Immigrants in America
By Sharon Xu
ENG 1430
Immigration has played an important role in America History. Is it true that immigrants take jobs from Americans and cause the US economy to go downhill? Do immigrants really harm America? The answer is “No”. One-fourth of Americans are immigrants. They are our neighbors, co-workers, family and friends. They are consumers and small business owners providing needed employment and economic development in our cities. Immigrants are not taking jobs but they accept low pay jobs to provide for their families. Immigrants improve Americans’ life and also improve their own lives.
Contrary to popular belief, immigrants do not take away jobs from American workers. Instead, they create new jobs by forming new businesses, spending their income on American goods and services, paying taxes and raising the productivity of US business. Immigrants are good for the economy, not the other way around. Experts note that the immigrants are blamed for unemployment because Americans can see the jobs immigrants filled but not the jobs they created (www.aclu.org). Recent studies have shown that immigrants are more likely to be self-employed and start new businesses. Eighteen percent of small businesses were started by immigrants and account for up to 80 percent of the new jobs available in the United States each year (Bureau of Justice Statistics). From the Daily Record, one man said: “The American does not want to take out trash or paint windows. They pay an American $15 per hour for those jobs and they pay an immigrant $8 per hour” (Daily Record).
A second major argument is that America is being overwhelmed by immigrants. Americans believe that all of these non-native Americans are illegal in the USA. In truth, the number of illegal immigrants living in The United States is larger than ever before, but these numbers are a relatively small percentage of the population. More importantly, the percentage of immigrants in the total population has decreased (Bureau of Justice Statistics). As of 1990, foreign-born people made up only 8 percent of the population, as compared with about 15% from 1870 to 1920. As for the illegal immigrants, they do not have the privilege to work nor to vote and no one speaks for them.
In addition, immigrants contribute a lot to American society. They take jobs that no one else wants and yet somebody’s got to do it. They are working as farm laborers, construction workers, cleaning pools and nannies. It’s not where most of the income is. This is not where most of the jobs are. Immigrants pay more than $90 billion in taxes every year and receive only $5 billion in welfare. Without their contributions to the public treasury, “the economy would suffer enormous losses” said The Bureau Office. Compared to the native-born population, immigrants are more likely to be employed, save more of their earnings, and are more likely to start new businesses. Immigrants collectively earn $240 billion a year. That includes $85 billion that goes into the public funds, not to mention the money they spend in our economy. Last but not least, many immigrants and their children are serving in the US military. They try to forget their own religion and own country and fight for America.
Our economy is growing everyday. Without the help of our immigrants, we probably won’t grow this fast. Many immigrants bring their knowledge and skills to American companies. America needs world trade with other countries. Companies choose these non-native English speakers to communicate with their country and do business with them. You can see how the American economy is growing just by going to a supermarket such as Wal-Mart. In that store, we can find almost everything from different kinds of country like China, Korea, India etc. Also immigrants respect the law as much as the native born. They are less likely than natives to be confined to a state prison. They know the law and obey them (Bureau of Justice statistics).
In conclusion, immigrants should have their rights in America. The native-born Americans should treat immigrants as their friends, co-workers and neighbors. Immigrants create more job opportunities; reinforce social service funds through tax payments, and bring valuable technical knowledge and skills to our country. Therefore we should treat them like everyone else.