Current Immigration laws and oppinions of many americans

The United States admits approximately 900,000 legal immigrants every year, and annual immigration is swelled by another 300,000 people who illegally cross the borders of the United States. The Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates that about 5 million illegal aliens currently reside in the United States. Both legal and illegal immigrants contribute to dramatic changes in the racial, ethnic, and cultural composition of the country. Some U.S. citizens think that immigrants have revitalized many American cities, but in certain communities there has been a backlash against the growing presence of immigrants.

The 1996 Immigration Act is the most extensive immigration legislation passed by Congress in a decade. Focusing on the problem of illegal immigration, this law seeks to reduce the number of Mexican laborers crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in search of work. The new legislation doubles the border control force to 10,000 agents over five years and adds fences to the most heavily trafficked areas of the U.S.-Mexico border. It also includes a pilot program to check the immigration status of job applicants. However, the bill does not address the problem of illegal immigrants who gain entry into the United States with student or temporary work visas and then stay in the country after their visas have expired.

Many Americans support these restrictions on immigration because they think that illegal immigrants take low-skilled jobs away from American citizens. Some also contend that the average wages of Americans without a high school degree have fallen because of competition with newly arrived immigrants who frequently work for less money. However, opponents of restrictions maintain that immigrants actually help the American economy by working diligently and by filling low-wage positions that many others find undesirable. They state that the average American citizen benefits from a healthier economy and lower prices on goods and services due to the influx of cheap labor.

Although most Americans agree that illegal immigration is to some extent a problem, many oppose denying social services to undocumented aliens and their families. They argue that such laws will not discourage illegal immigration because they believe that foreigners come to the United States to work, not to collect benefits. Opponents also point to studies indicating that illegal immigrants rely on social benefits in the same proportions as other Americans, and believe that preventing immigrants from receiving medical care and education will worsen the problem of low-income neighborhoods in cities across the country.

Mexican Workforce in the united states

The population of Mexican-born persons residing in the United States has increased at an unprecedented rate in recent decades. This increase can be attributed to both legal and illegal immigration. During the entire decade of the 1950s, only about 300,000 legal Mexican immigrants entered the United States, making up 12 percent of the immigrant flow. In the 1990s, 2.2 million Mexicans entered the United States legally, making up almost 25 percent of the legal flow, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

In addition, there were seven million illegal aliens residing in the United States as of January 2000, with 4.8 million (68 percent) being of Mexican origin. As a result of the increase in the number of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants, nearly 9.2 million Mexican-born persons resided in the United States in 2000, comprising about 29.5 percent of the foreign-born population.

todays work force in the U.S

the work force in the united states is apparently getting older, which brings up the whole issue with social security. "An analysis of data from the U.S. Census Department shows that the employed work force in southwestern Pennsylvania is slowly getting older. The percentage of the region's jobs held by 45- to 64-year-old workers appears to be rising, while the percentage of jobs held by 25- to 44-year-old workers appears to be falling. Comparing the age distribution of the Pittsburgh region's work force to the average age distribution of the seven peer regions provides a striking perspective on the work force pipeline. Southwestern Pennsylvania has a "50/50 Problem": the region has 50,000 more older workers and 50,000 fewer younger workers than its average peer.As these older workers retire during the next two decades, our work force will be younger, but it will be smaller, unless we can rejuvenate our work-force pipeline or uncover other solutions. Since the region lacks in-migration and natural population growth, we will not be able to maintain our current economy without more (and younger) workers. On a positive note, the possibility of tens of thousands of job openings creates opportunities for younger workers and provides more depth in the job market and more prospects for career advancement. These opportunities can be drivers of economic growth that will attract talented workers to the region.

New Jersey has the nation's second-highest percentage of engineering and technology companies founded by immigrants, according to a study released today on the effect of skilled immigrants on the U.S. economy.Nearly 38 percent of engineering and technology companies in New Jersey have immigrant founders. Only California, with nearly 39 percent, had a higher rate. Among the immigrant-founded startups in New Jersey, Indians were the key founders of 47 percent, the study found.Rajeev Thadani, a former computer programmer and technology consultant who owns a medical billing company in Glen Rock, said that fluency in English may play a key role in the high success rate of Indian entrepreneurs. "The fact that I knew English when I came here gave me a large advantage," Thadani said.Immigrants have become a driving force in technology and engineering nationwide, with a quarter of companies in those fields claiming at least one foreign-born founder, according to the study, which was based on data from 1995 to 2005 and was conducted by researchers at Duke University and the University of California at Berkeley.Indian immigrants play a particularly major role among high-tech entrepreneurs, accounting for 26 percent of all immigrant-founded businesses, according to the study, "America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs." That outpaces the next largest groups of founders, who are from the United Kingdom, China and Taiwan.
Other findings in the study were:
--Immigrant-founded companies produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005.--Some immigrant groups showed a tendency to start businesses in a particular state. For example, 81 percent of businesses founded by Taiwanese immigrants were in California. Meanwhile, large numbers of Israeli, German and British high-tech entrepreneurs have settled in Massachusetts.
--Immigrant business founders were more heavily concentrated in the semiconductor, computer and software industries than in other engineering and technology fields.
--Silicon Valley continues to attract more foreign-born scientists and engineers than any other region. In 2000, 53 percent of Silicon Valley's science and engineering workforce was foreign-born.

Harvard economist George Borjas, in a 2004 study, said, "The 10 million native-born workers without a high school degree face the most competition from immigrants, as do the eight million younger natives with only a high school education and 12 million younger college graduates."But other economists, such as David Card at the University of California at Berkeley, dissent from the view that immigrant workers have a dire effect on the incomes of less educated native-born ones. "It's quite possible that unskilled immigration is having some negative effect on unskilled natives. The question is: How big is the effect? Has it reduced native wages by 20 percent, or has it reduced their wages a couple of percent?" Card asked in an interview published by the journal of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis last month."The best available evidence is the effect is on the order of a couple of percents nationwide over 25 years, and possibly a little bigger in certain local labor markets," Card said.He added that research suggests that "there are positive benefits for other workers, for consumers and for the economy as a whole."

Lawmakers and officials discuss illegal immigration; The Duma hosted a roundtable conference on illegal immigration yesterday. Duma members considered ways of making the lives of illegal immigrants and their employers in Russia difficult enough to slow down the influx. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky proposed imprisoning illegal immigrants.


Among the report's findings:
-- Births to unmarried women have increased dramatically. From 13 percent
in 1980 for immigrant mothers (legal and illegal) to 32 percent in
2003, and from 19 to 35 percent for native-born mothers.
-- The rate for immigrants is higher than for natives in Arizona, New
Jersey, New York, and North Carolina.
-- The modest nationwide difference disappears when teenagers, who have
the highest illegitimacy rates, are excluded. There are relatively few
immigrant teenagers because immigrants tend to arrive older. Without
teenagers, the rate is about 30 percent for both immigrants and
natives.
-- Hispanic immigrants have seen the largest increase in illegitimacy --
from 19 percent in 1980 to 42 percent in 2003. This matters because 59
percent of all births to immigrants are to Hispanics.
-- In addition to the 42 percent rate for Hispanic immigrants, 39 percent
of births among black immigrants are to unmarried women, 11 percent
among Asian/Pacific Islander immigrants, and 12 percent among white
immigrants.
-- There is no indication of improvement over the generations. The
illegitimacy rate among the native-born is 50 percent for Hispanics; 30
percent for Asian/Pacific Islanders; and 24 percent for whites.
-- 2003 is the first time that the absolute number of illegitimate births
to Hispanic women (immigrant and native) outnumbered illegitimate
births to black women (immigrant and native).
-- Out-of-wedlock births are highest for those with the least education;
among immigrant mothers who lack a high school diploma, 45 percent of
births are illegitimate.
-- The country is currently debating whether to legalize illegal aliens
or, alternatively, to enforce the law and cause them to return home.
Since 60 percent of illegals lack a high school diploma and 80 percent
are Hispanic, legalization would likely contribute to the illegitimacy
problem by enabling illegal aliens to remain in the United States.

Immigrant Myths and Facts

Myth: Immigrants don't pay taxes

• Immigrants pay taxes, in the form of income, property, sales, and taxes at the federal and state level. As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes. Undocumented immigrants pay income taxes as well, as evidenced by the Social Security Administration's "suspense file" (taxes that cannot be matched to workers' names and social security numbers), which grew by $20 billion between 1990 and 1998.

Myth: Immigrants come here to take welfare

• Immigrants come to work and reunite with family members. Immigrant labor force participation is consistently higher than native-born, and immigrant workers make up a larger share of the U.S. labor force (12.4%) than they do the U.S. population (11.5%). Moreover, the ratio between immigrant use of public benefits and the amount of taxes they pay is consistently favorable to the U.S. In one estimate, immigrants earn about $240 billion a year, pay about $90 billion a year in taxes, and use about $5 billion in public benefits. In another cut of the data, immigrant tax payments total $20 to $30 billion more than the amount of government services they use.

Myth: Immigrants send all their money back to their home countries

• In addition to the consumer spending of immigrant households, immigrants and their businesses contribute $162 billion in tax revenue to U.S. federal, state, and local governments. While it is true that immigrants remit billions of dollars a year to their home countries, this is one of the most targeted and effective forms of direct foreign investment.

"I estimate that immigrants and other foreign workers are bringing about $200 billion of human capital into the country annually. That substantially compensates for the large trade deficit. Numbers like these are raw and noncontextual. There are huge costs for any country facing mass immigration ~ especially if much of it is illegal. Business leaders may revel in the extra income, but many poorer areas face depressing social problems for people who are already on the edge. In a country like the UK which has 10 times the population density of the US, the problems are acute, particularly for the already disadvantaged. This was a big issue at last week's General Election.
From what I understand as a student of economics, having a trade deficit isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. It shows that there is an influx of capital. Looking at China, with its massive trade surlpus, it seems that a surplus means you're dependent upon external markets for your products. In that respect, having such a healthy and powerful economy that it actually needs to consume lots of foreign goods seems to be a good sign. Although trade deficit CAN become debt, it isn't inherently debt in and of itself.
I'd love to hear your response to this claim, if you're willing to engage it. I've heard a lot of mainstream press worried about the deficit, but most economists and independent bloggers don't seem to agree. The truth of the matter is sorely needed." economist Michael Mandel.

Immigrant questions

The US should no tenforce its immigration laws because without immigrants, the US economy would suffer.
How important are immigrants to the work force in the US? Mainly what type of jobs do immigrants take that is so beneficial or detrimental to the economy? How would tighter immigrant laws effect the economy? How have immigrants effected the economy in the past? Why have immigrants become such a problem today that the government feels they should improve their immigration laws? What has happened in recent years that influenced the governments decision to change its imigration laws?