THE IMPORTANCE OF IMMIGRATION IN AMERICA

Introduction

The United States of America was built on immigration. After discovering this new, wide-open, beautiful land, thousands immigrated here to seek a new life. Many immigrants were escaping unkind rulers, religion restriction and even laws and regulations they did not agree with. Immigration is still something we see every day in America. However, it is becoming a heated topic in American politics. Many people state that America’s borders should be closed and we should not be accepting any more immigrants. Others still believe that we should have open borders and should be willing to help anyone in need, as that was what our country was founded on. This paper looks at where immigration started, how it has changed throughout the years and the two arguments on if we should close American borders to immigrants or if we should continue to keep them open to help those in need. 

Open and free immigration characterized American policy in the 18th century to the early 19th century. Initial restrictions, especially by individual states that enacted anti-immigration laws in the post-civil war era, led the United States Supreme Court to declare in 1875 that immigration policy was a preserve of the federal government. The alien contract labor and Chinese Exclusion Act were perhaps the first immigration laws to be enacted by the federal government. The latter was passed in 1882 and sought to stop all Chinese immigration into the United States. When originally passed, the Act excluded all Chinese laborers to the United States for ten years. However, after many years and a few amendments to extend the Act for another ten years, in 1902, the Act was renewed again with no terminal date. The Chinese Exclusion Act remained in force until 1943 when the Magnuson Act created a quota mechanism. The Alien Contract Labor laws were created to prohibit certain laborers from immigrating to the United States. In 1882, the General Immigration Act imposed a tax of fifty cents on each immigrant and disqualified the admission of idiots, convicts, lunatics and individuals deemed likely to be a public charge. With the start of immigration laws, this created a need for federal reinforcement. The United States Custom Collectors were designed at each port of entry into the United States where they collected the head tax from immigrants and “Chinese Inspectors” were placed to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act 1 . 

The 1891 immigration Act put all immigration Acts firmly under federal authority including the admission, processing, rejection, and inspection of immigrants into the country. The 1891 Act also increased the list of ineligible entries, including convicts of moral turpitude, those suffering loathsome diseases, and polygamists. These regulations also led to the creation of the office of superintendent of immigration under the treasury. The Superintended was to oversee a new corps of United States Immigrant Inspectors that were to be stationed at the country’s main points of entry. The Immigration Service formalized basic immigration procedures and eventually began to enforce a national immigration policy. The Immigration Service started to collect arrival manifests or passenger lists from each incoming ship. On receiving the list, inspectors would question arrivals about their admission and would clear them for passing or rejection (USCIS). The Immigration Service was financed by an “immigrant fund” which was collected from the immigrant’s head tax till 1909 when Congress approved the replacement of the fund with an annual appropriation 2 . 

The Immigration Service continued to grow and develop throughout the 20th century as the United States continued to undergo rising levels immigration. It is estimated that the nation admitted up to 14.5million immigrants between 1900 and 1920. With the significant jump in immigration and its impact on the country, Americans started to change the way they felt about their open attitude towards immigration 3 . The Immigration Act of 1917 was passed with stricter laws to enter the country, including being literate in one’s native language, and the introduction of pre-inspections and more rigorous medical exams at the point of an immigration departure, instead of only upon arrival. World War I significantly reduced American immigration. However, with the influx of enemy aliens, who were captured on enemy ships, this led to the 1918 Presidential Proclamation. The Presidential Proclamation of 1918 was clear in the event of war between the United States and another nation or instances of predatory invasion or incursion from another state and the president of the United States publicly declares that event. In such cases, all citizens, nationals or natives of that hostile nation who are not American citizens by virtue of naturalization and who have reached the age of fourteen years and above, will be liable to apprehension, restraint, and removal from American soil as alien enemies. The Proclamation also developed requirements of a passport 4 . 

When immigration continued to rise after World War I, Congress responded with the establishment of the 1921 and 1924 Immigration Acts. This was the first time in the United States history where the national origins system numerically limited immigration. Each nationality got a limited quota based on its representation in the United States according to past census figures. Only a very limited number of visas were distributed each year through the US Embassies abroad, and her Immigration Service admitted immigrants into the US who arrived with a valid visa. Stricter laws and regulations brought increased illegal immigration and alien smuggling. This caused Congress to develop the United States Border Patrol in 1924, which focused more on land borders and specific ports of entry into the United States 5 . 

With the Immigration Act in effect and the Immigration Service and Border Patrol hunkering down on America’s borders and point of entry, Americans began to see a fall in immigration. However, after World War II and the postwar conditions in Europe, Congress began to pass many refugee Acts to help refugees displaced by the war. These Acts included the 1948 Displaced Persons Act, the 1956 Hungarian Refugee Act, the 1953 Refugee Relief Act, the 1957 Refugee-Escapee Act, and the 1960s Cuban Adjustment Program. These Acts all served a similar purpose of helping escapees fleeing from communist countries (USCIS). The Immigration and Naturalization Service also worked for family reunification with the passing of the 1945 War Brides Act and the 1946 Fiancées Act, which made it easier to admit families, including spouses of returning American soldiers 6 . 

After the Civil Rights Movement, many Americans believed that the Immigration Policy that was in place since the 1920s was racial and unfair because of the numerical limitation that was based on representation. This led to the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, also called the Hart-Celler Act. The Act abolished the former quota system grounded on national origin and created a new immigration policy based on attracting skilled labor into the country and reuniting immigrant families. By getting rid of the national quota system, the Act set new considerations such as being a relative of American permanent residents or citizens, possession of skills useful in the US or being a refugee of violence from one’s home country 7 . Even though it abolished quotas, there were still overall caps on each category. Nonetheless, family reunification was the primary goal, and this immigration policy soon allowed entire families to uproot themselves from other countries and settle in the US. In fact, in the thirty years following the 1965 immigration and Naturalization Act, over 18million immigrants had legally settled in the United States 8 . 

Illegal immigrant became a major political debate for most of the 1980s and 1990s. Mexico and Canada became a key route for illegal immigrants. The 1986 Immigration Reform Act was enacted to enhance border security and ensure stricter enforcement of immigration policies. Further, the Act increased possibilities for legal immigration. It was not until the economic recession affected America that political agendas started to focus on immigration. When the economic recession began in the early 1990s, lower-income Americans started to compete for their jobs with immigrants who were willing to work for lower wages. In the aftermath of 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security was established and replaced the Immigration and Naturalization Service 9 . 

On June 15, 2012, the Department of Homeland Security announced the approval of Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA. The program (DACA) was established to allow any young person who was brought to the United States illegally to remain in the country as long as they had a clean criminal record and they arrived before 2007 when they were under the age of sixteen. DACA recipients can live and work legally in the United States for renewable two-year periods. In November 2014, President Obama attempted to expand DACA to accommodate more illegal immigrants, but the move faced considerable opposition from state governments that sued and had courts block the move. Studies have suggested that DACA has had enormous benefits for the American economy as unauthorized immigrants, most of them living in degrading poverty, have come out to seek active employment. Further, evidence indicates that there have been improved health outcomes for immigrants and their families thanks to the program. Nonetheless, President Trump rescinded the policy in September 2017.

The Dream Act was a bill introduced in the United States Congress seeking to give young and undocumented immigrants living in the United States conditional and even permanent residency. The bill sets requirements for citizenship to graduation from high school or at least completion of two years in an American college or service in the United States armed forces. The bill has been introduced before Congress multiple times since 2001 and failed to pass on each occasion. The most recent attempt to have the bill considered was in 2017 in response to the Trump administration decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program 10 .

The likely economic merits of the Dream Act have been pointed out by various agencies. The joint committee on taxation and the congressional budget office have estimated that implementation of the Act would considerably reduce the federal deficit and increase federal revenues. Similar benefits, note the report, would accrue to both local and state authorities. The Act would also increase by 1.4 million the number of American jobs by 2030 principally through increased earning, purchasing power and educational attainments for dreamers 11 . The overall effects, some have argued, would be making the American economy more globally competitive through the incorporation of illegal and largely poor immigrants into the global economy. Other than the manifest economic boon of the policy, it would also offer hope to undocumented immigrants, provide a path to citizenship and relieve strain on law enforcement through reduced crime levels and elimination of the need to crack down on illegal immigrants.

The Succeed Act is a bill by senators James Lankford and Thomas Tills that seeks to grant residency and citizenship to undocumented immigrant minors upon meeting specific requirements including passing a criminal background check. The Succeed Act is in many ways similar to the Dream Act only that it sets more stringent criteria for qualification than the latter: It requires that those who qualify maintain gainful employment as adults, earn a vocational degree or a post-secondary qualification or serve in the military. Other than creating legal certainty for immigrants, the Act has potential economic benefits similar to those of the Dream Act. The Act further provides grounds for disqualification of legal status in case of conviction for a felony and other significant misdemeanors such as sexual abuse, domestic violence, illegal possession of a firearm, driving under the influence, drug peddling amongst others. The major costs arising from this Act are largely administrative such as those involved in carrying out background checks 12 .

Economic benefits of offering residency and legal status to immigrants are astronomical. At various stages in her history, America has embraced a misguided anti-immigration policy thanks to political opposition to immigrant groups. Legalized immigrants improve economic efficiency through reduction of labor shortages in both low and high skilled labor markets. The share of immigrants in the American workforce has declined in the post-1991 era. Increased participation in the economy by immigrants would expand the workforce in America and stimulate business start-ups. Immigrants grease labor market wheels by moving into industries where there is a relative need for more workforce or where existing workforce would otherwise be reluctant to penetrate 13 .

Immigrants tend to have greater labor mobility than natives thus eradicating bottlenecks to expansion and increasing the speed of economic growth. As slack falls, growth accelerates. Evidence of immigrant mobility within the economy is not hard to find. During and after the World War II, immigrants, especially of Mexican descent, were crucial in alleviating labor shortages arising from the war. In the late 1970s and early 1980s when the oil boom started, immigrants were quick to move into Texas, significantly stimulating that states economy and making it one of the fastest growing state economies by the 1990s. Their spread within the economy is also remarkable; they were present in the 2000s boom in the construction industry as well as in the tech industry during the internet boom 14 .

Immigrant innovation is evidenced by their relatively higher patenting rates. Some studies have suggested that the great level of innovation amongst immigrants is due to their concentration in STEM fields where entrepreneurial activity and research is more. Foreign-born medical scientists in the United States are today about 44% of the entire medical science professions. Overrepresentation has also been noted in the number of mathematicians, engineers, dentists, doctors, dentists and college professors 15 . 

The social benefits of immigration are hard to measure since unlike economic and intellectual contributions, they are hard to compute. The social value of immigrants can be seen in the variety-culture, food, arts, athletics- they bring to the United States. Italian restaurants, German breweries, Indian tea houses, Chinese markets and Belgian chocolate stores are found in many parts of the United States. Such cultural diversity helps break the ethnocentrism that characterizes most societies. Scholars have suggested a relationship between the correlation between such cultural exchanges and innovations and an outpouring of talent.

Immigrants also pay huge sums in taxes. The fact that illegal immigrants have spent billions in taxes to the social security administration for benefits they are unlikely to receive has been recognized for a long time. This has largely been through the buying of fake social security cards by illegal immigrants to gain entry into the job market. The social security system has increasingly become reliant on this revenue stream 16 .

Immigrants have a huge impact on wages though this impact is not evenly spread. Research shows that the decline in wages due to immigrant entry into the market largely affects those that are low in the earning curve while those in the middle and the top level remain largely unaffected. Some analysts have in fact suggested increased wage benefits on the latter category. With respect to employment levels, immigrants tend to stimulate employment, especially in the previously dormant sectors. The stiff competition for low wage labor may, however, present a challenge for lower-earning native categories, but this is only in the short term. Immigrants may also present special burdens on the health care system especially where governments have to bear the cost of healthcare through public healthcare schemes 17 . If not incorporated in such public arrangements, they are likely to contribute to reduced health outcomes for the broader societies in which they live through infections and transmissions.

The Trump administration ban on immigrants from Iran, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia was purportedly meant to ensure the safety and security of the American people through limiting entry into the United States. The president himself argued that prior policies have failed to ensure the security of the American people thus the need for a different approach. The ban attracted considerable opprobrium with liberals arguing that it was discriminatory on the basis of religion. They further claimed that a wholesale ban was against American values and what was required was the reinforcing of background checks for those seeking entry into the United States. The conservative media largely backed the ban arguing that the threat to national security was real. Much of GOP was however silent about the ban, and only 20 republicans came out to publicly reject the executive order 18 . 

More controversial was the inclusion of refugees in the ban and giving priority admission to Christians. This effectively locked out Muslim refugees with Syrian refugees being the hardest hit in light of the turmoil in that country. This is likely going to lead to intensified human suffering by refugees who are unlikely going to gain asylum in other countries.

International migration promises to be a major global force. The United Nations estimates that about 3% of the world’s population lives outside their country of origin. Refugee migration patterns have evolved significantly over the last 50 years. Unlike the 19th and part of 20th century when European immigrants into the United States did not cause much social upheaval, today’s reception and the process of assimilating immigrants is a major social and economic phenomenon of our time. Also, far from emigration being a predominantly American phenomenon, its fellow western countries have also been experiencing similar events with a third of the total world migration being into the European Union. Given a great deal of similarity between the American economy and most countries of Europe, this allows a comparative analysis that shed more into the economic impact of refugees 19 .

Part of the shift in migration patterns into the United States has been in the composition of the immigrant population. While traditionally they were mainly from Europe, there has been a major shift, more visible since the 20th, to include immigrants mainly from Latin America and parts of Asia. Illegal immigrant, especially from the non-OECD countries, has also skyrocketed over this duration. This large pool of immigrants, it has been noted, has led to considerable heterogeneity in immigrant traits. This has enormous consequences. Refugees and other forms of immigrants tend to be less educated especially if compared to their counterparts from Europe. A survey conducted in the United States in 2000 found out that a majority of school dropouts tend to be immigrants, a preponderance of which tend to be Latin American. This, however, does not tell the entire story about the general education trajectory of immigrant groups including refugees: Asian inflows have been extremely significant in the sciences and engineering sectors of the American economy 20 . It has in fact been noted that these immigrants accounted for the significant increases in the workforce in these crucial sectors in the 1990s.

Future immigration, it is hoped, offers opportunities to partially fix fiscal imbalances especially those attributable to aging populations. There has been a propensity to emphasize this problem by international observers within the European context and less in the American case. This may be legitimate since it is estimated that by 2030 European rate of population growth, should the current trend progress, will lead to deaths outnumbering births. This would have profound economic consequences especially in the domain of labor. A similar problem also exists in America, though to a less magnitude: there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that fertility rates amongst whites are in decline. By the year 2000, the median age in the United States had gotten to 34, the highest in her history. This can only be reversed by either encouraging more birth or immigrants follow, as it has been recorded, who tend to have higher rates of fertility. If the European case is anything to go by, then the latter is more a viable option given the reluctance to adopt the former. While many experts agree that immigrants may not be the ultimate solution to this problem in that they cannot fully rectify aging and fiscal imbalances, it is clear that the importance of immigration in this respect can only grow in the future 21 .

The economic relevance of immigrants, as was implicitly mentioned earlier, is contingent on the assimilation measures adopted by individual countries. Conversion of immigrants into wage labor ought to be the primary priority of any nation. It is, however, important to note that the reasons for immigrant migration influence their ease of assimilation. A good number of young people will move into the advanced economies for purposes of education in universities and schools, and as such, their stay in these countries may be short or limited. Those moving out of economic hardships, on the other hand, are likely going to have more prolonged stays. The kind of migration will impact ages, education levels, and duration of immigration and thus invariably have a bearing on probable assimilation. This recognition is important since most assimilation frameworks fail to consider reasons for immigration.

Immigrant assimilation into the economy is normally studied through comparing employment rate and wages of immigrants versus natives at the point of entry and over the duration of stay. These studies in the United States have established that while immigrants earn considerably less at the time of entry, they gradually are able to converge around the wage of native labor in about 15 years. After three decades, they were found to earn more than an indigenous labor of similar education and age. The main inhibitor to earning assimilation, it has been argued, are low levels of education and linguistic challenges. Improvements in these areas almost always lead to increases in labor. Nonetheless, it is difficult to carry out a rigorous study of the exact influence of wage changes on labor. While most studies do agree that native-immigrant wage gap diminishes over time, they also suggest that certain permanent gaps do persist. Empirical studies also suggest that re-emigrants-who move to another country away from their initial destination- tend to perform poorer in wage assimilation than those who stick to their first country of settlement 22 .

Another matter normally omitted in assimilation studies is the actual mechanism that under guards earning assimilation. While it is certainly interesting to establish that the gap in earning between immigrants and natives does close over time, that information does not direct us to any tangible policy measures. If assimilation were caused, for example, by increases in education, contacts made during the course of stay or language assimilation, then such knowledge would have enormous policy consequences. 

The wage equation is also akin to the unemployment equation: while there are large disparities between natives and immigrants at the point of entry, they largely decline over time. This decline is greater in the United States more than most European countries. This is arguably because the United States, having no strong social security system, imposes an immediate need for public policy officials and immigrant themselves to create and find income-generating activities.

In light of penetration into the labor market by immigrants mentioned above, it is worth mentioning the effect on the host country wages briefly especially since this is a contentious issue and a source of hostility between natives and immigrants. Immigration leads to increases in labor supply that consequently affects average wages in the host country especially if factors of production such as capital remain constant due to relative scarcity. Even if other factors of production were to change, this increase in labor is bound to affect average wages thanks to composition effects if the spread of skills and education varies between the immigrant and the native population. For much of recent history, this composition effect has lowered average wages in western countries since immigrants almost invariably have lower skills 23 .

This effect is not just limited to wages but is also found in employment since immigrant labor offers a viable substitute for native labor. However, Employment and wages for complementary workers may also increase as well as factors of production. Thus, the welfare of specific host country populations may deteriorate even though the aggregate impact is positive. Studies in this area have therefore sought to quantify the effects likely to accrue to the most vulnerable members of the native population such as school dropouts. Of course, such studies have to take into account problems of spillovers into other labor markets, integration, and reliance on small datasets with few years or cities and general equilibrium changes that together make such an enterprise daunting.

There has been a propensity to overemphasize displacement effect, especially in political and popular discourse. The notion of migrants taking our jobs is quite rampant in contemporary America. While many researchers disagree on the extent of displacement, in fact, some have suggested negative displacement; the emerging thread from all these studies is that displacement effect is not as strong popularly thought. Borjas, whose studies perhaps offer the highest levels of displacement, contends that a 10% immigrant increase is likely going to reduce weekly earnings amongst natives by up to 3% or 4% 24 . Nevertheless, debates persist on the substitutable nature of immigrant and wage labor 25 .

Displacement effects in wages mirror those in employment. Some researchers have forcefully argued that immigration tends to reduce long-run unemployment. Most, however, argue that increases in immigrant labor have no substantial effects on employment in the long run. Even sudden and large immigrant flows were not found to have any substantial impact on native employment and wages. In brief, these effects tend to be comparatively small and limited to past immigrants or natives who are close substitutes and whose role in the market requires strengthening notably through training 26 . Overall, displacement studies offer fundamental insights on the purported negative effects of immigration.

Conclusion

Immigration policy is largely a consequence of cost-benefit analysis. The United States has to weigh the relative benefits of her immigration policy. A key consideration here will be her history of open door policy that has seen the country reap enormously more so in economic development. This economic role remains potent to-date especially in an economy experiencing low fertility rates. Immigrants will continue to remain a key driving force of the American economy through the creation of new businesses, intellectual property, and stimulation of labor competition and mobility in the United States. As statistics have indicated, immigrants have powerfully played this role in the last decade. In the absence of emotion and some unfounded fears, the benefits of immigrants become evident, and the negative effects pale compared to these contributions. While it is true that real dangers relating to security and cultural cooptation still linger, there are evident measures that can be undertaken to mitigate these effects. 

Bibliography

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