Immigration is the process whereby people move and settle down in a nation to which they are not inherent. Immigration occurs due to various reasons which include, economically, environmental, societal or personal reasons.
In the United States, it estimated that immigration has rapidly increased over time. It has influenced the culture and population. The increase in population over time is evident from the alteration in the number of persons in the population.
Globally, United States is among the countries having the largest population. It comes third after China and India. Over the two decades, the population statistics from United Nations show that the population growth rate of United States is 22.5%. The increase has originated from the factors relating to immigrants.
Immigration has had several effects. These effects have influenced and affected the economy, society, politics, environment and education. All these effects have had positive and negative outcomes on the society.
On economy basis, economists believe that immigration has been a major force in United States economy. The economic migrants have been the key aspect in supporting the growth of the economy. In pursuit of seeking employment, people are forced to migrate from their country to the United States. In doing so, they intend to improve their financial status.
The immigrants have offered an overall improvement in the United States economy due to the increase in pay to high-skilled workers. The improvement of the economy has been influenced by low prices for services and goods manufactured by immigrant labor and also more efficiency and low wages for some proprietors of capital. The immigrant workers have become beneficial to domestic residents since they compete with domestic labors for low-skilled occupations.
The immigrants specialize in activities that would not exist in a region. Their presence in the region has seen them do jobs that did not exist. It is observed that the immigrants-owned businesses in the United States have grown greatly with time and also have generated billions in gross revenue. The immigrants do jobs that Americans are comfortable in doing. This supports their advancement and progress. A released report indicated that immigrants do not interfere with the employment opportunities of American people.
There have been several disadvantages that have been brought about by immigration. This is evident through the net loss in terms of social services received versus the taxes paid. Illegal immigrants have brought about a huge net cost to local and states governments. The estimates of the net national cost imposed by illegal immigrants in United States have varied over the years and therefore, it cannot be determined to what extent the immigrants affect the costs.
From the outcomes and effects of immigration, the positive economic consequences of immigration outweigh its negative consequences for unskilled immigrants. This is because of the gains observed from the input of immigrants which is greater than their setbacks on the United States economy. The legalization of low skilled illegal laborers is estimated to have a net increase in the United States gross domestic product by $ 180 billion over a decade.
It is apparent that immigration has facilitated the increase of bilateral trade. This is through the incoming people being connected to their nation of origin via networks. Immigration has also played a huge role in United States economy in that immigrants were involved in the foundation of many prominent high-tech companies in American such as eBay, Google and Yahoo. This can be viewed as a major input by immigrants to contribute in the evolution and advancement of the United States economy.