Immigration

Maria I. Marulanda
08/10/09
Instructor: Pat Lawrence
Assignment 2: Immigration
Undocumented Immigrants
Many people constantly migrate to The United States looking for a better future for them and their families, without thinking about the pros and cons that it can bring for them as well as for the country. In the Jeff Jacoby’s essay and Barry R. Chiswick’s essay both talks about the problemof immigration; specifically favorable and unfavorable factors about illegal or legal immigrants that work in this country.
In economic terms, man is a very important piece of production and work to the economic in a country and his legal status not matter. Jeff Jacoby arguments in his essay What If We Deport Them All? That “As millions of farm hands, busboys, chambermaids, and garmentworkers vanished, who would take their places? Unemployed US citizens? With unemployment down to 4.5 percent, there are not 12 million of them to spare. Even if there were, not many native-born Americans are prepared to accept the low wages and hard conditions that characterize so much illegal-immigrants labor” (271). According with this, in some way the immigrants’ labor (legal or illegal) help outto the economy of this country, doing jobs that American people do not want to do because they think that are humiliating, or requiring a lot of hard work or merely the wages are not sufficiently good for them to perform theses types of jobs such as: working in farms, constructions or cleaning hotel rooms. Besides, another way to contribute to the economy is through the shipments that theimmigrants send to their families that are in their countries of origin. Thus, the American economy increase thanks to the commission that is paid for this kind of service and for the American goods that the immigrants can buy, through the money that they earn in this country.
Undocumented immigrants indirectly contribute with the economic of this country. However, many people in this country donot agree with this. This is case of some politicians, journalists, unions and other organized groups of interest blaming the undocumented workers of the unemployment of this country, but that argument is not valid because in reality this is not the case, and is verified according with the next opinion, related by a Abraham Salam: “Opponents of immigration reform often accuse immigrants of‘stealing’ jobs for Americans, but official data show that they have nothing to do with unemployment in several areas of the U.S., according to a report released this Tuesday. Desbancan mito anti-inmigranteEl informe del Centro para Política Migratoria (IPC, en inglés) quiere desbancar el mito propagado por grupos anti-inmigrantes de que los extranjeros le quitan empleos a los nacidos en Estados Unidos,especialmente durante tiempos de crisis económica. The report of the Migration Policy Center (IPC, in English) wants to unseat the myth propagated by anti-immigrant groups that foreigners take away jobs to people born in United States, especially during times of economic crisis.” On the contrary, they should be grateful with undocumented workers because they are doing those works that many Americancitizens do not want to do. Furthermore, the problem of unemployment in The United States has other factors, which are part of its own economic system. So that, the American work is not affected by illegal immigrants; they are simply succumbing a need of this country that is covering those jobs which are below the prevalent salary levels in the United States.
Not all people provide goodthings to the world. The same thing occurs with undocumented immigrants in this country. In some way directly or indirectly, they affect a lot of American citizens that are not sufficiently qualified to develop works of low level, but they want to work, as Barry R. Chiswick mentions in his essay The Worker Next Door that “If the number of low-skilled foreign workers were to fall, wages would...