Is it true that Immigration Raises the U.S. Unemployment Rate? (Research Paper Sample)

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Is it True that Immigration Raises the U.S. Unemployment Rate?
INTRODUCTION
Immigration can be defined as the movement of people from one jurisdiction to another due to socio-econo-political reasons. Initially, immigration was used by developed countries to boost their man-power and its labor market by trying to lure the best brains from different parts of the world. In the last decade US has been grappling with the issue of excessive intake of illegal immigrants who continue to take advantage of its porous borders to find their way into the country. Thousands of these illegal immigrants lack legal status but they still continue to reside in the country. Primarily these immigration policies were mainly found in countries that were considered to be developed as per the standards of those days, including the United States of America. The USA which is regarded as a melting pot of all races in the world has its forbearers as immigrants who fled from the intra-religious war between the two factions of the Protestants and the Catholics. For fear of persecution, the individuals scampered for safety from Europe and settled in the Americas; a land whose original inhabitants were the Red Indians.
On the face of it, it is quite clear or one should be alive to the fact that the founding fathers of the USA were immigrants. This particular premise forms an important basis in understanding the immigration issues in the USA. How does a country raise issues in regards to immigration whereas the founding fathers were beneficiaries of the same immigration? The ‘American dream’ has attracted all and sundry, it has become an incubation point of great ideas and even the most serious critique of the Americans craves to move there due to numerous opportunities available. It is crystal clear when there is an influx in the number of immigrants in any jurisdiction the public would start becoming skeptical as to whether the opportunities available would be enough for them and the immigrants. Naturally, the big questions creep in; would the national cake be enough for both the citizens and the immigrants? Who continue to trickle in day in and day out?
OVERVIEW OF THE PROBLEM
The greater issue affecting the American public is the fourth generation of immigrants who include the Asians, Latin-Americans and the Caribbean immigrants. Immigrants in this context is construed to mean those individuals who are not citizens of the U.S.A by birth canvassing illegal immigrants, foreign students, temporary workers and individuals who are lawful residents. Generally, the current number of unemployed Americans stands at 1.9 million; to expound on the facts, among the category of whites, Hispanics and Blacks unemployment percentage stood at 5.1, 6.9 and 11.0 per cent respectively (Labor, United states Department). The usual scape goat for this problem would be the immigration factor. Domestic workers tend to believe that any job given to a foreign worker would mean a denied opportunity to a domestic worker. The government data shows that in the last decade approximately 16 million immigrants have settled in the US and 5.4 million have also arrived since 2008 (Immigration policy Center).
Unemployment rates are high due to economic and political reasons, while native-born Americans prefer to blame immigrants for losing their jobs. Michael Synder believes that the reason why the unemployment rate is high in the US is because of the following reasons; there are minimal job openings in the market a fall from 4.5 million to 3 million latest openings; the government redundancy plan where different federal agencies are laying off workers in a bid to implement austerity measures; the existence of cheap labor force in China has prompted the transfer of numerous jobs from the USA to the communist country; the burden of heavy taxation has forced many businesses to relocate to other parts of the world in a bid to escape taxation thus lowering the number of available jobs; the USA economy suffers from what is called the ‘peter pan syndrome’ its economy has failed to record substantial growth only 36000 jobs were created in the month of January way below of what is expected to kick start a substantial growth where 150,000 jobs are required to fill the deficit (Centre, Immigration Policy).
CONTROVERSIES
It should be noted that every year the US opens up application for visas in category H-1B. Specifically there are only 65,000 potential visas available for those who are considered to be freshly hired and the 20,000 extra visas are set aside for students who are considered newly graduates from various USA universities and are intending to remain and work in the country (Immigration policy Center). Proponents contend that the absorption of these immigrants through the H-1B programs robs the natives’ jobs. The available data from the government indicates that the aggregate gain in employment in the last decade has been taken away by the immigrants. Between the year 2003 and 2013 employment among the natives drastically fell to 1.3 million this was due to the fact that the demography of those immigrants working sharply rose to 5.3 million (Zavodny). For example Centre for Immigration study released a controversial backgrounder which purported that employment opportunities in Tennessee since the year 2000 had been taken by the immigrants residing in Tennessee yet the American born constituted two third of the Tennessee population. This means that the jobs given to immigrants there could have been taken by the natives if the immigrants were not there. The fundamental principle espoused by this notion is that in the ordinary sense there is a fixed number of available jobs in the market which the natives and immigrants have to compete to get one (Ewing).
Section 744 of the Schumer-Rubio bill advances the notion that the country experiences inadequate number of workers thus making necessary the intake of immigrants. However, the available data from the government points otherwise; sixteen million new immigrants have arrived in the US for the last thirteen years. Analysts conclude that there is a correlation between immigration and unemployment rate among the US born citizens. The household survey conducted by the government produced some shocking findings.
First, the survey indicated that between the year 2000 and 2013 the native workers were substantially responsible for the two-thirds of the aggregate growth in the working age category, but they considerable lost in the net growth which had gone to immigrants (Centre, Immigration Policy). Secondly, the number of natives working from the year 2000 to 2013 rose to 16.4 million, though the population of US born citizens employed was 1.3 million much lower in 2013 compared to the year 2000. Thirdly, in the year 2000 to 2007 when the economy was experiencing some growth prior to the recession period 60 percent of the jobs created were taken by immigrants within the working-age bracket; even though they constituted a mere 38 percent of the working population. The above findings from the housing survey indicate that immigration has serious implication on the availability of jobs among the native workers.
In a study that was conducted by the Brookings College in the year 2013, it was established that American-born citizens were being paid low in a similar occupation compared to H-1B foreign workers. In essence the US natives who are degree holders are paid around $ 67,301 compared to H-1B foreign workers who take home around $ 81,322 particularly in STEM fields. The above findings go on to point out that the annual H-1B visas granted annually to those foreign students undertaking at least a bachelor’s degree or masters have an impact in regards to the wages offered to American-born workers. In the same vein, the Brooking’s study also compared wages being offered to US born citizens who shared similar job and age bracket with H-1B immigrants. They found that seventeen out of twenty, age and job groups, the salaries for native-born workers were tremendously lower compared to the H-1B immigrant workers.
Immigration tends to pose greater difficulties among the African-American men who are partly educated in seeking gainful employment; in the same vein it raises the chances of them being detained. This point of view is shared by Barranco and Shihadah who are of the view that the influx of Latino migrants causes violence among the African-American by perpetuating high unemployment rate. In a hypothetical scenario we may have three individuals X, Y and Z. X being a White employer and Y an African-American potential worker whereas Z is an immigrant of Somali origin. Both Y and Z are looking for a job which X has offered but Y refuses to accept the offer on the basis that salary being given is meager he therefore turns down the deal. However, Z gracefully accepts the offer regardless of how little the pay is. This in turn leaves Y jobless since he cannot get a better bargain from X as a result of Z’s intrusion.
There is an argument that tends to postulate that immigrants are always ready to do jobs which ordinarily natives Americans would shun away from doing. However, this argument holds no water and is fallacious on the face of it. Data obtained from the US Department of Commerce shows that 472 categories of civilian jobs listed only six out of the 472 are primarily occupied by the immigrants. The above stated six occupations comprises of only 1 percent of the US aggregate labor force. Ideally, the jobs normally considered to be done by the foreign nationals in the real sense are primarily done by the American natives. To illustrate this point, it is crystal clear that in the category of housekeepers and maids 51 percent of them are American-born...