Alex Sorrell

Immigration
Immigration in the U.S. is something that has been around pretty much
forever in U.S. history. Our country was founded upon immigrants, and has
been considered a safe and welcoming place with many opportunities. Many
people feel as though immigration may decrease their pay or make it harder
to find jobs but that simply isnt the case and there have been studies after
studies to prove that immigration in the U.S. is beneficial. One of the biggest
ways they are beneficial is that they play a large role in helping our economy.
They are able to benefit taxpayers, and they make our country a more
culturally diverse place.
Lets start with who exactly the immigrants are. There are two main groups
of people who choose to migrate to the U.S. The first group are highly
educated people. They are 4-5 more times likely to migrate to the U.S. than
people with no college education and when those people come from poorer
countries, they are 10-12 times more likely to migrate. These are individuals
who are well educated in science, mathematics, technology, and
engineering. Highly educated immigrants account for about a third of the
population.
The second group of immigrants are young individuals, between the ages of
20-40 years old, but with little education. These immigrants typically work in
highly manual-intensive occupations. Many of these people are
undocumented workers due to the fact that there are few legal ways for

immigrants with little education to enter the U.S. There is also a smaller
group of immigrants with little schooling. People with little education
generally work as construction and farm workers, roofers, drivers, food
services, housekeepers, and caregivers. Most of the times they work in these
jobs due to lack of knowledge of the language. From the chart below, you can
see that there arent many who come with little education and the majority

are the main categories I was talking about.

Now to get on the more economic side of things, immigrants highly help our
economy. Because there are more workers, firms tend to invest, which
means that they expand productive capacity and can build more
establishments. The productive capacity per worker has grown the U.S.
economy at a constant rate. Capitol per worker was higher when
immigration was at its peak in 2007, than it was before the immigration
boom began. Investments have been responsive to the inflow of workers.
Because of this, immigrants didnt crowd out existing firms over the long run,
instead they increased the size and number of firms providing more
investment opportunities.
Firms that hire immigrants generate high demand for jobs requiring
coordination, communication, and interaction. These jobs are usually staffed
by natives because they have superior language skills. However, because
natives have the required skills, it upgrades their jobs to better pay and
protects their wages with competition against immigrants. Immigrants push
a re-organization of production along specialization lines that may increase
effectiveness and efficiency in labor. According to a study done at
Dartmouth University by Ethan Lewis, It shows that markets with many
immigrants, firms adopt techniques that are efficient in the use of less
educated manual intensive workers, meaning theyre able to absorb large
numbers of less educated manual workers without loss in productivity and
wages.

Another benefit of immigrants is that a large majority of them work in home

services in occupations such as gardening, housekeeping, and child and
elderly care. Because of the increased presence of immigrant in home
services, it makes it very affordable. It is beneficial to both parties by
providing work for the immigrant and the native women is able to increase
her work hours in the workplace. A study done by Patricia Cortez at Boston
University, shows that the inflow of less educated immigrants reduced the
cost of household services by almost 10 percent over the period 1980-2000.
Native women were able to increase their work week by about a half hour
due to less expensive home services.
Even though there is backed up evidence that shows immigration is a helpful
thing, many people are still against it. They fear that immigrants will take
away job opportunities or that they dont pay taxes. However, immigration
actually results in more jobs. There are a few ways they do this. One, is that
they buy American products which helps create jobs. Two, is that they are
more likely to start their own business, also creating more jobs. Immigrants
are twice as likely to start their own business than Americans and they are
also more likely to hire employees than native born citizens. States with
large numbers of immigrants have lower unemployment rates. Many people
argue that immigrants skimp out on paying taxes which makes a lot of
people very upset. That however isnt true. Mutually, immigrants pay
between 90 and 140 billion each year in taxes and studies have found that
undocumented immigrants paid more than 11.8 billion in taxes in 2012 and

more than half of all undocumented immigrant households file income tax
returns.
It is important to let immigrants in. It creates a place that is culturally
diverse which is important. If we were only a country of white Americans, itd
be very likely to experience culture shock when traveling to different places.
It gives us a better understanding of life when we interact and find out more
about different cultures. We can all learn from each other and by learning
about different cultures it helps us understand different perspectives in the
world that we live in, and it can help dispel negative stereotypes or personal
biases about different groups. In America, we have races from all over the
globe. It is important to not shut out anyone due to their race, rather
welcome them and let them become productive members of our society.

Here is a chart to show diversity in America.

Works Cited
Peri, Giovanni. The Economic Benefits of Immigration Berkley Review of
Latin America
Studies, Fall, 2013. <http://clas.berkeley.edu/research/immigration-economicbenefits-immigration>.

Myths and Facts about Immigrants and Immigration.

<http://www.adl.org/civil-rights/immigration/c/immigration-myths-andfacts.html?referrer=https://www.google.com/#.WEh8gdUrIdU>.
Value Added: Immigrants Create Jobs and Businesses, Boost Wages of NativeBorn Workers. January 1, 2012.
</americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/value-added-immigrants-createjobs-and-businesses-boost-wages-native-born-workers>.
Costa, Daniel. Shierholz, Heidi. August 12, 2014. Economic Policy Institute.
<http://www.epi.org/publication/immigration-facts>.