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The Economic Impact of Immigration
The impact of immigration on the U.S economy has been one of the major topics in the last
presidential debates. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton (Democrats) believes that immigrants'
workforce helps the economy growth. Clinton's immigration plan containing a pathway to
citizenship for illegal immigrants whom already in the country and encouraging legal immigration.
Economists believe that Clinton's immigration plan would increase the annual gross domestic
product (GDP) growth, on average, over the next ten years. On the other hand, the Republicans
candidate, who has won the recent election, Donald Trump looks at immigrants as a burden on the
American economy. Donald Trump's plan to reduce immigration and deport undocumented
immigrants would have the opposite effect. Economics experts think that his immigration
strategies would reduce inflation-adjusted GDP and hurt the American economy.
Through the history, immigrants have come to American's shores from all around the globe
looking for the freedoms and the economic opportunities that the American economy grants.
According to 2010 Census Bureau survey, the population of the United States was over 309 million
people. The same survey showed that the U.S. foreign- born were about 40 million and it
approximated that about 11 million of them are illegal immigrants. Anti-Immigration groups have
suggested that immigrants, especially the undocumented, overburden the U.S. economy. The anti-
immigrants groups believe that the 14% of the total population impose such a negative impact on
the economy by overcrowding the schools, take jobs from native- Americans, and increase taxes.
However, experts confirm that immigrants' benefits are compensated their real or predictable costs.
In fact, the American economy needs the immigrants in order to grow because the immigration
workforce can, increase the labor supply and pay taxes as consumers, increase the
entrepreneurship, and contribute intellectual currency to the high-tech world.
The first impact of immigrants is their effect on the labor supply. Immigrants enhance the
labor supply and progress the production of new products and services. Immigrants are ready to
accept any available jobs when they arrive in America. In contrast, these jobs are unfavorable by
native- citizens. Since most immigrants are willing to work in these low-skilled jobs, it lets the
more skilled natives to work on specialized tasks. Additionally, experts believe that undocumented
immigrants work for lower wages; therefore, goods and services become cheaper. For instance,
Ramanujan Nadadur points out "Illegal immigrants also have positive effects on all participants in
the US economy by decreasing consumer costs. As low-wage undocumented workers immigrate
to the US to fill the secondary labour market, products and services become cheaper because illegal
