Effects of immigration
Demographics
The Census Bureau estimates the US population will grow from 281 million in 2000 to 397 million in 2050 with immigration, but only to 328 million with no immigration.[66] A new report from the Pew Research Center projects that by 2050, non-Hispanic whites will account for 47% of the population, down from the 2005 figure of 67%.[67] Non-Hispanic whites made up 85% of the population in 1960.[68] It also foresees the Hispanic population rising from 14% in 2005 to 29% by 2050.[69] The Asian population is expected to more than triple by 2050. Overall, the population of the United States is due to rise from 296 million in 2005 to 438 million in 2050, with 82% of the increase from immigrants.[70]In 35 of the country's 50 largest cities, non-Hispanic whites were at the last census or are predicted to be in the minority.[71] In California, non-Hispanic whites slipped from 80% of the state's population in 1970 to 42.3% in 2008.[72][73]
Economic
In a late 1980s study, economists overwhelmingly viewed immigration, including illegal immigration, as a positive for the economy.[74] According to James Smith, a senior economist at Santa Monica-based RAND Corporation and lead author of the United States National Research Council's study "The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration", immigrants contribute as much as $10 billion to the U.S. economy each year.[75] The NRC report found that although immigrants, especially those from Latin America, caused a net loss in terms of taxes paid versus social services received, overall immigration was a net economic gain due to an increase in pay for higher-skilled workers, lower prices for goods and services produced by immigrant labor, and more efficiency and lower wages for some owners of capital. The report also notes that although immigrant workers compete with domestic workers for low-skilled jobs, some immigrants specialize in activities that otherwise would not exist in an area, and thus can be beneficial for all domestic residents.[76] About twenty-one million immigrants, or about fifteen percent of the labor force, hold jobs in the United States; however, the number of unemployed is only seven million, meaning that immigrant workers are not taking jobs from domestic workers, but rather are doing jobs that would not have existed had the immigrant workers not been in the United States.[77] U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Business Owners: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2002 indicated that the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States grew to nearly 1.6 million in 2002. Those businesses generated about $222 billion in revenue.[78] The report notes that the burden of poor immigrants is not born equally among states, and is most heavy in California.[79] Another claim supporting expanding immigration levels is that immigrants mostly do jobs Americans do not want. A 2006 Pew Hispanic Center report added evidence to support this claim, when they found that increasing immigration levels have not hurt employment prospects for American workers.[80]In 2009, a study by the Cato Institute, a free market think tank, found that legalization of low-skilled illegal resident workers in the US would result in a net increase in US GDP of $180 billion over ten years.[81] Jason Riley notes that because of progressive income taxation, in which the top 1% of earners pay 37% of federal income taxes (even though they actually pay a lower tax percentage based on their income), 60% of Americans collect more in government services than they pay in, which also reflects on immigrants.[82] In any event, the typical immigrant and his children will pay a net $80,000 more in their lifetime than they collect in government services according to the NAS.[83]
The Kauffman Foundation’s index of entrepreneurial activity is nearly 40% higher for immigrants than for natives.[84] Immigrants were involved in the founding of many prominent American high-tech companies, such as Google, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, and eBay.[85]
The number of garment factories in Manhattan's Chinatown has fallen from 400 in 2000 to about 150 in 2005. Most of the garment industry has moved to China.[86]
On the poor end of the spectrum, the "New Americans" report found that low-wage immigration does not, on aggregate, lower the wages of most domestic workers. The report also addresses the question of if immigration affects black Americans differently from the population in general: "While some have suspected that blacks suffer disproportionately from the inflow of low-skilled immigrants, none of the available evidence suggests that they have been particularly hard-hit on a national level. Some have lost their jobs, especially in places where immigrants are concentrated. But the majority of blacks live elsewhere, and their economic fortunes are tied to other factors."[87]The analysis shows that 31% of adult immigrants have not completed high school. A third lack health insurance.[32] Robert Samuelson points out that poor immigrants strain public services such as local schools and health care. He points out that "from 2000 to 2006, 41 percent of the increase in people without health insurance occurred among Hispanics."[88] According to the immigration reduction advocacy group Center for Immigration Studies, 25.8% of Mexican immigrants live in poverty, which is more than double the rate for natives in 1999.[89] In another report, The Heritage Foundation notes that from 1990 to 2006, the number of poor Hispanics increased by 3.2 million, from 6 million to 9.2 million.[90]
Hispanic immigrants in the United States were hit hard by the subprime mortgage crisis. There was a disproportionate level of foreclosures in some immigrant neighborhoods.[91] The banking industry provided home loans to undocumented immigrants, viewing it as an untapped resource for growing their own revenue stream.[92] In October 2008, KFYI reported that according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, five million illegal immigrants held fraudulent home mortgages.[93] The story was later pulled from their website and replaced with a correction.[94] The Phoenix Business Journal cited a HUD spokesman saying that there was no basis to news reports that more than five million bad mortgages were held by illegal immigrants, and that the agency had no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages.[95] Thousand of federal government jobs has been created by immigrants to US, such as USCIS is 99% funded by immigrant application fees.The types of job includes interview immigraiton official,finger printer,etc.
Social
The largest mass lynching in American history involved the lynching of eleven Italians in New Orleans in 1891.
Benjamin Franklin opposed German immigration, stating that they would not assimilate into the culture.[96] Irish immigration was opposed in the 1850s by the nativist Know Nothing movement, originating in New York in 1843. It was engendered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by Irish Catholic immigrants. In 1891, a lynch mob stormed a local jail and hanged several Italians following the acquittal of several Sicilian immigrants alleged to be involved in the murder of New Orleans police chief David Hennessy. The Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924. The Immigration Act of 1924 was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s. Systematic bias against Japanese and German immigrants emerged during and after World War II. Irish and Jewish immigrants were popular targets early in the 20th century, and most recently, immigrants from Latin American countries are often viewed with hostility.[citation needed] Some Americans have not completely adjusted to the largely non-European immigration and racism does occur. After the September 11 attacks, many Middle-Eastern immigrants and those perceived to be of Middle-Eastern origins were targets of hate crimes.[citation needed]Racist thinking among and between minority groups does occur;[97][98] 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.[99][100] 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.[101][102] There have been reports of racially motivated attacks against African Americans who have moved into neighborhoods occupied mostly by people of Mexican origin, and vice versa.[103][104] There has also been an increase in violence between non-Hispanic Anglo Americans and Latino immigrants, and between African immigrants and African Americans.[105]
Political
Immigrants differ on their political views; however, the Democratic Party is considered to be in a far stronger position among immigrants overall.[106][107] Research shows that religious affiliation can also significantly impact both their social values and voting patterns of immigrants, as well as the broader American population. Hispanic evangelicals, for example, are more strongly conservative than non-Hispanic evangelicals.[108] This trend is often similar for Hispanics or others strongly identifying with the Catholic Church, a religion that strongly opposes abortion and gay marriage.Health
The issue of the health of immigrants and the associated cost to the public has been largely discussed. The non-emergency use of emergency rooms ostensibly indicates an incapacity to pay, yet some studies allege disproportionately lower access to unpaid health care by immigrants.[109] For this and other reasons, there have been various disputes about how much immigration is costing the United States public health system.[110] University of Maryland economist and Cato Institute scholar Julian Lincoln Simon concluded in 1995 that while immigrants probably pay more into the health system than they take out, this is not the case for elderly immigrants and refugees, who are more dependent on public services for survival.[111]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.[112] 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.[113][114] To reduce the risk of diseases in low-incidence areas, the main countermeasure has been the screening of immigrants on arrival.[115] HIV/AIDS entered the United States in around 1969, likely through a single infected immigrant from Haiti.[116][117] Conversely, many new HIV infections in Mexico can be traced back to the United States.[118] People infected with HIV were banned from entering the United States in 1987 by executive order, but the 1993 statute supporting the ban was lifted in 2009. The executive branch is expected to administratively remove HIV from the list of infectious diseases barring immigration, but immigrants generally would need to show that they would not be a burden on public welfare.[119] Researchers have also found what is known as the "healthy immigrant effect", in which immigrants in general tend to be healthier than individuals born in the U.S.[120][121]
Various researchers have criticized the position held by Simon and others that increased U.S. population growth is sustainable. David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, and Mario Giampietro, senior researcher at the National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition (INRAN), note in their study Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy at 200 million. To achieve a sustainable economy, the United States must reduce its population by at least one-third.[122][123]
Perceived heavy immigration, especially in the southwest, has led to some fears about population pressures on the water supply in some areas. California continues to grow by more than a half-million a year and is expected to reach 48 million in 2030.[124] 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.[125] Los Angeles is a coastal desert able to support at most one million people on its own water.[126] California is considering using desalination to solve this problem.[127]
Crime
Empirical studies on links between immigration and crime are mixed. Certain studies have suggested that immigrants are underrepresented in criminal statistics.[128] An Op-Ed in The New York Times by Harvard University Professor in Sociology Robert J. Sampson says that immigration of Hispanics may in fact be associated with decreased crime.[129] A 1999 paper by John Hagan and Alberto Palloni estimated that the involvement in crime by Hispanic immigrants are less than that of other citizens.[130]Native-born American men between 18-39 are five times more likely to be incarcerated than immigrants in the same demographic.[131] In a study released by the non-partisan research group The Public Policy Institute of California, immigrants were ten times less likely to be incarcerated than native born Americans.[132] In his 1999 book Crime and Immigrant Youth, sociologist Tony Waters writes that immigrants themselves are less likely to be arrested and incarcerated; he also noted, however, that the children of some immigrant groups are more likely to be arrested and incarcerated. This is a by-product of the strains that emerge between immigrant parents living in poor, inner city neighborhoods.[133] According to Bureau of Justice Statistics, for example, as of 2001, 4% of Hispanic males in their twenties and thirties were in prison or jail, compared to 1.8% of non-Hispanic white males. Hispanic men are almost four times as likely to go to prison at some point in their lives than non-Hispanic white males, although less likely than non-Hispanic African American males.[134] There was an estimated 30,000 street gangs and more than 800,000 gang members active in the U.S. in 2007, up from 731,500 in 2002. New immigrants are susceptible to gang influences and activities because of language barriers, employment difficulties, support, protection, and fear.[135][136][137][138]
Education
Forty percent of Ph.D. scientists working in the United States were born abroad, an example of brain drain.[84] Immigrant children have historically been greatly affected by cultural misunderstanding, language barriers, and feelings of isolation within the school atmosphere. More recently, however, immigrant children are finding a more welcoming school atmosphere.[citation needed] This does not undermine the difficulties immigrants face upon entering U.S. schools; immigrant children maintain their native tongue can leave them feeling disadvantaged within English speaking schools.[citation needed]Public opinion
| Group | Good | Bad[139] |
| English | 66% | 6% |
| Irish | 62% | 7% |
| Jews | 59% | 9% |
| Germans | 57% | 11% |
| Italians | 56% | 10% |
| Poles | 53% | 12% |
| Japanese | 47% | 18% |
| Blacks | 46% | 16% |
| Chinese | 44% | 19% |
| Mexicans | 25% | 34% |
| Koreans | 24% | 30% |
| Vietnamese | 20% | 38% |
| Puerto Ricans | 17% | 43% |
| Haitians | 10% | 39% |
| Cubans | 9% | 59% |
In a 2002 study, which took place soon after the September 11 attacks, 55% of Americans favored decreasing legal immigration, 27% favored keeping it at the same level, and 15% favored increasing it.[141]
In 2006, the immigration-reduction advocacy think tank the Center for Immigration Studies released a poll that found that 68% of Americans think U.S. immigration levels are too high, and just 2% said they are too low. They also found that 70% said they are less likely to vote for candidates that favor increasing legal immigration.[142] In 2004, 55% of Americans believed legal immigration should remain at the current level or increased and 41% said it should be decreased.[143] The less contact a native-born American has with immigrants, the more likely one would have a negative view of immigrants.[143]
One of the most important factors regarding public opinion about immigration is the level of unemployment; anti-immigrant sentiment is highest where unemployment is highest, and vice-versa.[144]
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