization for this is that immigrants do not impact the wages of native-born workers, as native-born workers and immigrants complement each other rather than compete for the same employment. This is due to the fact that they have different types of skills and are looking for different jobs. It is also suggested that immigrants improve the economy of the current undocumented immigrants, as they help them reach their highest economic potential, which effects all American citizen workers. In addition, research has found that immigration creates jobs through the start of their own business. In a survey conducted in 2011, Current Population Survey, 7.5% of the foreign born residents were self-employed.  An estimation from this survey showed that from this population 600-850,00 of new legal immigrants would be self-employed and thereby, creating  jobs.  (Kugler and Oakford)

Overall, immigration of both legal and illegal immigrants has effects on the economy of the United States.  The debate on whether the effects are positive or negative is of a hot topic and currently argued politically. Activists for illegal immigration feel that our economy is helped; whereas, other political entities feel that the impact is negative. Further research is necessary. One major effect that should be consider and should outweigh the argument between these groups is national security issues. The United States should be aware of who is residing in their country and employers should undergo document verficiation in order to have the individuals correct identification.  Since 9/11, these issues should be scruntinized and should be the determining factor for immigration issues.

Works Cited

Hanson, G.  “The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration”.  CSR No. 26. Council on Foreign Relations.  (2007)

Card, D.  “How Immigration Affects U.S. Cities.” Cream Discussion Paper.  (2007). UC

Berkely.  http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/immig-affect-us.pdf

Federation of American Immigration Reform. “Illegal Aliens Taking U.S. Jobs” (2013). Web: http://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-aliens-taking-u-s-jobs

Federation of American Immigration (b). “Identity and Immigration Status of 9/11 Terrorists (2011).” http://www.fairus.org/issue/identity-and-immigration-status-of-9-11-terrorists

Jost, K.  “Immigration Conflict”.  CQ Researcher. (2012).  22(10):

Kugler, A. and Oakford, P.  “Immigration Helps American Workers’ Wages and Job Opportunities”.  Center for American Progress. (2013).  Wed: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2013/08/29/73203/immigration-helps-american-workers-wages-and-job-opportunities/