Free Custom «The Issue of the Current Overflow of Immigration in the USA» Essay Paper

From the very beginning America was a country of immigrants. That is why there are so many issues of illegal migration in the modern United States. On the one hand, migrants have formed this country, so stop of immigration would mean undermining one of the fundamental principles of organization of life in the United States. On the other hand, illegal immigrants impact a lot of spheres, which naturally causes indignation of many American citizens. The problem is compounded by the fact that since the beginning of the last quarter of the XX century the number of both legal and illegal migrants has increased significantly. The USA cannot cope with the amount of people that come into the country, so the current overflow of immigration should be decreased in order to control their integration into the society.

To research the question and confirm or refute the thesis, the impact of immigration on population increase, labor force, education, political sphere, government's action etc. should be investigated.

 

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The Issue of Immigration and Action of the Government

Firstly, state and government actions in this area should be considered. If in the early 1990s the number of illegal immigrants in the United States reached 4 million, it rose to 11.7 million in 2013. The Obama administration has announced a draft of the US immigration policy reform. Under this project, all illegal immigrants will be able to be legalized in the course of a long procedure, and the new cash infusion into the system of border control must stop the flow of migrants (Borjas 2). However, despite the record number of deportees in 2013 (400 thousand people) and increased money investment of 18 billion dollars in Border Service, the number of illegal immigrants has not reduced.

The peculiarity of the current stage of the migration is the predominance of Hispanics. According to various estimates, they account from 1/2 to 4/5 of the total number of illegal immigrants. This aspect has two important consequences. Firstly, the ongoing pretensions of supporters of tougher immigration policies meet the answer of the Mexican Americans that it used to be their territory. Second, there is a strong legal politically active Hispanic community in the United States. Its voice is becoming increasingly important due to the fact that the activity among the white Americans in the elections is falling.

In the last US presidential election Barack Obama was supported by 70% of the citizens of Hispanic origin, because he had promised to hold a humanistic reform of the immigration policy (Dream Act) (Caplan 14). Traditionally the Democrats are more liberal to migration that brings them votes of recently legalized immigrants. Under these conditions, the Republicans are trying to get at least some of the votes of the Latin Americans. Marco Rubio, the US Senator from Florida, born in a family of Cuban immigrants, led a group of eight senators who developed a reform plan. According to it, workers can either leave the country after 10 years to try to get a green card, or to stay in America and pay penalty duty, all taxes and try to get a work permit. It is necessary to simplify not the procedure for obtaining citizenship but ways of hiring seasonal workers (in agriculture, for example, the number of the Mexican Americans accounted for 80% of the total number of employees) (Camarota 4).

Actions to limit immigration can be called relatively ineffective due to several factors: the actual transparency of borders, the relative weakness of immigration and other law enforcement agencies, the limited rigid constitutional framework, high level of income of American population and political guarantees provided by US law. This contributes to the fact that the number of people wishing to immigrate to the United States is growing and poses new challenges to the country. The US must continually work on integrating immigrants into the society while maintaining a high level of development of the state and people's lives. Such an effective performance is a complex and lengthy process. Actions of President and the parties are directed at controlling the number of immigrants. Thus, basing on the researched information about the work of the authorities aimed at restricting the flow of immigrants it is worth saying that they cannot cope with it completely. Therefore, it can be concluded that it is necessary to reduce the amount of immigrants to the level enabling the authorities to control it.

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Population Increase and Immigration

The United States, as a country founded by immigrants, depends on the process of immigration. One of the main benefits of migration, population growth, helps the United States maintain the position of one of the most populated countries in the world. This automatically increases the amount of labor. Most developed countries have a problem of negative population growth. Such a situation can be very a serious obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of social development such as ensuring full employment, economic growth and social cohesion. Thus, the sufficient number of population due to immigration solves this problem, which is the advantage of immigration.

However there is a disadvantage, which can overweight all the advantages. Immigrants represent different countries, nationalities, religions and mentalities. Right-wing opposition perceives immigration, especially from Mexico and Latin America, as a threat to the existing ethnic, racial, religious, and linguistic structure and unity of the American society (Citrin and Sides 35). The majority of immigrants from Latin America retain their linguistic identity and ethnic-territorial form clusters. It is no coincidence that many Border States legislative proposals contain demands to tighten the country`s immigration policy and officially declare English the official language.

A lot of experts predict the transition of the American society from the traditional model of "melting pot" to "salad bowl" or "mosaic". The idea is that the society can be broken up into quite separate ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic communities and become "multicultural". According to the National Research Council of the United States, 60% of immigrants, who came to the country during the 1980s, speak English well. A recent survey of 2,500 Latino Americans showed that 90% of them consider it necessary to adapt to the American culture as quickly as possible. However, it is more important for the same 90% to maintain linkages with their national culture. Thus, they do not speak English, continue to live within their community and can perform only low-skilled jobs.

Thus, the negative impact of immigration on the social structure of the population has a very profound consequence. It is the integration of immigrants into the society. Appearance of a large, uncontrolled number of foreigners has posed a threat to the unity of the American society. Creation of their own groups by immigrants according to linguistic and ethnic features is perceived negatively by the population (Borjas 13).

Immigration and Labor Force of the Country

Immigration plays a very important role of a stimulant of economic activity, increasing the number of labor resources. GDP, produced by immigrants, is estimated at more than $ 1.5 trillion USD. The total income of only illegal immigrants is about 350 billion dollars.

Decline of the number of the population is very dangerous for the current rate of development, production volume, scale agriculture and service sectors. A large number of immigrants automatically represent the volume of the country's workforce. Part of them is skilled and highly qualified. Also, immigrants bring dynamism in the economic development of the country, as they fill undesirable jobs which the local population is not willing to take. The influx of low-skilled and low-paid labor force provides filling of jobs unattractive to the Americans, and reduction of production costs and prices, particularly in construction, agriculture and services.

However, the assessment of the economic impact of immigration remains controversial. At the same time, immigration has a serious impact on the labor market, financial, educational, health and social services system of American states. In addition, immigration increases pressure on the socio-economic institutions and the educational system, especially in the same Border States. For a long time the most drastic measure in this regard was the 187th proposal, put forward by an initiative group of voters and put to on a referendum ballot in California during the 1994elections. The proposal, supported by 59% of the voters, was intended to limit the flow of illegal immigrants to the most populated states of the United States, 24.1% of which at the time were born abroad. (It is estimated that illegal immigrants account for 48% of California's population, which puts an enormous burden on all social and community service staff) (Camarota 15). It provided the forfeiture right to illegal immigrants and their children to use public funds in the areas of education, health and social security. This measure was immediately declared unconstitutional, and its implementation was blocked by the judiciary. However, the appearance of such a proposal is a signal of the severity of the problem of immigration in the American society.

An important issue today is labor immigration, both legal and illegal. Willingness of immigrants to work for little money and without social security leads to inhibition of the growth of wages. Entrepreneurs are interested in the inflow of immigrants, however, many Americans strongly oppose labor immigration and to support measures aimed at limiting it. Workers, coming from abroad, reduce the number of jobs and increase unemployment among the indigenous population. As a result of the overflow of immigrants real wages of unskilled workers reduce. In cities and neighborhoods districts inhabited by foreign workers are forming. Due to the low level of income, unstable social status, these multi-ethnic regions often become areas of ethnic conflicts, high crime, etc. Immigrants are also competitors to small business - an important pillar of political conservatism in the United States. Linguistic factors have particular importance in this regard. After all, they develop their small businesses in their regions, which are constantly increasing scale by increasing population.

Thus, immigration has many negative consequences for the US labor market. The process of active migration to the United States has a negative impact on economic relations in the society, lowering wages and increasing unemployment among the population. Moreover, immigrants put pressure on the socio-economic institutions.

The Impact of Immigration on Education

Many immigrants impact the field of education. Extensive training of foreign students in US colleges and universities helps to choose the best employees for the US and stimulate the formation of pro-American groups, which can be carriers of new political culture and ideology of those, who subsequently return to their home countries (Hanson 10). The influx of highly skilled professionals eases the burden on American educational system. The last aspect of immigration is particularly important, because it provides an extension of American political, economic and cultural influence on the countries of emigration. Starting from the post-war period, there were several waves of intellectual migration: from Western Europe and Japan, then from South Korea, Taiwan and other countries of Asia and Latin America, –and then from China and Eastern Europe. Thus, it provided a continuous replenishment of the American intellectual elite. Today, foreign students and employees compose more than half of the academic staff in the field of natural sciences (Hanson 4).

On the other hand, the increasing number of foreigners, who get scholarship and grant programs, that otherwise would be got by US students, makes the situation in the society tense. It becomes difficult for the Americans to enter university due to the increased level of competition. Also, foreigners use quotas, which give them an advantage. Moreover, immigrant students except the chosen specialty and English, also speak their native language, making them more competitive in regard to the continuation of research activities and employment (Citrin and Sides 42).

Thus, despite the appearance of a positive inflow of intellectual potential, immigration increases competition. It becomes harder for the Americans to enter university. In the long term it will lead to competition in research activities and employment. Such trends could reduce the level of education among the Americans.

Political Sphere and Immigration

The last area is the political impact of immigration. The main aspect of it is the electoral process. As already noted, opposition to immigration can be explained by the fact that it helps to change the ethnic structure of the population. Thus, the Hispanic population has surpassed the African Americans and became the largest minority in the United States. These changes are very important for American political system, as they may lead to change in voting results, redistribution of social wealth between different population groups and reorientation of the foreign policy. The rapid growth of the Hispanic population threats other minorities, who fear the reduction of their share, distributed by the state of public goods (Caplan 7).

Thus, an increase of immigrants affects the electoral process. As immigrants have a greater impact on electoral victory of a party, it leads to lobbying for their relevant issues. Parties are increasingly including issues of large minorities in their election program that leads to the neglect of the issues of the indigenous populations. 

Conclusion

The number of immigrants coming to the US increases annually. Public authorities are trying to tighten the mechanism of legalization in the country and making efforts to prevent illegal immigration. However the number of both legal and non-legal immigrants continues to increase. At the same time the American experience in recent years points to the possibility and perhaps the need to find new forms of the immigration policy. In addition, illegal immigration could not be stopped in a democratic way, especially in an environment where a relatively prosperous country is bordered by a much poorer and labor-surplus countries. On the one hand, immigration has significant positive effects such as increased population, the influx of fully trained workers, filling of low-paid jobs etc. On the other hand, the US experience shows, first of all, that it becomes more difficult to integrate large numbers of immigrants without jeopardizing the foundations of a democratic government. Immigrant may form closed national groups, which may lead to the restructuring of the society from a melting pot to mosaic. An increasing number of foreigners lead to ethnic, linguistic and religious contradictions in the society, threatening its safety. Moreover, the economic benefits of immigrant labor are neutralized by an increase in job competition, inhibition of wages growth and pressure on social and economic institutions. Moreover, migrants start to have a significant impact on the electoral process in the country. Thus, the US government should decrease the number of immigrants, in order to control their integration into the society, which confirms the thesis.