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It is widely believed that the United States is a nation of immigrants - with people from all corners of the world living here. According to Number of Illegal Immigrants, it is demonstrated that “about 11.7 million immigrants are living in the United States illegally in 2013s” (Preston). Therefore, there is no doubt that the large numbers of immigrants have been playing a significant role in the development of America’s economy and technology. A majority of immigrants arrive at American soil with dreams in their eyes in anticipation of a free, equality-based, and tolerant life. However, whether the United States should allow more immigrants or not has become a popular topic lately. Although many believe that more immigrants will cause decrease of work opportunity of native-born Americans along with placing financial strain, I firmly side with the opinion that more immigrants will bring great benefits to America as they will contribute in boosting economy and enhancing technological development of the United States.
First of all, immigrants may facilitate the process of boosting the United States’ economic growth as they offer cheap labor force. According to the Berkeley Review, there is a large difference between workers with tertiary education and those with a secondary education or less. It means that immigrants in the United States are both highly educated and less educated, playing different roles in different areas of economy of the United States. First, immigrant workers who are less educated always concentrate in doing manual jobs, such as housekeeping, driving, building etc. At the same time, they are willing to receive low wages, even lower than native labor. As a consequence, the companies and farmers get benefits due to reduced labor costs. In this way, they can spend more money to improve their businesses and farms. A typical case in this regard is that of my friend, Jennifer, who has opened an Asian (serving Chinese food in particular), restaurant in Boston. In the initial phase, she hired many American cooks and waiters. The reason she was afraid to serve authentic Asian food was that such food is foreign to most American people. For the same reason, she spent lots of money to pay wages of local employees. However, Jennifer changed her workforce to Chinese workers after she was recommended to hire Chinese workers and cooks. Soon, she discovered that the restaurant’s labor costs have halved as compared to the previous costs. In this way, she was able to spend more money to decorate her restaurant, expand restaurant’s space, and increase restaurant’s publicity. Hence, she now earns more money. It is not hard to realize that saving labor costs is an effective approach to improve other areas within a company. In other words, immigrants’ cheap labor force can effectively save a company’s labor costs. In addition, less-educated immigrants always work in home service field including baby-care, house-cleaning, and cooking. Therefore, home-service price is affordable to American family. It means that cheap home-service price can reduce women’s housework pressure, especially for high-educated American women. In this way, they can pay more attention to their careers. Hence, hiring cheap labor is beneficial for the economy of whole country. To conclude, the examples of Jennifer’s restaurant and home-service price prove that immigrants can provide cheap labor force thus boosting economic development of the United States.
Another reason that America needs to admit more immigrants is that immigrants can enhance technological development of the United States. This is because a great percentage of immigrants is composed of highly-educated scientists and engineers. Immigration policy can attract large number of high-educated people so that they could have an opportunity to contribute to innovation. Kang asserts that “One-quarter of the U.S.-based Nobel laureates of the last 50 years were foreign-born, and highly educated immigrants account for about one-third of U.S. innovation” (12). The reason high-educated scientists and engineers choose immigrate to the U.S. is that they are attracted by America’s institutions. These institutions pay more attention to support innovation. Therefore, the United States should offer a positive immigration policy to attract more qualified scientists and engineers. Second, Washington DC-based survey shows that more than 900 individuals who have won prestigious awards, 35.5 percent of them were immigrants and that far exceeds the proportion of first-generation immigrants in the US population. A typical case in this regard is that of Chen-ning Yang, an American-Chinese scientist, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics. Another great example is Nikola Tesla, a Serbian-American, who made great contributions to telephony and electrical engineering. He also improved engine. Lastly, Albert Einstein, a German-born American, is another example. The mentioned three cases demonstrate similarity in being immigrants and contributing to America’s innovation and changing people’s lives all over the world. To conclude, there is no doubt in the importance of immigrants to America’s technological development.
There are a lot of people who consider that the United States must not admit more immigrants. They believe that low-educated not only increase pressure on public services but also lead to more security problems. They immigrate to America as they want to get more funds given by the government for the poor, more work opportunities, and excellent education for their children. In this way, more low-educated immigrants snatch away the funds, and work and education opportunities of native born. In addition, most uneducated immigrants involve themselves in crime. For the same reason, the crime rate of immigrants is higher than the crimes attempted by native born. The second reason people oppose immigration is that their culture is affected by other country’s culture. On the contrary, I think that immigrants add richness to American culture by blending with American lifestyle but not leaving their roots. As a well-known saying goes, each coin has two sides. Even if there are several disadvantages associated with immigration, I firmly side with advantages of admitting more immigrants as these advantages far outweigh its disadvantages.
