NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Many immigrants come to the United States because it is known as the land of opportunities, but in the last decade many political analysts are saying that there are no more opportunities left for the citizens already living here. Immigrants come here for job opportunities and to start a new life and career. The question though is that, by allowing the number of new immigrants to influx are we end up sacrificing the people that are struggling to find those opportunities. The number of new immigrants entering in the United States has tripled since the early 1900 s. While the numbers are increasing, the problem of employment and wages is also increasing. This paper will prove that decreasing the number of entering immigrants is needed.
Although, there are some advantages in the increase of new immigrants entering the United States, there should be laws to decrease the number. Futher more, this paper will prove that a decrease will have a positive effect on wages and employment in the United States. I will first show how the high number of immigrants effect employment and the connection it has to the problem with wages. Then I will site evidence to support that there has been a high influx of immigrants and that it has had a lasting effect on wages and employment in the United States. Finally, the paper will show that there needs to be changes in the current immigration laws, so that there can be a decrease.
Although, this paper will not address every problem that immigration has, it will touch on several of them. The number of immigrants in the United States has reached a record high in the last decade. In 1993 (the last year for which figures are available), over 800, 000 legal immigrants were admitted to the United States and an estimated 300, 000 illegal aliens settled here, more or less permanently. Over the last decade, as many as ten million legal and illegal immigrants established permanent residence number higher than at any period I our history, including the peak immigration decade of 1900 - 10 (Chavez, What). This increase has had a long lasting effect on employment and wages, especially within the low-income households. The findings of the NRC study also suggest that some groups are more adversely affected by immigrant competition than others (Camarota, The).
Many critics have blamed many of the low employment rates to the high increase of immigrants because most of the low to moderate skilled jobs have been taken by non-citizens. For example, because blacks in the work force are 33 percent more likely to lack a high-school degree than whites, a much higher proportion of them are hurt by immigration (Camarota, The). The decrease of immigrants increases the number of available employment in the United States. There is even competition between blue-collar workers. Employers apparently have preference to hire immigrants over African American workers. This is due to the fact that networked hiring employing immigrants is more convenient.
Employers have little incentive to seek out black applicants for job openings when their immigrant employees are happy to provide their bosses with job applications from the immigrants numerous friends and relatives (Matloff, How) There are advantages to decreasing the number of immigrants in the United States. Regardless, new immigrants in the United States have a lasting effect on the workforce. The small communities are not equipped to welcome this large a number. It is especially difficult to find employment for those who speak only Chinese, who have very little education, or have never acquired a skill to compete in this new market. Its very depressing to see so many people come to America with hope of finding a job. The current yearly rates of immigration are higher than the immigrant communities themselves can stand.
Those who support immigration are least concerned about this point. Since immigrants tend to cluster in urban areas that contain large numbers of blacks, the larger population is hurt in particular. In regions with high immigration levels, low-skilled jobs in hotels, restaurants, airports, and so on used to be held by African Americans, and now are held by foreign immigrants (Matloff, How). Typical of objections to an immigration increase was an American Engineering statement which objected to any increase in any labor-related visas on the grounds that such an increase will increase the harm endured by American scientist and engineers (Bruner, Congress). The increase of new immigrants has mostly effected the low-income class. The National Research Council reviewed the literature in the field concerning the effect on the wages and job opportunities available to natives by immigration.
The study showed that the negative effect of immigrants primarily takes the form of wage losses for workers who lack a high school degree. Natives who lack a high school degree are adversely affected by immigration because such a large percent of recent immigrants lack a high school education, which is about 40 percent. Considering this skill category the proportion of immigrants is large enough, it is excepted that 25 percent will exert a significant downward pressure on wages. The NRC study estimated that immigration was responsible for 44 percent of the decline in wages that high school dropouts experienced from 1980 to 1994 Some research, indicate that the wage effects of immigration on workers with fewer years of education are larger than those reported in the NRC study. (Camarota, Does). For example, there has been a decline in manufacturing due to immigration in New York and Chicago. Although manufacturing jobs that require no special education still exist.
It is just that immigrants, not blacks, get them. Better educated blacks can get good jobs, often in the public sector, but the less educated are left out in the cold (Glazer, Help). Studies on this issue show that some groups have conflicting affects by immigration competition. IEEE President John R. Reinert said free-market mechanisms work more efficiently to correct labor imbalances than increased immigration (acting) as a quick fix for growing workforce demand (Bruner, Congress). The Immigration and Nationality Act has become more complex over the years to understand because it doesnt take a stand on any of the sided issues.
Many groups have become frustrated with the many benefits that legal and illegal immigrants can receive under the law. A good example of the increase frustration among citizens is in the state of California, where laws are allowing legal and illegal immigrants to receive several benefits, including prenatal care as the following quote from What to do about Immigration, written by Linda Chavez: The anger toward illegal immigrants had grown steadily among Californians in recent years, fueled both by the huge number of illegal aliens living in the state nearly two million, or about half of the countrys entire illegal population and by the states lingering economic recession. And the resentment had deepened as the apparent costs of providing benefits to illegal aliens rose; for the fiscal year 1994 - 95, that figure is estimated to stand at $ 2. 35 billion. California moreover, had gone far beyond what was required by federal law in granting benefits to illegal aliens, including in-state tuition in the Cal-State University system and free prenatal care. These issues should be taken into consideration when making new immigration laws, especially in justifying a decrease.
Immigration is not unchecked, as many observers say. Each year we take in about 800, 000 legal immigrants and between 200, 000 and 300, 000 illegals, while about 150, 000 people emigrate. That is a net gain of about a million immigrants per year, which is like one couple entertaining ballroom with 500 people in it. The rate is about one-quarter what it was in the early part of this century. The unraveled must also reexamine their charge of balkan ization when blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, Jews, and Gentiles are intermarrying at rates never seen before. How is it that no one talks about the melting pot when it is melting record speed (Wattenberg, The National)?
As writer Norman Matloff writes in How immigration harms minorities: Not enough jobs, even among those who claim that positive economic effects flow from immigration, or who downplay the negative effects, there is a general consensus that earlier-arriving immigrants are hurried by the addition of later-arriving immigrants. George Borjas of Harvard University, for instance, has found that a 10 percent increase in immigration populations reduces immigrant wages by 10 percent increase (a staggering statistic, in view of the fact that the 1990 Immigration a increased yearly immigration quotas by 40 percent). One major factor that poor English skills force immigrants who had been professionals their native lands to seek low-skilled jobs in immigrant communities. This swells the number of workers seeking jobs, which depresses wages.
While economic theory would suggest that immigration would slow as wages fall, other forces are apparently at work: would be immigrants often do not know of such wage trends; they may regard even weakened employment opportunities here as superior to those back home; and the may believe that opportunities are better here for their children. The complex econometric models that statisticians use to understand such trends are helpful; they are, however, no substitute for direct observation. For example, Po Wong, director of the Chinese Newcomers Service Center in San Francisco, told National Public Radio that, of 11, 000 new arrivals who tried to find work through his agency, only 2 percent were successfully placed. More recently, he told journalist Sanford Ungar. Immigration has recently become a lightning rod for Americas deepest fears of social chaos and national decline. Millions worry that immigration is rapidly transforming America into a third-country with crowded, violent cities, under-educated and low-skilled labor, an ethnic spoils system replacing Americas tradition of constitutionalism and individual rights.
Concerns are rising that immigrants are abusing the generosity of our welfare state, and will result in the balkan ization of our country into different language and ethnic group ultimately leading to the sort of social tensions afflicting countries from Canada to Ukraine to, in the worst case, Bosnia (Un, Immigration). The result is that thirty years after passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments for 1965 it has become very difficult, once one moves beyond realm of scapegoating, to distinguish between the opponents of immigration whose arguments deserve to be heard and those whose objections are rooted in nativism. The former often proven cover for the latter (Lifeboat). In conclusion, I would like to say is that the United States can only do so much, we have helped out numerous countries with war. The United States has always been the peacemaker between different countries. United States citizens have helped the poor through adoption and donation.
Unfortunately, the United States is not large enough of a country to have these immigrants live here. In result, the United States citizens are the ones who have to pay by losing their jobs to these immigrants. It is hard enough for the lower class to compete with the upper class, but when you also have to worry about foreign immigrants who arent even citizens of this country taking your job, that is what really scares the people. For example, I myself am not a citizen of the United States. I came here to obtain an education, and that is all I came to obtain. My goal is to finish my education and return back to my country where I belong.
I am dedicated to my country, because my country needs me, if all of us abandon our countries, than what will our future hold for us? I must further say that with all these reason combined, it clearly shows that the influx of immigration at this rate needs to be controlled. Works Cited Bruner, Richard W. Congress Moves to Allow more Foreign Engineers. Electronic News (New York, NY 1991).
V 44. 1998. Jan 1999. Camarota, Steven A. Does Immigration Harm the Poor? The Public Interest. v Fall 1998.
Jan 28, 1999. Chavez, Linda. What to do About Immigration. Commentary. V 99 (Mar 95). 1995. pp. 29 - 35.
Jan 27, 1999. Glazer, Nathan. Help Wanted. The New Republic. v 215. (Dec 16, 1996), 1996.
pp. 29... Jan. 27, 1999. Matloff, Norman. How Immigration Harms Minorities. The Public Interest. V (Summer, 1996)...
Jan. 27, 1998. McLaughlin, Alain. Lifeboat Ethics and Immigration Fears. Impact Visuals. Jan 27, 1999.
Mills, Nicolaus. Lifeboat Ethics and Immigration Fears. Dissent. V 43 (Winter 96) 1996 pp. 37 - 44... Jan 27, 1999. Parks, Elizabeth.
Is America Really Low on High-Tech Workers? Machine Design. V 70, 1998... Jan 28, 1999. Stafford, Tim. Here Comes the World.
Christianity Today. V 39. (may 15, 1995), 1995, pp 18 - 25... January 27, 1999. Un, Ron K. Immigration or the Welfare State: Which is our Real Enemy?
Policy Review. V (Fall, 1994)... January 27, 1999. Wattenberg, Ben J. The National Prospect. Commentary.
V 100 (Nov. 95), 1995. Pp. 110 - 11... January 27, 1999. 31 e
Free research essays on topics related to: illegal aliens, lasting effect, legal and illegal immigrants, united states citizens, lifeboat ethics
Research essay sample on United States Citizens Legal And Illegal Immigrants
