Immigration Reform

In 2014 almost 738,000 non-citizens received Supplemental Security Income, SSI, a welfare program, up from 128,000 in 2002; a 580% increase in just twelve years. Population increase can explain some of the growth, but not nearly all of it. The largest contributor to the jump is the elderly sub-group of immigrants. In the current United States immigration policy, many elderly immigrants are allowed into the country if they have family here that will sponsor them. The law requires the family to support their elderly relatives for a period of three to five years. After that time, the elderly immigrants are entitled to US welfare programs. In contrast, it has

The last 10 years of U.S. economy can be seen by the impact of immigrant reform in different scenarios. In 2013, undocumented immigrants have been granted legal status; citizenship has helped to increase the U.S. GDP and would accumulate by an additional $1.4 trillion compared to the 10 years in between the 2013 to 2022. This earning will give a chance for the Americans some additional earnings of $791 billion at the same period as a personal income, in which the economy would create job opportunities, about 203,000 new jobs per year. In these years the undocumented immigrants will earn about 25.1 percent more than the current earnings of the immigrants. These earnings show that they will be contributing significantly to the federal, local, and state taxes which will add to tax revenue in 10 years with $185 billion to $116 billion for the USA federal government as well as $68 billion to the state and local government (Stuart Anderson,2011).

Third World immigration into the U.S. has not produced a highly skilled labor force, as the above statistics show. Instead, the U.S. labor pool has become flooded with low level, menial laborers, whose desperation for work of any sort has undercut the wages paid at the lower end of the labor market, which in turn made it more difficult for native born American citizens to escape poverty. An estimated 1,880,000 American workers are displaced from their jobs every year by immigration. The cost for providing welfare and assistance to these Americans is over $15 billion a year. (Associated Press, 1997)

At the time the bill was going through Congress was controlled by Democrats while the White House was Republican (Wiener, 2013). President Bush hoped that a moderate approach would finally allow immigration reform to pass (Weiner, 2013). While the bill was being debated 63% of Americans, almost identical numbers from both parties, favored a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that passed background checks, had jobs and were willing to pay fines (Heimlich, 2007). With the War in Iraq lowering President Bush’s approval every year he needed a win in the legislative department and with over 50% of voters at the time saying that immigration reform was needed within the year it was clear he needed to back a plan (Heimlich, 2007).

The immigration is an important phenomenon that exists throughout human history and the United States of America is not an exception of this “rule”. People leave their motherland to travel to different continent, country, island or state for many different reasons. Among these reasons (business, education, asylum and so on) it is very important to highlight one of the most sensitive: the economic reason or the desire to find a better job/life in order to help their families. The USA is usually considered a country the tradition of immigrants. Due to the fact that The United States of America rank the top five most rich and developed countries in the world, the flow of immigrants has been growing considerably. However, beside the millions of legal immigrants there are millions of illegal immigrants target as a struggle of the economy and a ruin of the middle class.

According to a study by the Center for Immigration by the title Immigrants in the United States based on census of 2014 and 2015 show that 21 percent of immigrants and their children lived in poverty compared to 13% of the natives and their children. The report has also showed that18% of immigrants and their US born children lacked health insurance compared to 9% of the natives and their

In 1990 there was an economic recession that hit the country that accompanied a resurgence of anti-immigrant feeling that included lower-income Americans competing for their jobs with the immigrants that were willing to work for lower wages. Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996, which addressed border enforcement and the use of social programs by immigrants. In 2002 the Homeland Security Act was created which took over many Immigration service and enforcement functions formerly performed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In the year of 2012 there were 40 million immigrants residing in the U.S. slightly less than half were naturalized U.S. citizens. There were an estimate of 11.2 million illegal immigrants in America. Majority of illegal immigrants are Latino primarily from Mexico or Central America, however, there are also illegal Asians, South Americans, Europeans and Canadians even the Caribbean. Since 2009 the numbers of the illegal immigrants have stayed the same all the way up to 2012. Illegal immigrants peaked at 12.2 million in 2007 when the group was 4% of

What is Immigration Reform? I guess I can start off by telling you the definition of Immigration itself. Immigration is the movement of people into a destination country which they are not natives of or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle or reside there. Now what does that have to do with Immigration Reform? The answer to that would be a lot. Immigration Reform is a term used in political discussion regarding changes to current immigration policy of a country. In its strict definition, "reform" means to change into an improved form or condition, by amending or removing faults or abuses. In the political sense, "immigration reform" may include promoted, expanded, or open immigration, as well as reduced or eliminated immigration.

In this paper I will discuss how the United States needs a new immigration policy that is based less on wishful thinking and more on realism. Spending vast sums of money trying to enforce arbitrary numerical limits on immigration that bear no relationship to economic reality is a fool’s errand. We need flexible limits on immigration that rise and fall with U.S. labor demand, coupled with strict enforcement of tough wage and labor laws that protect all workers, regardless of where they were born. We need to respect the natural human desire for family reunification, while recognizing that even family-based immigrants are unlikely to come here if jobs are not available. And we need to

The Federation of American Immigration Reform is a non-profit organization that oppose all illegal immigration in United States and advocating limited legal immigration from 1 million to 300,000 a year.

Immigration has been a major issue in the United States, especially after the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 was passed. Once the act became a law, the immigration flow increased. Most of the immigration was from people crossing the border that splits Mexico and the United States. The Democrats and Republicans have fairly different views on this issue. The Republican Party believes that a system should be put in place to ensure that illegal immigrants do not receive the same benefits as people who have always been in the United States legally. Although, the party does not completely agree on how extreme the system should be. One thing most Republicans do agree on is that giving illegal immigrants amnesty only encourages immigration and puts the safety of American citizens at risk.

Illegal immigrants help boost the United States economy by paying some taxes. Like American citizens, illegal immigrants may pay local, state, and federal taxes including sales tax that helps support government services that they may not be able to access (Ewing 9). Since more American citizens are becoming aware of the benefits of an education, openings are being created for illegal immigrants in low paying jobs (Nadadur 1037-1052). Americans, unlike illegal immigrants, have more diverse careers. Aliens are more concentrated in specific job areas, resulting in a decrease in immigrant labor cost. This helps boost the United States’ economy (Carter 777-795). Of the approximate eleven million illegal immigrants in the U.S., most work in labor intensive jobs. Careers such as construction and agriculture tend to attract illegal aliens and they account for about twenty-five percent of the work force in these areas (Ewing 9). Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve admits that illegal immigrants help improve the United States economy and does not suggest turning them away (qtd. in Quindlen 90). Anna Quindlen, in her article “Newcomers By Numbers,” agrees with Bernanke and believes that immigrants are the factor that helps keep prices low. She also adds that immigrants are not causing American citizens unemployment, but are simply taking the low wage jobs that citizens are not willing to do and even boosting the economy (90).

The American issue of immigration reform concerns the changing of the immigration policies in order to improve them and remove their flaws.

Unfortunately, welfare reform is a very difficult issue that faces this country, as is immigration. The political and social implications of welfare reform have yet to become organized in a way that benefits the maximum number of people with the littlest drain on our nation's economy. In 1980, the U.S. Census Bureau concluded that non-native immigrant households received 8.8 percent of government welfare, while about 7.9 percent of native American households received the same type of aid. (3) The difference between these two statistics proves that a there is no valid argument against the so called "drain" or "consumption" of U.S. government aid by immigrants. Although this does conclude that immigrant families do receive more federal funding, the infinitesimal amount of .9 percent difference is scarcely enough evidence to establish this prejudice against foreign cultures. More importantly, the distributions of

For decades immigrants to America were sure of two things. They came for the opportunity to build a better life for their families and they would not seek nor would they accept a handout. The drive and attitude of immigrants who came to America during the nineteen twenties through the nineteen sixties built strong work ethics that created our now famous American melting pot. But for the past thirty years a runaway welfare state has poisoned our good intentions. Well meaning but misguided entitlement programs gave billions of dollars in free handouts to a deluge of new immigrants as the floodgates opened and annual immigration levels more than tripled. The effects of this mass migration