Legal immigration has become a major problem in the USA, because American society cannot integrate newcomers quickly enough. Numbers of immigrants coming to this country every year should be restricted.
As is known, the USA was founded by immigrants from England and some other European countries. During the first period of American history, english-speaking Anglo-Saxons, mostly professing some form of Protestantism, constituted an overwhelming majority of the country’s population. Their culture dominated American society for more than a century, but in the early 1900s things began to change. Jews, Italians and Slavs kept coming to the USA by thousands every month. Some American politicians called for restriction of immigration, claiming the state would fail to integrate the newcomers into American society. Their apprehension seemed justified, because approximately 13.5 million immigrants had settled in the USA by 1910 (Altarriba & Heredia 212). A decade later, the Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, imposing numerical limits on immigration from Europe. The Immigration Act of 1924 provided further restrictions on immigration. Fortunately, the melting pot fulfilled its task, and the above mentioned ethnic groups eventually became an indispensable part of American society.
But things are different today. Most immigrants of the first waves were Europeans and Christians, thus sharing the bulk of American values. Many of them were unmarried young men seeking for jobs. They often married Americans, which facilitated their integration. Now, most immigrants are coming from Mexico, China, and Muslim countries. They are on average younger than natives, and they ususally come with families. To a great extent, they are not eager to learn English and communicate with natives. Some districts of American big cities are inhabited by ethnic minorities only, and an Anglo-Saxon instantly feels he is unwelcome if he comes there. All these factors made natives feel anxious about increasing rates of immigration. According to opinion polls, 55% of Americans favored decreasing legal migration, whereas only 15% wanted the opposite (Worldviews 2002 Survey of American and European Attitudes and Public Opinion on Foreign Policy: US Report 3).
One can ask what forces American political elites to support immigration in spite of their own peoples’ clearly expressed dissaproval of such policies. At first, immigration is economically profitable. A newcomer often agrees to be underpaid, because they are ready to sacrifice their well-being here and now to obtain American citizenship later. Moreover, some jobs – those of gardeners, cleaners, drivers etc. – are considered insignificant by Anglo-Saxons, which does not prevent Mexicans from taking them up eagerly. As a result, many economists think immigration is beneficial to the national economy (Simon 11). However, the situation is not as simple as it seems at first sight. Immigrants can often perform only low-skill work, they usually have large families with many children, which makes them dependent on social services provided by the state. On the other hand, they usually have low incomes, which causes the state considerable losses in terms of taxes. (Smith 5). …