Illegal Immigration

Essay by teh~sabrina January 2008

download word file, 2 pages 3.5 1 reviews

Downloaded 53 times

Immigration is the main reason for U.S. population growth. During the past five years, more immigrants came to the United States than ever before in our history - nearly 8 million. It is significantly affecting the ethnic make-up of the population. Some of the advantages of immigration are: a greater supply of both skilled and unskilled workers, the workforce is younger, which makes the economy stronger. Preference immigrants often get important jobs, for example, 20% of U.S. doctors are foreign born. Critics of immigration policy note that this is because the supply of native doctors is kept artificially low and that these doctors are probably even more essential to their native countries. Immigrants are filling many jobs that Americans are not taking. With a greater supply of labor, more goods and services are produced. This leads to lower prices and an increase in the purchasing power of existing American wages.

The disadvantages of immigration are: They are taking up a lot of the funding for education; there is also an increased danger of terrorism. There is a greater amount of poverty because most immigrants tend not to have health insurance and need more public assistance. It is very hard for some Americans to communicate with immigrants. Because of the language barrier it makes this a huge disadvantage. Because immigrants generate an overall increase in wage levels, they negatively impact wages in the low skill occupation sectors that they occupy.

The proposed immigration amnesty would benefit the 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. An amnesty for immigrants forgives their acts of illegal immigration and forgives other illegal acts such as driving and working with false documents. The result of an amnesty is that large numbers of foreigners who illegally gained entry into the United States are rewarded with legal status for breaking immigration laws. The United States has granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants through different amnesty and laws.

I think immigration is both a negative and positive thing. To a certain point it is helping fill our economy and helping us grow; but on the other hand they are also bringing our economy down. I think we should try to help some immigrants but only to a certain degree. I understand that their economy is not as good as ours, so I wouldn’t like to live there and can also understand why they feel United States has more to offer them in educational and employment services. However, I also want to keep our economy stable. I do believe that illegal immigrants should be sent back and that the United States government is working with immigrants fairly.