A lot of American citizens think immigration is a major problem here in the United States. Do you think so? Immigration is the act of going to a foreign country to live. Immigrants who flee their country because of hardships are known as refugees.
People leave their homelands and move to a different country for many different reasons. Some emigrate for adventure, or to avoid starvation, yet others wish to escape terrible family hardships. However, the main reason has almost always been economic opportunity.
In just the 1980’s, millions of refugees fled from warfare in Afghanistan, Iran, Uganda, Southeast Asia, and Central America. From the late 1700’s to the 1860’s, Britain transported prisoners to Australia to relieve overcrowding in British jails (World Book 80).
Before 1920, about 30% of all immigrants returned to their native lands that had lived in the United States. Now only about 15% return home.
Immigrants have made enormous contributions over the years to the culture and economy of nations such as Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and even the U.S. But these achievements have been made with great difficulty. Many of the receiving countries have restricted immigration to maintain some kind of a society in which all the people share the same ethnic, geographic, and cultural backgrounds.
Population movements have mixed effects on the sending and receiving nations. Emigration relieves overcrowding, yet may lose many people with valuable skills. The receiving nation gains new workers but may face problems finding a place for them.
The U.S. has been the world’s main receiving nation of immigrants for quite some time. The 1st wave began in what is now the U.S. with the colonists of the 1600’s. It reached its peak just before the Revolutionary War began in 1775. The 2nd major flow began in the 1820’s and lasted until the depression in the early 1870’s. The greatest wave took place from the 1880’s to the early 1920’s. A 4th and still going wave began in 1965 due to changes in the U.S. immigration laws (World Book 81).
The 10 largest ancestry groups in the U.S. are as follows: German-57, 947,374; Irish-38, 735539; English-32, 651788; African American-23, 777,098; Italian-14, 664,550; Mexican-11, 586,983 (World Book 83).
In June 1993, the USA research group says “74% feel fewer immigrants should be allowed and stronger restrictions should be enforced.” In July 1993, “60% feel that immigration is a bad thing for this country,” says Newsweek. CBS News says, “63% of Americans think immigration levels were to high,” in 1995. Horatio Alger Association reported in 1996 that “67% of teens feel legal immigration should be reduced (NPG 1).
A survey in 1995 was conducted to determine American public opinion with regard to the U.S. population size and growth. It was carried out with face to face interviews in the homes of about 2,000 nationally representative adults. It showed that a majority of Americans recognize that population growth is a threat to the quality of their lives. “A recent Roper Reports survey found that 72% of all Americans worry that overpopulation will be a serious problem in the next 25-50 years, up from 65% who worried about it in 1991.”
83% favor a number less than the estimated 1 million per year and only 2% favor an increase in that number. Roper says,”1 in 3 now think the U.S. needs to reduce its population in order to maintain a sound economy and environment over the long term (NPG 3).
The Roper survey also found that the groups that most believed overpopulation is a “major problem,” requiring immediate attention include English speaking Hispanics (67%), Westerners (66%), and high school graduates (60%)(NPG 4).
The 1996 Welfare Reform Act targeted legal immigration by cutting off their welfare benefits. This and other acts of the last few years have brought immigration to light as an important political issue. But should we trust that what the politicians and political analysis’s are telling us the truth?
In the 1980’s, about 7.3 million immigrants came to the U.S. Since 1990, only about 5.2 million people have immigrated. At that rate, we will have admitted over 7 million immigrants by the end of the 90’s.
Demographers use “the basic demographic equation” to measure population fluctuations. The equation is: current population = previous population + natural increase + net migration. Lets start with natural increase. Between 1960 and 1965, the rate of increase was 18.63%. This rate dropped to a low of –6.6% between 1975 and 1979. Now the 2nd half is migration. In 1980, the net migration was 0.4% and since then it has varied between 0.4 and .22%. This means that our population is declining slightly due to natural increase, and increasing slightly because of net migration. In fact, the 1990’s had the 2nd lowest rate of growth of any decade in U.S history. The lowest was in the 1940’s (Population Stats. 1).
Some political analysis’s and politicians say that immigrants take jobs away from people who were already here. But immigrants add jobs to the economy by two ways. 1, they start new small businesses and hire employees. 2, they use the same services as Americans do. So these new businesses need more people to fill the jobs. So if immigration doesn’t add hardly at all to the population and it actually creates jobs, then why do people think immigration is such a big problem (Population Stats. 2)?
For most of the 1800’s, many of the people arriving in the U.S. came here from Northern Europe. In the 1890’s a change began. The number from Northern Europe began dropping and the “New Immigration” from Southern and Eastern Europe began. Of the more than 8 million people who arrived here between 1901 and 1910, over 77% were from Italy, Russia, and Hungary. Between 1902 and 1907, the number doubled. However WWII stopped the huge flow of people (Seigel 3).
Following WWII, (1941-1945), many people were afraid communists would enter the United States. Because of this, Congress passed the Internal Security Act of 1950. This made membership in the Communist party or any other party in the totalitarian organization a reason for which an immigrant could be deported (Seigel 5).
The immigration and Natality Act of 1965 dropped the national quota system. This new law set a yearly limit of 170,000 people from the Eastern Hemisphere with no more than 20,000 from any one country. No more than 120,000 could come from the Western Hemisphere with no per country limit (Seigel 6).
Congress passed the Immigration and Control Act of 1986 because many people thought illegal immigration was getting way out of hand. It had three major parts. 1) It allowed illegal aliens who had been living in the U.S. since January 1, 1982 to apply for temporary residence status. 2) It made it illegal for an employer to hire an illegal alien. The employer must fill out a form when hiring a new employee. 3) This law called to hire more Border patrol officers to guard the nations borders, especially the U.S. Mexican border (Seigel 6).
The wars, famines, and economic difficulties have brought millions of immigrants, legal and illegal to the States. Since 1980, the immigrants have counted for about 27-29% of the U.S’s population growth. All Americans can trace their heritage back to a foreign country, (except for the Native Americans). After immigrants have been here awhile, their children or grandchildren become concerned about the current immigration flow. They forget that they are the children or grandchildren of immigrants (Seigel 7).
Sometimes an American may marry an alien in order for the foreigner to live here. Some people do it as a favor, yet others may do it for money. So after the alien gets their citizenship, they divorce. The Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments of 1986 were designed to stop this. This law states that “aliens who got their immigrant status based on marriage of less than 2 years are conditional aliens.” Unfortunately, this law left a lot of women in a terrible predicament. Sometimes their husbands were abusers and since they didn’t want to return to their home countries, they stayed married and beaten. The 1990 Immigration Act made this somewhat better. The immigrant therefor had to show that they got married in good faith and that they got beaten or treated cruelly by her husband (Seigel 13).
A person who wants to come to the U.S. to live just can’t say, “I want to go!” First they must go to the American Embassy or the American Consulate. There they must apply for an Immigrant visa. The Immigrant and Naturalization Service can admit only 270,00 immigrants a year (Siegel 19).
The INS must follow a preference system to decide who will be approved. The 1st preference goes to unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens and their children. A max of 20% goes to this group. The 2nd, 4th, and 5th also consider close relatives. The 3rd and 6th preferences consider extremely skilled workers. The final category is the non-preference category. This basically includes everyone else that applies (Siegel 20).
A few more male, (550,176) than female (540,661) were admitted in 1989. Also the median age was 31.5 years for males and 33.8 for females (Seigel 22).
Many illegal aliens get here by crossing the border with out a guide. Smugglers often approach others. The price isn’t cheap at all. It could cost around $4,000 from Central America to the U.S (Seigel 29).
Illegal aliens often have jobs that are too low paying or undesirable for American citizens. Some people are concerned that since these people work for so little wages, they might hold wages down for people with similar jobs (Seigel 30).
“One of the most serious challenges to human destiny in the last third of the century will be the growth of population. Whether man’s response to that challenge will be a cause for pride or despair in 2000 will depend upon what we do today,” said President Richard Nixon (Immigration Stats. 1). Right now, immigration is accounting for 70% of the U.S. population growth. Immigration is causing our population to grow at about 1% per year (Immigration Stats. 4).
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