Common misconceptions about immigration and their economic impact

Immigration Myths

A myth may be described as a false set of beliefs that people form in order to justify a form of social institution or social construct. The immigration myths revolve around the people that settle in from one country or part of the world to another. There are some common misconceptions in the society that pass justifications of how and why immigration may be a strain on a society and affect the region they migrate to. Some of these immigration myths are highlighted below:

The immigrants do not pay their taxes

According to the Cato Institute, many people believe that the immigrants in any country live in the country without paying any taxes. They think that because they are not the permanent residents of the country, they can get away without being charged with any taxes (Chiswick, 1992). This however, is not true. It is the duty of all immigrants to pay their due taxes, whether these are direct taxes like income tax and excise duty or indirect taxes like the sales tax or any other form of taxes. Some studies and records of statistics show that an average of $90 to $140 is generated as taxes received by the government from the immigrants alone. These make up all the direct and indirect taxes and the amount generated is constantly increasing with the increasing inflow of immigrants in any country.

2. Immigrants come in to take advantage of welfare benefits

Another myth that surrounds immigrants is that their basic motive of moving in to the new country is so that they can avail the welfare state benefits and gain advantage of the opportunities that the government offers to the citizens there. In reality, this may not be true. Most of the times, the people migrate to another country to reunite with their family, to gain better job opportunities or to get further education. They also give in their share of the labor force by working and contributing to the economic sector which makes them eligible to avail and make use of the benefits if they receive any. Statistics show that in the United States, the immigrants earn around $240 billion out of which they pay about $90 billion as their due taxes and approximately $5billion on public welfare which makes it unreasonable to generalize that they come in to take advantage of the locals' welfare benefits.

3. Immigrants occupy the jobs of the locals

Some myths surrounding immigration suggest that the immigrants that flow in the country and take up the jobs of the locals. They basically say that the overall jobs in the country get distributed among the locals as well as the immigrants. This however, cannot be treated as entirely true because there are certain kinds of menial and low paid jobs that the locals want the immigrants to do because they don't want to do the "D jobs" which undertake the difficult, dirty and dangerous jobs. When the immigrants are unavailable, the natives often take on these jobs like those of mowing lawns, serving food in restaurants, cleaning their houses, etc. These immigrants often work under low wages and poor working conditions under which natives would have trouble working in (Simon, 1989). They may even agree to perform a lot of jobs manually which the natives would want machinery and high technology to perform and they then charge for their skills as well. The manual and cheap labor helps save up on costs as well. However sometimes it is stated that the natives do not perform these low paid jobs and have difficulties when these immigrants are unavailable to perform these "D jobs" which is certainly not true.

4. The sealing of the borders will help stop the inflow of illegal immigrants

Some myths suggest that there is a problem of an influx of illegal migrants every year in some countries. They believe that this problem can be put an end to by sealing the borders and restricting the number of immigrants that come in. They also state that the most common fraudulent activities in this field is when people like students, workers or valid visitors violate the terms and conditions of their stay by exceeding the number of days they were permitted to stay there (Hamermesh, 1998).

According to these people, there is an entire market of labor that is purely those who have violated their visas and are illegally residing in any country. There are certain people who enter without inspection. These are known as EWI and it is suggested that if the costs to enter a country in this way are increased, it may be able to limit and minimize the number of illegal immigrants. Stricter rules and enforcements will also help put a stop to this practice.

5. Immigrants do not want to adapt to or become a part of the society

A commonly held myth regarding immigrants is that they aren't necessarily interested in becoming part of the society or integrating their way through. The Americans especially believe that the immigrants that come into their country do not want to learn English, develop an accent or be called Americans. They are not there to merge in, add to the multicultural values or contribute to the society. This is not necessarily true because people often migrate for various different reasons which include gaining higher education, being with their families or for economic and social reasons. Also it is often noticed that the people who migrate in to different countries quickly adapt to their value systems, their traditions and norms and add in to the essence of multiculturalism. Statistics show that almost 91% of the immigrants in America speak English fluently in the first few months of them living there. That signifies their level of adaptability and how they aim towards adjusting in the society and associating with it and making an effort to actually be a part of the new society.

7. Immigration will give rise to terrorist activities and attacks

Some people believe that there will be an increasing problem of terrorist attacks and activities if too many immigrants are allowed to come into the country. They think that people solely migrate to initiate terrorist activities and establish links in other countries that will eventually help them in launching attacks (Jordan, 2009). This belief can be countered by the fact that terrorism is not only initiated by the immigrants. There is an equal chance that the natives might get involved in some form of terrorist organization and end up going against their own country's safety and well being so it cannot be generalized that the immigrants have a hand in bringing in terrorism.

There have certainly been some forms of change in the way people believe these myths but many a times, people still stick to their conventional and traditional beliefs where they stand by what they thought was true many years earlier. Sometimes it's simply a matter of not accepting the forms of change that have come about in society. Although statistics and reports do show how these myths are really just false beliefs that people have and have stated otherwise with considerable proofs.

Work Cited

Chiswick, Barry. Review of Immigration, Trade and Labor Market. Journal of Economic

Literature. (1992): 212-213.

Filer, Randell. The impact of immigrant arrivals on the local labor market equilibrium for native workers. Immigration and the workforce: Economic Consequences for the United States and Source Areas. 1992.

Hamermesh, Daniel. Help or Hindrance. Economic Implications of Immigration for African Americas. 1998.

Jordan, Miriam. In U.S. Immigrants and Locals Compete for Once Scorned Jobs.

International Wall Street Journal, (2009): 18 -- 19

Simon, Julian. The Economic Consequences of Immigration, Cambridge, MA, Basil

Blackwell. 1989.