Immigration is a complex demographic trend that is a leading source of population growth and cultural divergence throughout the United States. The social, economic, and political aspects of this issue have resulted into a controversy regarding economic benefits, ethnicity and jobs for non-immigrants (Brooks 19). In 2006, the USA welcomed more legal immigrants to be permanent residents as compared to other countries in the world. Settlement patterns impact crime rates and the voting behavior of citizens.
Immigration is growing to be a contentious issue in the American society and has affected many families and the population at large. Since time immemorial, it has been crucial to the growth of the United States as well as a source of conflict. For the recent decades, the number of immigrants has risen. It was estimated to amount to12 million in 2007. According to the article published in The New York Times by Michal Czerwonka, the Republicans and Democrats agreed on the need for changes in the immigration laws. For three years, President Bush had pushed for a bipartisan immigration reform, but gave up in 2007. It was after the bill had been blocked by the conservative opposition. Five years later, there was no significant movement towards the immigration reform on the federal level.
In the recently concluded U.S. elections, 71 percent of the Hispanic votes went to President Obama, while Mitt Romney garnered 27 percent. It was a dominant issue of concern, particularly among the Republicans, due to it would become an obstacle in the future elections. According to Czerwonka, Obama’s immigration reform remained the top priority in his second term. The President planned to push the Congress to do a complete overhaul of the immigration system. It would comprise giving citizenship to almost eleven million illegal immigrants in the country.
After President Obama had put forward his proposal early in January 2013, a group of senators agreed on a set of principles concerning the overhaul of the immigration system, including providing eleven million illegal immigrants with American citizenship. It was due to this would secure the borders and ensure that foreigners would leave the country after the expiry of their visas. President Barrack Obama supported the comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. immigration laws. It was aimed at replacing the former system, to which he referred to as “out-of-date and badly broken”.
The article by Sierra Stoney and Jeanne Batalova titled Mexican Immigrants in the United States provides information that Latin American immigrants in the United States have become the largest origin group for the last five decades. However, their number has slightly reduced since the onset of the 2007 economic recession. This article reports on a broad range of features of Mexican immigrants that reside in the United States. They include the population’s size, admission categories, geographic distribution, and demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.
Both articles find immigration to have positive and negative effects. The overall observation shows that this issue has a positive impact on the economy. It is due to an increase in the supply of labor force and lesser prices that result from immigration. It allows more goods services to be produced more cheaply. Despite the number of difficulties faced by Native Americans, namely extra taxes, and low wages for those who do not have high school education due to competition sparked by immigrants, native citizens enjoy positive effects of immigration.
Therefore, it should be concluded that immigration has both negative and positive effects on immigrants and native citizens of the country. As Rich puts it in his poem, immigration for the purpose of an opportunity is highly uncertain (Brooks 34). He describes the latter as just a door. It means that one can risk entering, finds nothing but hardships and regrets, and someone else can choose not to enter and live a worthy life.