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Running head: AGREE WITH AND EXTEND THE AUTHOR’S IDEAS

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Running head: AGREE WITH AND EXTEND THE AUTHOR’S IDEAS

Does Immigration Contribute to a Better America? Ayesha Ahmed University of Houston

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AGREE WITH AND EXTEND THE AUTHOR’S IDEAS

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Does Immigration Contribute to a Better America? Introduction Immigration has happened in America since the beginning of its history. As time has gone on, our citizens have developed a great deal of opinions about whether or not immigration is good for America or not. Philippe Legrain is a journalist, economist, and author who speaks in favor of immigration and talks about how not only America but the entire world can benefit from immigrants. I agree with this concept, and I will expand on his ideas. Why Immigration Contributes to a Better America America is often referred to as “a nation of immigrants,” as this is true. I look at where we are as a country and the vast countries that people and their ancestors are from, along with the numerous cultures that are represented in the United States, and I see that this has only made America a much better place. Legrain states that just about everyone in the United States are immigrants, so one could say that this country was founded on the concept of immigration. One reason I can see that immigration is what it is today is the simple fact that the United States is viewed by much of the world as a place for democracy and freedom; much of what does not exist in these other parts of the world, especially in Third World countries. People simply want to come here for a better life. However, a lot of Americans have problems with people wanting to do this. A major problem in the United States now is illegal immigration. This is when immigrants arrived and are not legally documented to live here. There are a lot of Americans who have a problem with immigration in general, whether the person is undocumented or not. Legrain also states that many view immigrants as an “invading army,” which they absolutely are not (Bishop et al., 2007). He continues to state that many immigrants are not only drawn here because of the many opportunities of prosperity present in the United States but for

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more chances to do honest work and be paid a decent wage for doing so. On top of that, many of the jobs that we often hear Americans say that we “won’t do” are jobs that an immigrant, documented or not, would be proud to do, as they see it as honest work. Ironically, many of the same people who judge immigrants to desire to move to the United States would hire these same immigrants, documented or not, to work for far less than they would pay Americans to perform the same work. Interestingly, these are also folks who claim that immigrants “take jobs away from” Americans (“Immigrants and the Economy,” n.d.). One would also be hard-pressed to find a restaurant in the United States that does not have some menu item with foreign origins. Our citizens absolutely many of these foods as well. Chinese food is an example. There is a great deal of Chinese restaurants and they do extremely well. Many Americans enjoy a variety of foreign foods, but this is just one example of what immigrants bring to this country, as there are few people who never indulge in foreign foods. I would imagine that if every foreign food was removed from the United States, we would not have much. Even much of our language has Latin roots as well. Conclusion Immigrants have added such value to the United States, but when the nation began to experience problems, someone decided it would be appropriate to make immigrants the scapegoats. The truth is that no matter how much blame is placed on immigrants, the last thing Americans should want is for immigrants to just “go away.” A lot of the things they love would be going away right with them.

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References Immigrants and the Economy. (n.d.). ACLU. Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/other/immigrants-and-economy Bishop, P., Ezell, S., Greenwood, K., Hutchins, H., Norwood, M., Stewart, B., Waight, C. (Eds.). (2007). Human ecosystems and technological change (6th ed.). Boston, MA: McGrawHill....