Issue of the Week: Immigration

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America is a nation of immigrants—everyone’s ancestors are from somewhere else. Even the earliest Native Americans may have walked here from Asia on a land bridge that once connected present-day Alaska to Siberia. Up until the early decades of the twentieth century, the majority of immigrants to the United States were from Europe. Today, most are from Asia, Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the numbers are much higher today than in the past. Up to one million people enter each year, with an additional 500,000 illegal or undocumented entrants. Larger numbers of immigrants mean greater impacts on population growth, the economy, schools, and the welfare and healthcare systems. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, lawmakers have sought to revise immigration laws and policies in order to increase national security.

Those who favor unrestricted immigration say that immigrants provide cheap labor and services and keep costs down for American consumers. They often perform the low-paying or undesirable jobs that many Americans don’t want. In the article Immigrant Assimilation: Is the U.S. Still a Melting Pot?, economist Pia Orrenius argues that “immigration is key to current economic growth,” noting that “immigrants contributed over 40 percent of labor force growth in the mid- to late 1990s.” Proponents of immigration contend that “foreign workers are revitalizing cities that would otherwise have lost population, paying taxes to prop up Social Security and the federal budget, fueling growth and bolstering wages at the upper end of the income scale” in Economists Debate Whether Immigration Is Fiscal Boon or Financial Strain. In his article Importing People: Why Modern America Needs but Resents Immigrants, Bryce Christensen refutes the anti-immigration argument that the national identity of the United States is being threatened by the failure of immigrants to assimilate.

Those opposed say that immigrants take jobs away from American citizens and put a strain on government-financed social services. Fred Dickey, an opponent of unrestricted immigration, argues that “record numbers of illegal immigrants are pulling wages down for the poor and pushing taxes higher” in his article Undermining American Workers. In the article Patriots on the Borderline, author Dan Baum cites a 1997 National Research Council study showing that “overall, legal and illegal immigrants…receive more in publicly funded services than they pay in taxes.” Samuel P. Huntington, an accomplished Harvard Professor, argues that “the persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages” because “unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves--from Los Angeles to Miami--and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream” in The Hispanic Challenge.

Information Provided by SIRS Researcher Pro and Con Online Database.