The Benefits and Costs of Immigration

During long time periods, the United States of America has been a place to the people, who were victims of totalitarian or authoritarian states in the whole world. Despite the many positive aspects of immigration, it has caused more and more contradictions in American society. American immigration politics has a difficult system of rules and prohibitions that could make some barriers for people, who want to travel or migrate. A person who is eager to move this country is forced to have all the official documents. However, the poor and outcast foreigners do not have a lot of benefits from immigrating into the country. Immigration system of the United States provides cultural and economic welfare of the country. According to statistics, in the past five years, 7 million immigrants came to the country. This high number has caused public debate between civilians and politicians. Many Americans are frightened of the immigration; they think that it can lead to the loss of jobs of industrious Americans. However, the fear of replacing decent workers by immigrant class is justified: labor immigrants provide high risk to the locals. It is estimated that almost half of the illegal immigrants relatively easy find low-paid and menial jobs within the city and in rural areas. Although entrepreneurs working in these areas are interested in the flow of these immigrants, many Americans are dead set against it, including representatives of business.

However, immigrants during their work in the United Stated contribute to the economy of the country. They perform the low level job filling up these work places and facilitate the load of providers and consumers. Thus, immigrants promote the American economics welfare in general. This tendency is observed in small business, where owners use immigrants for their benefits. According to DeMott (1994), “Small-business executives do agree that some of their competitors who knowingly or unknowingly hire illegal immigrants use the cheap labor to undercut prices of business owners who play by the rules” (p. 24). However, this is a desirable result, which has become the basis for a new immigration policy. The other benefit of immigration to the United States is an increase of cultural diversity. Immigrants offer various types of food, art, sports, which they bring from their own culture. Through the growing popularity and demand of foreign products and services, metropolitan areas show a great interest in them, which brings high profit. According to Ottaviano and Peri (2008), “A more multicultural urban environment makes U.S.-born citizens more productive” (p. 134). Immigration leads to change and development of the country. Immigrants move to the U.S.A. looking for better living. However, the host country does not experience such benefit, yet it is an important issue that the immigration system provides. Better opportunities and chances to have wealthy life are opened to the immigrants in the United States. Thus, such main benefits of immigration to the U.S.A. can be mentioned: influx of highly qualified foreign specialists eases the burden on the educational system; inflow of low-skilled and low-paid labor force that occupies unattractive to Americans work places and reduces production costs and prices.

The immigration to the U.S.A. also causes different problems. In some cases immigrants overuse the public welfare system. A great number of foreigners overload the welfare system that leads to taxes and rise of the national debt. Such a situation can cause dangerous problems to the American welfare. The other disadvantage is increased crimes associated with immigrants. Americans complain thatforeigners do not make enough efforts to integrate into the social and cultural life of the country. However, there is a risk of loss of American traditions and imposition of immigration ones. Moreover, education for the immigrants’ children is expensive and problematic to the host taxpayers. Nearly all of the expenses are paid by state and local governments. Hence, immigration issue is a medal with two sides and both benefits and costs could be swapped according to the situation.