Immigration: Todays Situation in the United States

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Illegal and legal migration has a great impact on economic system and social order in the developed countries including the USA and EU. The main reason for immigration is better standards of life, higher wages and stable political system. Thus, it is supposed that illegal immigration deprives many native citizens their jobs and an opportunity to earn for living. A common finding in studies of migration is that better educated individuals have a higher propensity to migrate. This finding may be due partly to more educated individuals being more likely to have better information concerning alternative areas. Moreover, persons with higher educational attainment may be better able to adapt to the requirements faced when entering a new occupational environment. Thus, if more educated individuals are better equipped to adjust to changing environments, then their transaction costs associated with international moves will be moderated.

In his article, Williams points out that there is a need for public debate concerning immigration policies and laws accepted by the state. The author states that the porous nature of current policies is not the best way to handle the problem of immigration and border protection policy. The period of the Revolutionary War demonstrates that citizens and real patriots are the main driven forces of change and policy development. These patriotic took the law into their own hands allegedly protecting Americans borders (Williams 2008). The incentive to migrate to the United States, for instance, should be enhanced for individuals whose occupational skills are similar to those used in U.S. labor markets. If the percentage of the labor force engaged in manufacturing serves as a crude index for the mix of occupational skills in a sending country, then a larger fraction of labor force in manufacturing may suggest a mix of occupational skills that is closer to that found in the United States.

Similar to Williams, Hanson states that political stability and high economic standards attract millions of immigrants to the USA. Other considerations, however, make the interpretation of the expected relationship between the labor force in manufacturing and immigration flows less clear. In order to qualify for admission to the United States, however, a prospective immigrant who intends to work (except a parent, spouse, or child of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States) must obtain labor certification from the Department of Labor. The secretary of labor must certify that there is a need for the prospective immigrants type of occupational skills in the United States and that allocating the visa will not displace United States workers nor adversely affect the economy of the United States. In contrast to Williams, Hanson states that illegal immigrants take jobs from low class Americans: The lower middle classes complain most about massive immigration, but then they have to compete with aliens for jobs, often live among them and dont use their services (Hanson 2008). While international comparisons of wage and earnings levels present a number of problems, we have employed such a variable as a crude indicator of economic advantage. For a number of reasons, the more populous a country is, the more likely it is to experience a greater volume of immigration from any given origin country. Population serves as a reasonable proxy for size of the destination labor market and hence, other things being equal, for the expected number and variety of job opportunities.

The main difference between policy approached proposed by Williams and Hanson is that Hanson see status quo as the only possible measure of lethal framework while Williams supposes that the public debates and cooperation between all stakeholders is the most desirable approach. Because the United States is a major recipient country for emigrants from many nations included in our analysis and because the United States has both a relatively high wage rate and a binding immigration quota, the wage coefficients reported in table 2 may be biased in a downward direction. If this bias exists, then unbiased predicted emigration flows to the United States would be higher than the biased predicted flows reported here. This point may be particularly relevant for Western Hemisphere countries, since the United States is clearly the major high-wage destination for emigrants from these countries.

Personally, I suppose that strict laws against illegal immigration will protect the state from a flow of newcomers thus legal immigration has a positive impact on the USA economy and development. Differential earnings is only one factor that may influence the decision to emigrate. As discussed previously, the institutional framework is also important. U.S. laws have apparently limited the total number of immigrants and may also have altered the mix of those who ultimately gain immigrant status in the United States. Moreover, the ease with which a worker can transfer his occupational skills to the U.S. labor market is likely to be of some importance. The ease with which a prospective migrant can transfer his occupational skills to the U.S. labor market should influence his propensity to migrate. Knowledge and occupational skills are not perfectly transferable between countries; the lower the cost of this adjustment, the greater the incentive to migrate to the United States. Higher expected wage or earnings levels should be attractive to migrants. Through trade, financial arrangements, and past migration, larger nations are also likely to have established more ties with the rest of the world. Furthermore, to the extent that countries with larger populations set higher absolute limitations on immigration, presumably because of their ability to absorb more migrants without seriously jeopardizing existing economic and social relationships, larger countries should experience greater immigration. Largely because of differences in the number of destination countries reported for each origin country, the number of observations underlying each regression differs widely, from a minimum of fourteen for Finland to a maximum of forty-six for Japan. For each country of emigration, the United States was reported to be a recipient of out-migrants.

In sum, the articles suggest that the incremental value that the U.S. labor market assigns to a prospective immigrants education, which is acquired in his respective home country, may be less than the incremental value of the education if used in the native country. Another important consideration is that the effect of educational attainment may differ considerably across occupational categories. Occupational knowledge is not perfectly transferable from another country to the United States. It is therefore noteworthy that the rate of immigration to the United States is higher for persons from English-speaking countries. This evidence is compatible with the hypothesis that, if a prospective immigrant is from an English-speaking country, the costs of adjustment to the U.S. labor market are reduced. Hence, the incentive to migrate is greater. The percentage of the labor force engaged in manufacturing may reflect the state of economic development in a country. The laws and regulations based on public debates and careful considerations will help the USA to attract skillful labor and professionals who will enter the US workforce.