The Pros And Cons Of Unskilled Immigrants

In May 1939, the United States sent nearly 1000 people to their deaths when they refused to allow a ship named the Saint Louis to dock at American ports because of immigration policy. Now we hold holocaust parades and have memorials just to say we will never again sit idle and let people like them die, whether they be foreign or not. Yet every year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants die from international terrorist groups such as ISIS or the National Liberation Army (ELN) while sitting on the waiting list to enter into the U.S. legally. While there has been bipartisan immigration reforms from Carter’s Mariel Boatlift to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, it can still take months just to apply for a visa and years to …show more content…
They feel that loose immigration laws flood the market with huge amounts of unskilled workers. FAIR (the Federation for Immigration Reform) charged that “Nearly 31% of foreign-born residents over the age of 25 are without a high school diploma, compared to 10% from native born citizens” (Vlahos 2). FAIR and its supporters argue that these unskilled workers consume jobs that could be otherwise taken by hard working Americans. They feel that a steady supply of unskilled workers allow employers to offer cheaper wages and a reduced payment floor for US Citizens. However, this narrowed view of the job market ignores all of the open jobs that are available for immigrants. In a report by Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, it was found that creating comprehensive immigration reform would allow immigrants to take jobs where there are labor shortages, adding as much as $1.5 trillion to the GDP (Hinojosa-Ojeda 2). Unskilled workers are not able to just steal jobs from those who are more qualified, especially with the prejudices against them. The only way immigrants gain jobs and start making money