AMST 3113W: Americas Diverse Cultures

Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

Impacts of Immigration on the US

By Sokunthearith Makara

Immigration is defined as the movement of people into another nation or area other than ones place of birth with the intention of permanent residence. Immigration is made for many reasons simply put into two categoriespush and pull factors. The push factors are those that influence the decision to leave ones country and most likely are civil war, natural disasters, poverty, unemployment, lacks of individual freedom, pollution, etc., while the pull factors are those which attract people to come into a nation or a place, and those factors can be employment opportunities, better social services including education and healthcare, family re-unification, better living standards, peace, better level of freedom, and more (Migration in an Interconnected World: New Directions for Action 11). In the United States, the immigration has been seen occurring since the colonial era as early as 17th century exclusively from Western Europe. Data presented in the article Immigration to the United States by Raymond L. Cohn, Illinois State University, can be used as the means to describe the trend of immigrant to the US. According to this data, it is apparent that the volume of immigration and its rate relative to the U.S. population varied over time. Immigration was relatively small until the 1840s when it rose substantially. The volume passed 200,000 for the first time in 1847 and the period between 1847 and 1854 saw the highest rate of immigration in U.S. history. From the level reached between 1847 and 1854, volume decreased and increased over time through 1930. For the period from 1847 through 1930, the average yearly volume was 434,000. During these years, immigrant

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AMST 3113W: Americas Diverse Cultures

Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

volume peaked between 1900 and 1914, when an average of almost 900,000 immigrants arrived in the United States each year. The article does not tell the recent annual immigration rate; however, based on the official statistics from Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the annual immigration rate is between 1.1 and 1.3 million in fiscal year 2005-2006. Although the United States has been shaped by successive waves of immigrants, Americans have often viewed immigration as a problem. It has been widely accepted that four centuries of immigration have profoundly affected the culture and society of the United States. However, the immigration affects more than just culture and society of the US. The purpose of this paper is therefore to demonstrate how the immigration negatively impacts the US from the points of view of economy, environment, culture, crime rate and social orders, education and health services.

Firstly, let us have a look at the negative effects of the immigration on US economy. Obviously, with the influx of immigration, employment and productivity in the US are affected. Those who argue against immigration pessimistically view immigration as one of the reasons depleting job opportunities of the American-born workers, which leaves many American-born workers unemployed and reduces their earnings. The study of Professors George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of Harvard University proves this argument to be true. His research concluded that between 1980 and 2000, when immigration increased the labor supply of working men by 11 percent in the United States, that influx reduced the average annual wage of native workers by around 3.2 percent. The wage reductions, according to this research, varied significantly depending on the educational level of the worker: a decline of 8.9 percent for high school dropouts, 4.9 percent for college graduates,

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AMST 3113W: Americas Diverse Cultures

Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

2.6 percent for high school graduates, and little change for workers with some college (Borja 133574). This figure shows that the immigration seriously affects the unskilled native workers compared to other workers with higher education and qualification. Another impact on US economy is the fact that immigrants use more in services than they pay in local taxes at the state and local level, which implies that immigrants are costly to American taxpayers. The National Academy of Sciences study found that the average immigrant imposes a net lifetime fiscal cost on state and local governments of $25,000, attributable to their use of schools, roads, and so on. Those with very low levels of education and skill cost states and localities the most, particularly in health care outlays for emergency room and other hospital services. (Anrig and Wang)

The addition of more than one million of immigrants per year to the US population has become the cause of some local environmental issues, the most concerning of which is the shortages of water supplies. Water shortage, which used to be limited to the dry western states, are now a problem throughout the US. Ground water is being pumped faster than it is being replenished. Underground aquifers, the source of about 60 percent of the U.S.'s fresh water, are being depleted, and surface water in lakes and rivers is endangered by our increasing population demands. Many towns are halting development because of a lack of affordable fresh water (Immigration & U.S. Water Supply). For example, in California the immigration continues to grow by more than half a million per year and is expected to reach 48 million in 2030 (Lewis). According to the California Department of Water Resources, if more supplies are not found by 2020, residents will face a water shortfall nearly as great as the amount consumed today. They predict that California will be short

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AMST 3113W: Americas Diverse Cultures

Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

between 2.4 million and 6 million acre-feet of water (an acre-foot is about enough water to supply two typical families for a year) by 2020 (Sweeney). The water shortage is equally a serious issue in Florida although it has hundreds of lakes and wetlands, sits atop enormous underground aquifers, and receives more than 50 inches of rainfall a year ("Precious Water is Overused, Undervalued and Abused"). As the states population increases, motivated by immigration, it is forecast that the water use will increase 30 percent between 1995 and 2020. Central Florida will run out of water in five years unless population growth slows or new water sources are discovered, and the area's water management district warns that its rivers, lakes, and streams will begin to dry up permanently (Campbell and Sargent). In New Jersey, the State Plan, a blueprint for managing population growth, noted that it needs to spend $2 billion to patch leaks and clean up contamination in the water system; it could cost another $3.3 billion to accommodate population growth during the next 20 years. And by 2040, the state expects water use to rise by nearly 80 percent (Nussbaum). However, the environmental impacts of immigration is not limited only to the water shortages. Various impacts are noted as the population grows significantly. Those impacts can be the increase of energy consumption, noise pollution, air pollutions as well as the degradation of the city beauty.

Immigration is also thought to be responsible for nations crime and some social disorders. Although the data proving the correlation between crime rates and immigrants are limited and somewhat ambiguous, it is concluded that more or less the crime rate and immigrants are related.

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AMST 3113W: Americas Diverse Cultures

Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

Undoubtedly the most salient questions involve the issue of whether immigration increases crime. Of course, in an absolute sense, it probably does. Immigration brings more people into the country, and unless this process is counterbalanced by emigration, the absolute volume of crime will very likely increase. In addition, immigrants are often disproportionately male and at early ages of labor market entry and advancement. Because young males are disproportionately likely to be involved in crime in all parts of the world that we know about, this may also contribute to increases in crime (Hirschi and Gottfredson). Many studies have been done. Some tried to prove this relation by the proportionality of crime and immigration rates. For instance, in 1970s and 1980s saw the rise of crime rate along with immigration levels, while since the early 1990s the crime rate decreased in conjunction with the reduced immigration rate (Camarota and Vaughan). Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that immigrants comprise between 20 to 25 percent of inmates in prisons and jails. And a 2009 analysis by the Department of Homeland Securitys Office of Immigration Statistics found that crime rates were higher in metropolitan areas that received large numbers of legal immigrants, compared to the old cities (Camarota and Vaughan). More importantly, racist thinking among and between minority groups, which provokes conflicts, does occur; (The black-Latino blame game) examples of this are conflicts between blacks and Korean immigrants, notably in the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, and between African Americans and non-white Latino immigrants. (Riot Breaks Out At Calif. High School, Melee Involving 500 People Erupts At Southern California School) There has been a long running racial tension between African American and Mexican prison gangs, as well as significant riots in California prisons where they have targeted each other, for ethnic reasons (Hibbitts). There have been reports of racially motivated attacks against African Americans who have moved into neighborhoods

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AMST 3113W: Americas Diverse Cultures

Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

occupied mostly by people of Mexican origin, and vice versa. There has also been an increase in violence between non-Hispanic Anglo Americans and Latino immigrants, and between African immigrants and African Americans (African immigrants face bias from blacks).

As mentioned previously in the introduction of the paper, immigration greatly affects the existing culture of the US. In Mass Immigration: Its Effects on Our Culture (2002) Lawrence Auster believes that the rapid influx of immigrants into America has damaging effects on the nations existing culture. Ever since the establishment of the US Immigration Act in 1965, America is being opened up to an arrival of people of a variety of backgrounds, causing it to become redefined as a multicultural society rather than as a nation. Firstly, he claims that it is dangerousinflux of thousands from variable, and perhaps questionable, background might endanger America. Principally placed in a position of potential vulnerability, especially in view of the violent militant Islamic movement, America is at risk. Secondly, he expresses concerns that little by little, erosion of American culture is occurring, and replaced by one that belongs to its immigrants, posing threat to national identity. Thirdly, he put forward that the American notion of everyone being same underneath his skin, or non-discrimination of other races and nations, has caused mass immigration. He further states that this would result in multiculturalism, and the scarcity of the American America.

In the standpoint of health, there have been a lot of disputes about how much immigration is costing the United States public health system. The non-emergency use of emergency

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Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

rooms ostensibly indicates an incapacity to pay, yet some studies allege disproportionately lower access to unpaid health care by immigrants. (Brown, Richard, et al. 225-247) Immigration from areas of high incidences of disease is thought to have fueled the resurgence of tuberculosis (TB), chagas, and hepatitis in areas of low incidence (National Institutes of Health). According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), TB cases among foreign-born individuals remain disproportionately high, at nearly nine times the rate of U.S.-born persons.

Education-wise, immigration is deemed to be accountable for the decrease of white students enrollment in public schools. In the article Immigration, ethnicity, and the loss of white students from California public schools, 1999-2000, Hook et al. conclude that white enrollment declined in response to increases in the number of Spanish-speaking limited English proficient (LEP) and Hispanic students, and that white flight from LEP or Hispanic students occurred more at the district than the school level in the case of primary schools, and at the school level for secondary schools. In addition, schools with higher percentages of Spanish LEP students in the school than the district, and with higher percentages in the district relative to the county, experienced greater losses in white enrollments than other schools, thus suggesting that higher levels of segregation in the wider metropolitan area accelerate white flight.

In the nutshells, sufficient evidences from various studies, which have been abovementioned, have proved that immigration both legal and illegal does have negative impacts on the US in terms of economy, economy, environment, culture, crime rate and social

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Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

orders, education and health services These impacts are more or less retarding the development of the US. For instance, the government will have to spend some of the nation or state revenue on the reformations or the development of the public education and public health services to meet the needs of immigrants. It might have to deal with some issues like water shortages, pollutions, crimes and social orders. However, it cannot be concluded whether or not should the US reduce the influx of immigrants. The US, which is called the nation of immigrants, have been depending largely on the immigrants. Further studies on positive impacts of immigration on the US need to done to further discuss and balance the impacts.

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Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

Reference
Global Commission on International Migration, Migration in an Interconnected World: New Directions for Action, (2005) p. 11 Raymond L. Cohn, Immigration to the United States. 2010. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/cohn.immigration.us> Department of Homeland Security, 2010 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. 2011. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/yearbook/2010/ois_yb_2010.pdf> Greg Anrig, Tova A. Wang, Immigration, Jobs, and the American Economy. 2004. 21 December 2012 <http://tcf.org/publications/2004/9/pb491#9> George J. Borjas, The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 2003, pp. 1335s74. "Precious Water is Overused, Undervalued and Abused," Tampa Tribune, November 26, 2001. Immigration & U. S. Water Supply Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). 2003. 10 Nov. 2011. <http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters1 9af#_edn8> Mike Lewis, "Long-Term Water Crisis Predicted," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 10, 2001. Kathleen Sweeney, "California Water Officials Plan for Future Droughts," Daily News of Los Angeles, January 27, 2002. Alex Nussbaum, "Officials Float Ideas on How New Jersey Can Avert Water-Supply Crisis," The Record, November 7, 2002. Hook, J.; Snyder, J. (2007). "Immigration, ethnicity, and the loss of white students from California public schools, 19902000". Population Research and Policy Review 26 (3): 259277 Lawrence Auster, Mass Immigration: Its Effects on Our Culture, 2002. 11 Dec. 2011. <http://www.mnforsustain.org/auster_l_mass_immigration_effect_on_culture.htm> Brown, Richard, et al. "Access to Health Insurance and Health Care for Mexican

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Final Paper: Impacts of Immigration on the US

American Children in Immigrant Families" 1998. In Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco, ed. Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Cambridge, Mass.: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and Harvard University Press pages 225-247 Steven A. Camarota, Jessica Vaughan, Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Conflicted Issue 2004. 10 Dec. 2011. <http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters1 9af#_edn8>

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