Immigration into the United States

Cons: All Immigration into the US Must be stopped 

Immigration constitutes the hallmark of political discussion in the United States, with legislators weighing security, humanitarian, and economic concerns. For the longest time, the United States of America has been perceived as a place of opportunity, a land where migrants can realize prosperity and economic stability. The United States’ open approach to the subject of immigration has helped expand the economic opportunities and increase its labor force amidst the aging baby boomer generation. Immigration has also enriched the American culture and enhanced the United States' global reputation of innovation and technology. Moreover, immigration into the United States has contributed in building a more dynamic state while ensuring shared prosperity for natives as well as immigrants (Luu, 2017).  This paper debates against the motion that all immigration into the United States must be stopped highlighting the contribution of immigrants to the states’ prosperity. 

Immigrants contribute to the expansion and diversification of the United States' economy 

One way to look at the economic contribution of immigrants is their entrepreneurial culture. Immigrants own more than one in every five small enterprises and are twenty times more likely to hold such enterprises compared to their native counterparts. Generally, small enterprises comprise about seventy percent of employer firms in the states, thus helping in the creation and empowerment of local economies ( Simon, Ungar, & Moore, 2016).  Over fifty percent of small businesses such as grocery stores, dry cleaners, gas stations, nail salons, and restaurants are owned by immigrants ( Simon et al., 2016) . Thus, immigrants go beyond direct economic influence to representing and defining the lives of local communities. 

The United States' senate passes legislation to support immigration reforms that allowed citizenship for immigrants, especially the undocumented ones. A report detailing taxation of such individuals, estimate costs of the bill, and economic implication revealed that the policy would decrease deficits in the federal budget by one trillion US dollars within twenty years. The legislation would also increase the country's GDP by 5.4 percent in two decades and increase wages for workers within ten years ( Lee, 2017) . Similarly, the legislation would substantially enhance security at the border and assist in addressing current administrative challenges. 

Another economic angle is the aging population warning by economists and demographers. The most substantial proportion of the United States' population is the aging baby-boomer, which presents a grievous challenge to the states' economy as it results in a high ratio of seniors depending on the working-age population. This results in an increase in the age dependency ratio. Most medical care and social security benefits schemes are paid based on pay-as-you-go, meaning that a fraction of taxes paid by current works is paid to retirees. The high dependency ratio increases the financial burden of the working population. An easy way to clutch the seriousness of this problem is raising the fertility and birth rates among women between fifteen and forty-four years to replace the aging population. Immigrants boost the birth rate in the United States, which has dropped significantly among the native population. Low birth rates lead to the decreased labor force, a slowing economy, and a decrease in demand in industries such as housing. ( Simon et al., 2016) . However, these effects can be counteracted by encouraging immigration into the United States. 

Besides, just like native-born persons working and living in the United States, foreign-born individuals are taxpayers too. Collectively, immigrants contribute up to 11.74 billion US dollars to local and state reserves annually ( Lee, 2017) . The taxes comprise a combination of personal income, sales tax, excise, and property tax as prescribed by the United States' economic policy, the institute of local and state tax contributions by immigrants. It is estimated that eleven million immigrants in the states remit eight percent of their incomes to local and state taxes each year. With increased immigration, foreign-born contribution to fees would increase by 2.2 billion increasing their tax rate to 8.6 percent ( Lee, 2017) . Therefore, the states must formulate comprehensive immigration reform to encourage immigrants into the United States owing to their immense contribution to the economy. 

Furthermore, increases in foreign-born individuals in the country will improve the status and stability of the social security fund. It is estimated that for every one hundred thousand increase in immigrants, the long-term actuarial equilibrium of the trust fund improves by nearly 0.8 percent of taxable payroll (Luu, 2017) . U ndocumented persons in the United States in the year 2010 were reported to contribute 13 billion US dollars into the security fund accounts and only received 1 billion US dollars in return. Foreign-born individuals have added nearly 300 billion US dollars to the trust fund without which; the social security trust fund may not pay benefits in full beyond 2037 (Luu, 2017) . Consequently, increased immigration will also help in improving the actuarial balance for medical care over several decades. 

Immigrants enhance the labor force of the US 

Immigrants immensely contribute to American industries through their active participation in the labor force. Foreign-born persons hold occupations that are central to the United States’ economy and communities. Case in point, immigrant workers without professional qualifications, comprise a reasonable share of employees in specific industries. Such firms would have it rough if such immigrants can no longer reside in the country. Immigrants without a four-year college degree form thirty-six percent of workers in fishing, forestry, farming, cleaning, maintenance works, and building sectors ( Akcigit, Grigsby & Nicholas, 2017) . As indicated by Akcigit et al., (2017) twenty-seven percent and twenty-one percent of workers in hotels and home health care, respectively, are immigrants . By and large, immigrants fill gaps in the United States economy by taking up these jobs. 

Luu (2017) reported that it would be tough to replace the economic contribution of immigrants in the states. Hundred-thousands of foreign-born individuals work legitimately in the United States under several categories of non-immigrant papers. In the year 2017, the United States approved close to one hundred and eighty visas for highly skilled immigrant workers and another two hundred and eighty for immigrant workers working temporarily in agricultural and other sectors. 

Similarly, the aging baby boomer population coupled with low birth rates renders immigrants very essential in improving the ratio of working-age people to retirees and supporting the aging population in their retirement years. According to Reitz (2018) , the growth of current and future workforce, which is currently less than one percent per annum, is by historical standards very slow. The situation can be offset by immigrants in the United States as well as their US-born generations. The offset is particularly necessary given the fiscal problems presented by the retirement of the aging baby boomer population. 

Moreover, the Census Bureau estimates that by the year 2035, only 2.4 working individuals will be there for every individual aged sixty-five and above in the United States. The ratio will be the lowest by historical records and a drop from 4.7 working adults in the year 2016. The rate of working individuals to retirees and children combined is projected to drop and remain at 1.3 by the year 2030, although in 2060 from 1.6 in the year 2016. Immigrants add to the number of young adults joining the workforce, the more reason why the government should not stop immigration into the United States ( Simon et al., 2016) . Seventy-eight percent of immigrants into the United States is of working relative to only fifty-nine percent of the native-born. In the absence of immigrants, there would be very few adults in the working age, and they would only comprise even a smaller fraction of the entire population. What is more, foreign-born young first-generation have higher chances of having full-time employment compared to their native-born peers ( Simon et al., 2016) . 

Also, the majority of immigrants move to the United States during their reproductive and prime working years. With more baby boomer retirees, the immigrants work as their home nurses, doctors, and health caregivers. The immigrants also take the lion's share when it comes to filling the gaps left behind in the workforce by the retirees. According to Akcigit et al., (2017), immigrants and their United States born descendants will account for virtually the entire growth in the country's working-age population in the decade ahead. Indeed, without immigrants and their state born generations, the working population would drop by nearly seven million. 

Indeed, immigrant workers should be fully incorporated into the United States' economic prosperity. Research on implications of eliminating foreign-born workers from the workforce reported that such an acct would instantly reduce the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 1.4 percent and eventually 2.6% causing a cumulative loss of five trillion US dollars in ten years. All industries would suffer significantly, forcing some to opt for eighteen percent or more reduction of the workforce. Ultimately industries would suffer financial losses of billions of dollars each year ( Lee, 2017) . This outlines the need to welcome immigrants into the United States, given the implication of any policy that can stop such movements. 

Immigrants contribute to culture and social diversification 

Immigrants also build the prosperity of the United States by expanding the culture of natives through shared social interactions. For President Trump, the fundamental approach as regards immigrants has always been the primitive distress of violence, based on his warnings about the possible overflow of Mexican rapists and exertions to limit the ability of Muslims to move to the United States. His fears have also been featured in the executive order dubbed the VOICE- which was mandated to make public all crimes committed by foreign-born individuals. 

However, Trump's efforts to discredit immigrants have been disputed by several studies that report immigrants as better-behaved persons relative to their native-born peers ( Payan, 2016) . As a matter of fact, the immigration trajectory is that second-generation kids tend to assimilate the norms of Americans rather than preserving the better behavior of their immigrant parents. Youth crime is a severe social problem in the United States, mainly due to the prevalent access to guns making the offense more grievous than in Asia and Europe. Nevertheless, immigrants only contribute to such crime in the sense of increasing population. From an objective perspective, immigrants are reported to be better behaved compared to natives. Indeed, research has shown that second-generation kids become worse behaved relative to their parents only because they learn to be more like the native kids ( Payan, 2016) . 

Source: Yglesias (2019) 

In addition, immigrants enrich American culture by expanding and availing options. This is evidenced by a study detailing how the United States decided to eradicate non-native workers from the agricultural labor force in a bid to improve farm wages in the year 1960 ( Payan, 2016) . The study reported that the elimination of immigrant workers from the farm did not have an impact on farm wages. Removal of immigrant farmworkers meant that landowners had to change production strategies that ended up compromising the quality and diversity of farm produce. Production of some crops such as fresh strawberries, asparagus, lettuce, celery, and cucumbers completely fell as mechanized techniques for their production were not available. This resulted in a decreased variety of farm products that Americans learned to live with as elimination of immigrant farmworkers did not increase the wages, nor did it overrule the demand and supply rule. The same shortage of variety currently exists in the service and retail sectors of the economy. States with few immigrants often have few varieties of products and other services typically provided by immigrants. This explains why eliminating foreign-born workers from American only reduces the range of goods and services available, forcing Americans to learn to live without such varieties. 

What is more, immigration has immensely contributed to the growth and development of entry states in America. More often than not, people wonder where immigrants reside. The fact is that they live in traditional gateway cities, including Miami, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago. No doubt, immigrants have long contributed in moulding these states into the inventive, assorted, and flourishing cities they are known to be ( Akcigit et al., 2017) . Over the last decade, more gateway cities like Phoenix, Charlotte, Atalanta, and Nashville opened up with rapid growth thanks to immigrants who moved to the cities in search of opportunities and family settlement in the suburbs. 

Immigrants have also played a role in population diversification through bringing new life into local communities experiencing population decrease over the last two decades. Population loss translates to closing or consolidation of schools, drying up of businesses, and closing of hospitals. Immigrants have been reported to reverse the decline in population in four-fifth of rural communities suffering such losses. Moreover, immigrants were deemed entirely responsible for population growth in rural communities that experienced growth in population. This means that the creation of job opportunities, provision of essential social services like healthcare and education as well as the emergence of small business ventures (Luu, 2017) . 

In fact, immigrants make up fourteen percent of the United States' population- equivalent to about forty-three million of the total three hundred and twenty-three million. Together, with their second-generation kids, immigrants comprise of twenty-seven percent of United States' inhabitants. Migrants into the US and their second-generation kids cover twenty-seven percent of the total United States’ residents ( Simon et al., 2016) . The figure below indicates a steady rise from the nineteen seventies and fewer immigrants in 2017 than in the nineteen nineties. In the year 2017, the United States gave 1.1 million immigrants lawful permanent residency. More than two in every three of these grants were given based on family reunion, while others were admitted under employment preferences, asylees, refugees, and diversity ( Simon et al., 2016) .   

Source: Immigration Policy Institute (n.d) 

Immigrants also contribute to the diversification of American culture through the introduction of new customs as well as ideas. Indeed, Trump acknowledged that immigrants change the fabric of American culture. As foreign-born immigrants progressively get accustomed to the American lifestyle, they also bring in their own, including music, language, and food. For instance, Davis Jacob -a Jewish tailor who had immigrated into the United States, is the inventor of blue jeans. Basketball was also invented by Naismith- an immigrant from who taught physical education in Massachusetts. Additionally, Sara Lee cream, and other snacks such as hamburgers, doughnuts, hot dogs as well as Budweiser beer found a place in American cuisines courtesy of immigrants ( Lee, 2017) . Yes, immigrants continue to enrich the American culture through their new expertise, ideas, cookeries, and art. Therefore, immigration into the United States should be cheered as it helps expand the culture of Americans. 

Immigrants’ contribution to United States’ technology and innovation 

Immigrants have played a significant part in building the United States into a global leader in innovation and technology. Their vital role documented so prudently that it cannot be disputed. The United States' well-deserved status concerning innovation and technology cannot be separated from its historical culture of welcoming immigrants from other countries. A study by Lee (2017) found that more than half of the eighty-seven technological start-ups with a value of over one billion US dollars were co-founded by foreign-born persons and or their descendants. These companies created over seven hundred and sixty employment opportunities. 

Immigrants have significantly raised the general productivity and complemented natives through entrepreneurship and innovations. Research has revealed that while immigrants into the United States comprise only fourteen percent of the total population, they make up to thirty percent of total entrepreneurs ( Lee, 2017). In fact, immigrants are perceived to be more times likely to start a business relative to their native-born equals. Moreover, high tech big companies and start-ups like Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple were founded by immigrants or their generations. Immigrants currently head Oracle and Microsoft tech giants. A recent study revealed that immigrants or their children founded forty-four percent of companies that secured a place in the five hundred fortune list of the year 2018. Collectively, immigrant-founded companies made returns of $5.5 trillion in the fiscal year 2018 ( Bernstein, Diamond, McQuade & Pousada, 2018) . Such revenue is more than the gross domestic product of all countries in the world except for China and the United States. 

American universities play a significant role in innovation and technology pipeline. Every year, there are thousands of immigrant students who move to the United States to pursue Ph.D. and master's programs. For instance, the highly competitive Iran's Sharif University of Technology takes in only a fraction of the applicants. Indeed, the top learners at Sharif are without exaggeration among the brightest students in the world. Most of the high achievers from Sharif University traditionally migrate to the United States basically to pursue degrees and get absorbed in the states' technology sector. Top students from Sharif University have been reported to have a talent and drive to be successful wherever they go. If the United States close door for immigrants, the top Sharif students will move to other welcoming regions such as Australia, Europe, and Canada ( Bernstein et al., 2018) . Consequently, the US will miss the benefits that the big brains generate, the jobs they create, and the companies they set up. The government should, therefore, by all means allow immigrants into the United States to avoid such losses. 

President Trump’s executive order to exclude citizens of some countries from moving to the United States may be temporally and limited to only a few countries. However, the order will have broad impacts on technology sector in spatial and temporal scopes. Visualise, a brilliant undergraduate and ambitious technology entrepreneur from Pakistan weighing between admission offers to engineering schools in United States and Canada. They might just avoid the risk of being caught up by executive orders excluding immigrants (Pakistan included) and take up the offer to study in Canada. There will be thousands of people making such choices in the near years. The cumulative loss for the United States’ innovation and technology sector could be immense within a few years of excluding immigrants ( Bernstein, et al., 2018) . Thus, the orders preventing immigration into the United States should be withdraw to allow in innovative brains. 

Excluding immigrants from moving into the United States and thus the American universities based on their national origin is an ill-advised economic proposition. Talent is globally distributed regardless of national origin, race, gender or religion. Talented and innovative thinkers are everywhere in the world and they certainly can thrive, if the right environment is provided ( Edo, Ragot, Rapoport, Sardoschau, & Steinmayr, 2018). The United States reputation cannot be attributed only to the states’ entrepreneurial democratic traditions. The historical and continuous immigration of ambitious young people particularly through the university system has also played a great role in building the reputation. The positive reaction where immigrant students innovatively enhance the states’ entrepreneurial culture through their own contribution, is a fundamental component of United States’ technological competitiveness as well as economic prosperity. 

Conclusion 

Immigration has for the longest time been historically been a distinguishing characteristic of the United States, and it still is one of the states’ competitive economic advantage. It has played a pivot part in engineering the economic prosperity of the US through entrepreneurship, paying of taxes, reducing dependency ratio and improving the stability of social security trust fund as well as Medicare. Immigration has also contributed significantly in providing labour force for the American industries, fishing, forestry, construction, cleaning and agricultural sector. Immigrants help to fill job gaps left by aging and retiree baby boomer generation in addition to working as home nurses, doctors and house keepers. 

Moreover, immigrants have been recognized as key contributors to the highly reputable status of the United States with regard to innovation and technology. The founders of major high-tech start-ups in the United States including Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, You tube among others are immigrants and their descendants. Also, immigrants have helped diversify and enrich the American social and cultural aspects. Immigrants help to reduce the rate of crime particularly among the youth given that they are better behaved compared to natives. More to it, immigrants contribute to moulding gateway cities to the United States such as New York, Miami, Chicago among other to the prosperous cities they are known to be. Immigrants have also played a role in culture diversification through bringing new life into local communities through introduction of new norms, ideas, cookeries and new expertise. 

In the long run, opening up the country for immigrants is a profound economic investment. The paybacks from immigrants are substantial and exceed the cost by far especially if accompanied by effective and well thought policies. 

References 

Akcigit, U., Grigsby, J., & Nicholas, T. (2017). Immigration and the rise of American ingenuity.  American Economic Review ,  107 (5), 327-31. 

Bernstein, S., Diamond, R., McQuade, T., & Pousada, B. (2018).  The contribution of high-skilled immigrants to innovation in the United States  (No. 3748). 

Bernstein, J. (2018). The US immigration debate: what’s all the shouting for?  Business Economics ,  53 (3), 141-144. 

Edo, A., Ragot, L., Rapoport, H., Sardoschau, S., & Steinmayr, A. (2018). The effects of immigration in developed countries: Insights from recent economic research.  IFO Institute-Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich ,  5 , 1-24. 

Immigration Policy Institute (n.d). U.S. Immigrant Population and Share over Time, 1850-Present, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time 

Luu, L. B. (2017).  Immigrants and the Industries of United States, 1500–1700 . Routledge. 

Lee, R. (2017). The economic and fiscal consequences of immigration. 

Reitz, J. G. (2018).  Warmth of the welcome: The social causes of economic success in different nations and cities . Routledge. 

Payan, T. (2016). Immigration and the United States: A Path to Resolution.  Policy Brief: Recommendations for the New Administration . 

Simon, J. L., Ungar, S. J., & Moore, S. (2016).  The economic consequences of immigration . University of Michigan press. 

Yglesias M., (2019). Immigration makes America great, Current policy could be improved, but American progress depends on welcoming foreigners, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/3/14624918/the-case-for-immigration .