A Green Light for Immigration

A Green Light for Immigration

“The Immigrants: How They Are Helping to Revitalize the U.S. Economy” by Michael J. Mandel and Christopher Farrell they explain both the positive and negative outcomes due to legal and illegal immigration, positive being the dominant factors. Although Mandel and Farrell give negative examples, offering an alternative view by explaining the unwanted effects of immigration their focus still remains favorable to the idea.

First of all, the United States economy gains much of its money through tax dollars. As of 1991, “some 11 million immigrants are working, and they earn at least $240 billion a year, paying more than $90 billion in taxes” (p.184). Having such a large sum of money contributed by working immigrants benefits the economy in a number of ways such as having more money to spend on education and healthcare. American citizens believe that immigrants are doing nothing but draining our country even though it is quite the contrary. After contributing $90 billion in taxes, immigrants only receive about $5 billion in welfare. Even though $5 billion may seem like a large number, the contribution greatly outweighs the exhaustion.

In America today we have a greater amount of competition than America did decades ago. With more competition comes a greater demand for fresh ideas and entrepreneurship. Many of these ideas are coming from immigrants, “About 40% of the 200 researchers in the Communications Sciences Research wing at AT&T Bell Laboratories were born outside the U.S. Silicon Valley, the jewel of America’s high-tech centers, much of the technical work force is foreign-born” (p. 185).