Campbell -1- Newton CampbellEnglish 111.1Lecturer Eric Meljac November 29, 2004Immigration’s True Effect on the EconomyOn Ellis Island of New York Harbor lies an American national monument that ismeant to stand for all values that Americans hold true. At the base of this monument,these words are inscribed:Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe freeThe wretched refuse of your teeming shore,Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me:I lift my lamp beside the golden door. (Debate Topics: Immigration)These words, as the monument itself does, give a description of one of America’sgreatest morals. It is usually the first thing that many immigrants see coming into NewYork Harbor. These statements are no longer completely supported by America. In thelate 1800s and all through the 1900s, the United States started to view immigration as anissue that needed to be dealt with. It began to create demographic problems for Americans of that time. But the economic issue of immigration’s affect on the workforceis one of the biggest controversial issues today. Immigration will not have an affect on theUS job market that will be large enough to bring about the downfall of this country’seconomy.

Campbell -2-Immigrant employment is one of the fundamental necessities for many largecompanies today. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan says:I have always thought that under the conditions such as what we nowconfront, we should be carefully focused on the contribution which skilled people from abroad, unskilled people from abroad, what they cancontribute to this country as they have for generation after generation.Foreigners provide new, innovative ideas for companies along with a hard work ethic. Immigrants applying for jobs that most likely would not be otherwise filled help a business to function. They bring with them a sense of hard work and productivity.According to The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, “employment-basedimmigrant categories have included professionals, individuals with exceptional ability,and skilled and unskilled workers.”(69) Because of the lack of education that many of them suffer from, majority of immigrants from poorer countries take on lower class jobs.This is not to say that every immigrant has a lower class job. The argument comes fromthe idea that hiring foreign workers is an easy way for American businesses to get labor atminimum cost. This creates the idea that immigrants are taking American jobs away. Butthere are no immigrants that literally come to America, ambush a citizen in the street, andtake his/her job. Companies give these jobs to immigrants because it is an intelligentthing to do from a business standpoint. Furthermore, in Economic Effects of Immigration, W.S. Bernard states:One of the most persistent and recurrent fallacies in popular thought is thenotion that immigrants take away the jobs of native Americans. This rests

Campbell -3-on the misconception that only a fixed number of jobs exist in anyeconomy and that any newcomer threatens the job of any old resident.What Bernard is saying is that as the population of a country increases, so canmany eventual job opportunities. The truth is that if many of these companies did nothave the immigrant workers that they have today, some of the jobs that they do offer would be relocated in foreign countries. Many poorer immigrants take on jobs that mostnative born American citizens would not want to take.This is not to say that there are no Americans willing to work on assembly lines or on construction crews. There is simply not enough demand for these blue-collar occupations. The goal of any employer is to maximize profits and minimize costs. Byimmigrants creating a large labor supply, the demand for these jobs rises. Moreover,immigrants can not take away too much from the economy because many immigrantsthat are poor when they arrive in the United States end up staying poor or contributing tothe economy. Immigrants that come into America poor are always likely to be poorer thannative citizens. A study by the National Immigration Forum shows that “in their first low-earning years in the United States, immigrants typically are net drains on the publiccoffers, but over time –usually after 10 to 15 years in the United States – they turn intonet contributors.” In other words, after spending a few years in America, immigrants startto become great contributors to the economy. Currently, about fifteen percent of UScitizens fall below the poverty line. Twenty nine percent of all immigrants fall below thisline also. Eleven percent of all immigrants in the US are literally “half-broke.” Theymake half of the income that is set at the poverty line. (About.com: Research Perspectiveson Migration) Only six percent of official citizens fall under that category.