This is a deducted consequence of the inability of the market to absorb all the immigrants coming every year in the country. More precisely, "the number of immigrants -- legal and illegal -- living in the U.S., is growing at an unprecedented rate. U.S. Census Bureau data indicate that 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year. In 2006, the immigrant, or foreign-born population, reached about 38 million in the United States" (Camarota, 2007). The ones who manage to find jobs and employment in the United States tend to impact the legal labor market. The ones that do not find proper employment places influence by increasing the number of people working on the black market. These are mostly illegal immigrants and recent analyses have shown that out of the 38 million people that was of foreign origin in 2006 in America, 12 million of them were illegal immigrants. It is clear in this sense that in the conditions in which they do not poses any kind of identification and visa, they are not allowed to work in the United States and they choose the black market to find means for subsistence.
One other major issue concerning the matter of immigration and the degree in which immigrant workers affect the United States and its employment system is the pressures the former make on the welfare system. It is a rather well-known fact the idea that the welfare policy in the United States, as all over the world, represents an essential political and social element. This is due to the fact that it must take into account the political directions of the forces in power at a certain given time and at the same time it must cater for the needs of the population. Therefore, in the case of the United States, the social policy must take into account, aside from the political aspect, the issue of the population which in its case is more complex than in other regions of the world. The presence of an increased number of immigrants represents indeed a struggle for the social security system as it was considered that they are depending on the welfare system. In this sense, "given the low educational levels of most recent immigrants, we would expect them to be a greater drain on public coffers than the immigrants who came before them. (...) in 1997 the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) estimated that immigrant households consumed $20 billion more in public services than they paid in taxes each year. Adjusted for inflation, with the current size of the immigrant population today, this figure would be over $40 billion. Immigrants from Latin America place an especially heavy burden on American taxpayers. For example, 57% of household headed by Dominican immigrants in 2004 used at least one major welfare program; 43% of Mexicans took advantage of at least one welfare program; and about a third of the households headed by immigrants from Central America, Cuba and Columbia use the welfare system. In contrast only 18% of native households receive welfare assistance" (Camarota, 2007). Therefore, from this perspective, it can be clearly said that there is a certain pressure in regard to the matter of social welfare and the particular programs that try to help immigrant to integrate in the society.
Finally, studies have been conducted in relation to the eventual harm the continuous flow of immigrants can have on either older immigrants or the minorities. It was concluded that, indeed, there is a certain pressure put on recent immigrants and the African-Americans, the Hispanic, or even the Chinese. In this sense, "virtually all studies of this phenomenon have concluded that the greatest harm is to those American workers who already are the most vulnerable (...) native-born minorities, especially Hispanics and Blacks, and by recent immigrants" (Camarota, 2007). In order to constitute a better image of the situation, the conclusions were placed in figures. Therefore, "the increasing supply of labor, immigration between 1980 and 2000 cost native-born American men an average $1,700 in annual wages by the year 2000. However, the effects of immigration on wages were most profoundly felt by native-born black...
Alien Nation is organized onto fifteen chapters, divided into three parts: (1) Introduction; Part I: Truth: (2) the View from the Tenth Circle; (3) the Pincers; (4) How Did it Happen? (5) Why Did it Happen? (6) So What? Part II: Consequences: (7) Immigration Has Consequences: Economics; (8) Immigration Has (More) Consequences: Economics II; (9) Immigration Has Consequences: Cultural, Social, Environmental...; (10) Immigration Has Consequences: Political Power; (11) Immigration Has Consequences: A
Immigration Nation of Immigrants America is sometimes referred to as a "nation of immigrants" because of our largely open-door policy toward accepting foreigners who pursuing their vision of the American Dream. Recently, there has been a clamor by some politicians and citizens toward creating predominantly closed-door policy on immigration, arguing that immigrants threaten American life by creating unemployment, taking jobs from American workers, using much-needed social security services, and encroaching on the
Yet the power shift on Capitol Hill -- away from the most vocal advocates of erecting more fencing and making illegal entry a felony -- doesn't ensure that Congress will create a new path to citizenship for the approximately 12 million residents with no legal right to be in the United States." (Edsall, 2007) From this point-of-view it is important that the groups involved in the process to be
When economic conditions plummet, as they did in 2008, anti-immigrant sentiment may increase even more. Blaming immigrants is a popular pastime but it doesn't change the facts. Conclusion As America braces for a bruising round of political debate on the immigration issue, having a sense of which facts are accurate and which are myths will help both citizens and policy-makers. Welfare reform and immigration reform policies can change the process for
We can see that minority status has far less to do with population size, and instead seems very much to be inclined by race, ethnicity and political power instead. This label of minority status is in many ways used as a tag by which certain groups are detained from political unity or effectiveness. To a large degree, this is a condition which relates to the nature of the Hispanic demographic,
Immigration and Its Effects on the United States Labor Force During the time period of 1881 and 1924, the First Great Migration shifted about 25.8 million people from across the globe to the United States, boosting the country's population by approximately 50%. Huge numbers migrated from Western Europe. The following Great Migration, proceeding from the 1960s, has given a figure of about 26 million new residents all over the country. It
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