Essay About Immigration

Should There Be Stronger Limits on Immigration?

Introduction

The current issue of immigration raises various essential questions that are both positive and negative. During many years a great number of immigrants had been moving to the United States, and according to the U.S. Census, in 1990, the overall number of immigrants was represented by the account of twenty-eight million (Lopez 1). Furthermore, after fourteen years, the number increased to the figure of twenty-three million people. A great part of American people complain about overpopulation, loss of jobs and cultural identity which leads to inequality while another part appeals to historical background and understanding. Considering the mentioned above issues, I am going to focus on the main problems associated with the notion of immigration and the main cons and pros of it and their consequences as well.

Immigration and Inequality

The first important issue to consider is inequality. It is a well-known fact that in certain countries big companies prefer to hire foreign workers instead of domestic ones because of the lower salary payment. As a result, an unemployment rate raises among the local people. For instance, such a corporation as Disney World US fired two hundred fifty local people and hired a lot of immigrants that were brought in on H-1B visas (Lopez 1). Locals were resentful and felt unequal in comparison with foreign workers. Do not you think that those local workers deserved to work in the same conditions and were mistreated according to their talents and abilities, and who became jobless for no valuable reason? Nevertheless, it is necessary to point out that in some cases immigrants do the jobs, native workers do not wish to do, like some dirty, dangerous, or difficult work, and in such cases, we cannot blame on unemployment.

Immigration and the Loss of Cultural Identity

The next issue is a loss of cultural identity. Immigration has always been a controversial issue in the United States. Just to remember, two centuries ago Benjamin Franklin worried that too many German immigrants would devour the predominantly British culture of America. In the middle of 1800s, Irish immigrants were despised as lazy drunkards and let’s not mention Catholics. At the beginning of a new century, the inflow of “new immigrants,” like Russian Jews, Italians, Poles, and so on were considered too different to assimilate into American life. Nowadays, the same issue arises about immigrants from Asia and Latin America. Yet, the current immigration critics are believed to be as wrong as their counterparts from the previous eras. However, if to consider this issue from another point of view, it can be said that for many decades, the immigrants with their families had played a vital role in the workforce and economy of the United States in general. Despite this fact, the modern immigration system suppresses the contribution of immigrants and retains significant benefits from the American workers (Lopez 1). Personally, my opinion is that each country, not just America, has its own beliefs and traditions, and an overload of immigrants that every time comes to another country means that they all bring their own beliefs and traditions that are very different from the local ones. Hence, the countries with numerous immigrants will become a kind of “salad” rather than a well-developed joined country that has its own culture and heritage. It is evident that not all of the foreigners come for the better conscious life.

The Problem of Overpopulation

One more critical issue to consider is overpopulation. It is one of the major reasons why the UK chose to quit from the European Union. Definitely, when there is a great inflow of the foreigners, it means that the country needs to share the same amount of resources between more people (Lopez 1). That is why the overall development of Great Britain slowed down, and the major part of the population – 51.9% – voted for Brexit (BBC News 1). Some people claim that the biggest problem is not about the immigration itself but about illegal immigration which negatively affects American society. Indeed, along with the unlawful immigration violence comes and this is a valuable reason to worry. There is information also that there are 1,073 – 6,409 HIV positive immigrants are let in every year in America. Due to this fact, thousands of people getting infected every day, sometimes people are not even aware of being infected. America is in the top list of countries with the highest number of people infected with HIV, and this is of what the Government should be afraid.

Conclusion

For the conclusion, I would like to say that immigration restrictions are rather costly in themselves, and what is more, they are not entirely effective. Besides, need to take into account that in this world of immigration restriction there is still a demand for the work of foreigners coming illegally. Despite all this, I believe that when people talk about immigration, they should keep in mind the things they need and want to do, and not concentrate on the opinions of other people. We all need to continue learning, developing, and believing because it is an excellent America that was built by immigrants.

Works Cited

“Article 50: Theresa May to trigger the Brexit process.” BBC News. 20 March 2017. Web. 29 Sep. 2017.
Lopez, E. “Should there be stronger limits on immigration?” Prezi Company. 6 December 2014. Web. 29 Sep. 2017.