RE: Immigration Into America Has Made It The World Power It Is Today
While I certainly agree that America has benefited from immigration, your argument that immigrants are manly taking low-skilled jobs making under minimum wage is no longer true... maybe 20 years ago but not today. Immigrants (mainly through the H-1b visa program) are increasingly taking white-collar jobs that have traditionally went to degree-holding Americans. A record number of college graduates are living with their parents because they can't find good jobs... immigration is one reason why. It's cheaper to import high-skilled workers from overseas than pay an American. Good for corporations but terrible for the American who put him/herself through school and depended on that job. What good is a cheaper product to an American consumer(cheap due to decreased labor costs) when he/she can't afford it anyway because all the jobs in the field they went to school for are now taken by cheaper immigrants from foreign countries? This is happening in many different industries in many different parts of the country. A quick google search can verify it. That said... I don't blame the immigrants for wanting a better life, I blame the government for putting corporate profits before American workers.
Yes like I talked about with German scientists and the Indian brain drain, they are taking high skilled white collar jobs, but we as a nation benefit from taking the smartest people in the world and having them take those jobs. We live in an international world today and isolating ourselves from it would only create less economic well being for everyone. The real problem with unemployment is NOT immigrants, its a generation of baby boomers who are now working until they cant work anymore because 2008 destroyed their savings and social security is a joke. If we want corporations to stay in America at all, we need to allow them to bring in the most competitive people in the world at lower costs, because if not they wont stay and we will lose out on their tax revenue. We are increasingly moving towards a more international and integrated labor market, this is unavoidable and it going to continue to move that way in the future, so if you are looking for a job you have to be competitive and have something that your competition does not. The days of graduating and finding a cushy job you can sit on for the rest of your life are over.