Term Paper on "Immigration Looking at Immigration Statistics, it Quickly"

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[EXCERPT] . . . .

Immigration

Looking at immigration statistics, it quickly became clear that the largest number of immigrants to the United States in the last 10 years came from Mexico. The second largest group came from India. Other leading emigrant countries included: Ukraine, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Taiwan, Russia, Phillipines, Poland, Peru, Pakistan, Korea, Jamaica, Iran, Haiti, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Columbia, and China. Once they have arrived in America, most immigrants settle in a few states: California, New York, Florida, and Texas. In fact, the legal immigrant populations in those four states comprise approximately half of all immigrants. Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming see the lowest number of immigrants.

It can be difficult to determine how immigrants are employed once they arrive in the United States. For example, the largest category of immigrants are here because they are immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, not because of some specialized job category. Furthermore, many immigrants do not have occupations outside of the home, because they are students or children. However, for those immigrants who do work outside of the home, the largest labor category is management, professional, and related occupations. The second-largest category is unemployed. The next largest category is production, transportation, and material moving occupations, followed by service occupations, and then by sales and office occupations.

For those who have received employment-based preferences, the largest group is skilled workers, professionals, and needed unskilled workers. Priority workers form the next largest group and include people such as researchers, professors, and multinational executives. That group is followed by aliens with advanced degrees or other special abilities. Therefore, when immigrants are admitted to the United States on the basis of employment needs, it appears that they are admitted because they have unique characteristics that help meet the demands of the United States job market. However, because most immigrants are not admitted for employment purposes, it would be irresponsible to extend that conclusion beyond those immigrants specifically admitted for employment purposes.

It is difficult to determine what type of criminal records various immigrants bring with them when they come to the United States. One reason for this is that many countries do not track criminal records at the same level as the United States. An additional reason for this is that not all countries criminalize the same behavior. In fact, many immigrants who come to the United States seeking political asylum or as refugees are considered criminals in their countries of origin, but are not considered criminals by U.S. standards. Therefore, in order to determine rates of criminality, it is easier to look at the number of removals from the United States based on criminal behavior. For example, in fiscal year 2004, there were a total of 88,897 removals for criminal behavior. The largest category of removals was based on possession, dealing, or smuggling of dangerous drugs. The second largest category was immigration violations. However, many of the offenses were not victimless crimes.

Instead, more than 10% of removals were based on regular assaults, more than 5% on sexual assaults and other sexual offenses, and just fewer than 3% passed on family offenses like child abuse or domestic violence. While these numbers may appear alarming at first glance, it is important to keep in mind that removals include legal and illegal residents. Furthermore, removals account for less than 1% of the total legal immigrant population each year. Therefore, the fact that 5% of removals occurred because of sexual assault does not mean that 5% of immigrants engage in sexual assault, but actually indicates a conviction rate of less than 1%.

The educational picture for immigrants is not promising. While immigrants are more likely than natives to have an advanced degree, immigrants are also less likely to be high-school graduates. The educational distribution does vary among country of origin, because immigrants from certain countries are more likely to be coming to the U.S. For educational purposes than immigrants from other countries. For example, non-Hispanic immigrants do the best in regards to education. However, Hispanic immigrants see the most intergenerational improvement. Furthermore, the fact that many immigrants come to the U.S. without a high school diploma or its equivalent, and that their children may not graduate from high school, does not mean that these immigrants are doomed to economic failure. On the contrary, "low-skilled immigrants still outperform native dropouts in the labor market. Low-skilled male immigrants are more likely to work, as seen in their higher labor force participation rates, and are less likely to be unemployed." In fact, within a relatively short period of time, immigrants surpass natives in terms of earning power.

It is difficult to measure the impact of immigration on the U.S. economy. Currently, there are over 500,000 unemployed Americans. In fiscal year 2005, more than that number of immigrants became legal residents of the United States for the purposes of employment. Therefore, it would seem as if the easy answer is that immigrants take jobs from Americans. A more in-depth explanation of those figures superficially supports that conclusion; while some immigrants have special skills, most end up employed in low-skill or unskilled labor positions, which could be filled by native workers. However, the answers are not quite that simple. Many advocates of increased immigration suggest that immigrants are willing to work in positions that non-immigrants refuse to take. In fact, that the United States is allowing low-skill and unskilled immigrants to immigrate, and that many of those immigrants find jobs, despite language and cultural barriers, supports the idea that immigrants are filling a job void. What is less certain is whether those immigrants, who are willing to take low-prestige, low-wage jobs, are depressing the national wage. Looking at the statistics gives a conflicting picture, however the fact that so many jobs are being outsourced suggests that American companies are looking to pay lower wages and will do so regardless of whether they can find people in the domestic workforce. In fact, increased immigration may actually help increase the GDP, because the United States may be able to regain its production position.

Of course, not all immigrants become employed. Even those that are employed are often in low paid position without benefits. Therefore, it becomes clear that immigration is going to have some impact on social welfare systems. First, it is true that legalized immigrants are required to pay taxes. What is less clear is whether their tax burden matches or exceeds the burden they place on other social systems, like education, welfare, and other aid systems. Contrary to expectations because of their high immigrant populations, Texas and California spend below the national average on K-12 education. Therefore, it would appear that immigration is not having a tremendous negative financial impact on education. However, if one were to compare quality of education with states with smaller immigrant populations, that conclusion may be proven false.

Compared to some other nations, the United States has a relatively generous immigration policy. For example, Mexico may not limit its number of immigrants in the same manner as the United States, but it greatly limits what type of work immigrants can do and also places income requirements on retiree immigrants. However, when compared to Germany, which has a large immigrant population, for example 1 in 10 births in Germany is to a foreigner, the United States immigration policies seem very strict. In comparison to the United States, Sweden has liberal family immigration policies, because they allow for the immigration of same-sex and opposite-sex unmarried romantic partners. Nigeria has relatively strict immigration requirements, and non-compliance with those requirements results in expulsion from the country and can result in refusal to readmit. Until recently, China had an extremely limited immigration policy. However, China recently made its immigration rules more favorable, because China is trying to attract skilled immigrants, and is even engaging in job development for the purpose of attracting foreign immigrants. Nevertheless, China's non-skilled immigrant policy is more restrictive than the United States'.

Works Cited

Country Studies. "Immigration." Germany. 2005. Countrystudies. 24 Jul. 2006 http://countrystudies.us/germany/89.htm.

Dougherty, Mary, Denise Wilson, and Amy Wu. "Immigration Enforcement Actions: 2004."

U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services Website. 2005. Office of Homeland Security. 24 Jul. 2006 http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/index.htm.

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. "Immigrant Assimilation: Is the U.S. Still a Melting Pot?"

Southwest Economy. 2004. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. 24 Jul. 2006 http://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2004/swe0403a.html.

Office of Immigration Statistics. "Legal Permanent Resident Flow by Gender, Age, Marital

Status, and Occupation: Fiscal Year 2005." U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services Website. 2006. Office of Homeland Security. 24 Jul. 2006 http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/2005/table08.xls.

Office of Immigration Statistics. "Legal Permanent Resident Flow by Region and Country of Birth: Fiscal Years 1996 to 2005." U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services Website. 2006. Office of Homeland Security. 24 Jul. 2006 http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/2005/table03.xls.

Office of Immigration Statistics. "Legal Permanent Resident Flow by State of Residence: Fiscal

Years 1996 to 2005." U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services Website. 2006. Office of Homeland Security. 24 Jul. 2006 http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/2005/table04.xls.

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