Dear Dr. Blankenship and Writer’s Group:
In my paper, “Immigrants Are the Real Underdogs,” I attempt to debunk the misconceptions many Americans tend to embrace about all Immigrants, and persuade the audience to support pro-immigration reform in the future. My target audience was always native born Americans, but in particular the ones that believed immigration was doing more harm than good to our communities. This target audience made a significant difference in my paper because I delivered all my main points in a defensive matter; in a way I addressed most counter-arguments one might present to my evidence as I laid down the groundwork for my paper. An essential component of my paper was to make sure that my audience understood the struggles that immigrant have to endure everyday of their lives. In addition, I wanted to explain how our current several immigration policies do not benefit anyone. Our estimated 12 million illegal immigrants aren’t going to disappear, we need a solid plan to help assimilate them into our society. By providing the readers with option that we could take to solve this issue, I was able to show that there are more viable solutions than deportation. By the conclusion of my draft, my thesis had been revealed to be that immigration reform would not only benefit our economy as a whole, but in addition provide millions of immigrants with the ability to improve their lives through citizenship. I initially supported this claim by creating an emotional connection to my cousin’s anecdote, and continued to solidify it with concrete research from numerous credible sources.
The hardest part of the project was attempting to figure out which point to mention in my paper and in what manner. It was difficult to plan what research would work best in supporting my claim. Although the research part was extremely time consuming, I feel that I did an excellent job at portraying my cousin’s narrative on paper. I tried my best to create an emotional connection with the audience as they read through her story. I believe that I will need to spend a lot more time tidying-up the paper and editing the organization of my material. As I was writing this paper I tended to focus more on my material and not the presentation.
I have made numerous changes to my paper after i received feedback. I initially started off with fixing my mistakes on a sentence level, padding the paper to make sure it flows smoothly. After i finished with fixing grammatical errors i moved on to reiterate some points i have made to make them more comprehensible, and even added some information included a informative graph. I finished of my editing by modifying my introduction and conclusion to make them smoother and intertwined.
Immigrants Are the Real Underdogs (Rough Draft)
Most Americans don’t know the gut-wrenching feeling of sitting on an airplane in a tightly packed economy-class, impatiently waiting to begin their life all over again from scratch. Gazing out the miniature window into the abyss; planning their course of action the second they step foot on American soil — a place with foreign languages, politics, laws, and even way of life. The only real motive is a common dream, a vision of a better tomorrow. Unfortunately, these differences will be the least of their worries as they attempt to assimilate into American culture and find a decent job to support themselves and possibly their families while in constant anxiety of deportation. The United States has a serious, exigent immigration crisis that urgently needs reform.
My cousin Kate was born and raised in Ukraine – a beautiful country with much of its landscape still untouched by urban development. She was accustomed to a rural lifestyle that consisted of going to school and hanging out with friends on weekdays, and visiting our grandparents on the weekends. Our grandparents live on a massive farm-like estate; mainly relying on their crops and farm animals, which freely roam around the land, for sustenance. Kate, to this day, still reminisces breathing the crisp air, with a rejuvenating scent of fresh-cut grass, during the nighttime while laying on the ground with our grandmother. They would stare up into the sky attempting to distinguish the constellations. Heart-warming moments like this was what she had to leave behind as she began her journey to America.
Why would Kate leave her beloved country and family behind to travel almost 6000 miles west, with nothing but a few hundred dollars and an unwavering desire to succeed? Some might believe that she took the easy route out, by just giving up on her home country and attempting to find effortless success elsewhere. Although that might be the case with some immigrants, my cousin definitely wasn’t one of them. Throughout her 22 years in Ukraine, she was able to achieve success that most could only dream of. She had finished a four-year bachelor’s program with a perfect grade point average in one of the most prestigious colleges in the capital. Kate and her parents had invested quite a substantial amount of money, and by the end of her studies expected the degree to reciprocate. Regrettably, that was not the case; Ukraine’s economy was in turmoil at the time – and still is to this day. My cousin found jobs with salaries that were equivalent to seven dollars an hour. Without aristocratic connections, there was no hope for her in Ukraine. Kate’s cherished country had snatched her of her dreams of achieving success.
At the time, My parents and I were fully assimilated into American culture and had become naturalized citizens. Upon hearing my cousin’s tragic fate, we immediately knew her best option was to travel to the United States. Kate seized the opportunity and arrived in New York City a year later, in 2009, with a visitor’s visa. During the first few months of her stay, she had quickly grown accustomed to the American way of life and begun her path to assimilation. My parents were able to locate her a decent paying job with which she soon was able to move into a small basement apartment – right next the beach. As time went by, my cousin was preoccupied with so many tasks that she had lost sight of her initial purpose and dream – the reasons that had brought her here. Three seemingly brief years had passed when her temporary streak of luck ended promptly.
On October 29th, 2012, Hurricane Sandy, one of the most destructive storms in U.S history, had hit New York City; flooding the streets, tunnels, and homes of millions of Americans. Fortunately for my cousin, she had stayed with my family during that week and escaped the imminent danger. The same could not be said about all of her possessions. All her belongings, from her clothes, electronics, photos, to even documents, were ruined by the flooding in her basement apartment. With her temporary life in the U.S seemingly liquidated, she had time to contemplate over what her options were. Her visitor’s visa was nearing it’s expiration date, so she decided to return to Ukraine and make a final decision. It was there that Kate ultimately decided that the U.S. was going to be her new home. After renewing her visitor’s visa, my cousin had returned to the U.S and began the process to become a legal citizen. There was really only one liable option that an immigrant in her situation could take to apply for a green card, the first symbolic step towards citizenship. This one route was buying a ticket in The Diversity Immigrant Visa program (DIV) – colloquially known as the “green card lottery” and rightfully so.
Thankfully for my cousin, she did not have to experience the nightmare process of playing the green card lottery for long. Kate had found herself a Ukrainian gentleman whom she married and was able to receive her citizenship through. They have lived cheerfully together to this day and Kate is currently pursuing an education in the CUNY system. The depressing but harsh truth is that the majority of immigrants in the U.S. will not share the same fate; the current American Immigration system is set up in a way that doesn’t allow them any simple way of applying for citizenship. There are four major ways that one could request for a Green Card; through immediate family, job offers, refugee status, and most commonly the DIV.
Usually most immigrants don’t have any immediate family to rely on to acquire a Green Card, so their only options are either applying for one through a job offer or by playing the DIV. A work related visa, also known as the H-1B, is a document that allows foreign professionals to be hired and brought to the mainland U.S. Although it might sound good on paper, most immigrants often end up being mistreated and underpaid by their employers. The foreign employees often don’t have a choice but to work in these cruel conditions because getting laid off would mean deportation for them. In addition to the risk of being deported, the H-1B visa had to be renewed every 6 years and there is always a possibility of the request to get rejected. The worst aspect of the visa is that it doesn’t even offer a way to apply for permanent residency, even if the employee has worked in the states for over a decade.
The Diversity Immigrant Visa program is another last resort option for most immigrants. This lottery is administered annually by the the Department of State, allowing for 55,000 green cards to be awarded each time. Although at first glance it might seem as a great opportunity, upon closer scrutiny the true nature of the program is revealed. One can truly understand why the DIV is nicknamed “the lottery” once they see the odds of winning a green card. With over 14 million applicants annually, the probability of winning is usually less than .04% for most immigrants. Alongside with the near impossible chances of winning, there is a hefty application fee that one must produce every time he/her reapplies. All of these conditions make for an unpleasant experience for most applicants. Even if one does beat the odds and win the jackpot, they still wouldn’t be guaranteed anything; as one “lucky winner” described, “Selection does not guarantee a green card. In fact, the department of state selects 125,000 winners for only… 50,000 green cards to distribute” (Ecoffet). These seemingly inconceivable odds have put millions of immigrants in a tough situation.
The difficulty of acquiring permission from the U.S. government to become a legal permanent resident has lead many immigrants to overstay their visas long past their expirations dates and even illegally cross into American soil. The problem with this is that there is a substantial population of undocumented people who are always at a disadvantage in their communities and are barred from many opportunities. A study done for the Center for American Progress “found that between 2003 and 2009, the average hourly wage of Mexican immigrants legally in the United States was 28.3 percent greater than it was for undocumented Mexican immigrants” (Lynch and Oakford). In addition to significant wage disparities, most illegal immigrants aren’t able to pursue a higher education, vote in the elections, receive social security, or apply for Medicare” (Lynch and Oakford). Even worse, these people have to live in constant fear of being caught and deported; essentially being kidnapped from their families and shipped off back to where they came from. It is often the case that an undocumented family will not even know what actually happened until the deportee contacts them from his native country visas. There were 662,483 returns and deportations in 2013, so deportation is very much a serious concern for many illegal residents (Zong).
According to Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS), an estimated 11.4 million unauthorized immigrants resided in the United States as of January 2012; with almost 40% having overstayed their visas (Zong and Batalova). That’s a significant number considering it’s almost 4% of the U.S population and makes up a significant portion of our labor force. These “unauthorized aliens” do much of the brutal physical work required to keep this country operating. According to the Washington Post, an estimated 29% work in service related fields, 24% construction fields, 15% at production/repair fields, 10% in transportation, 5% in farming and the rest operate in business/office related fields (Bumps). It would be irrational to assume they are “stealing” jobs from actual citizens for many reasons; with the most potent one being that the positions many of them are employed in are exceedingly undercompensated and in hazardous health-conditions.
Many researchers and journalists tend to agree that immigrants don’t take American jobs, Adam Davidson being the most vocal. A New York Times writer and key figure in business and economics issues for National Public Radio, Davidson has adequate experience dealing with the financials of immigration. In his article, “Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant,” he attempts to refute the common misconception most Americans have about immigrants. Ever since he was a child, he had always noticed how most people believed that “foreigners” were coming to the U.S. to steal their jobs. He labeled the misunderstanding as the “Lump of Labor Fallacy: the erroneous notion that there is only so much work to be done and that no one can get a job without taking one from someone else” (Davidson). Although through conventional wisdom this might have made sense, Davidson believed that there was more to the issue than what met the eye. Taking an economic approach to the issue in his article, he was able to demonstrate not only that immigrants weren’t “stealing” anyone’s jobs, but they were actually helping by increasing their salaries significantly. The studies he cited calculated “an inflow of immigrants equal to 1 percent of the increase in employment helps boost overall incomes by 0.6 percent to 0.9 percent. That means that immigration pushed wages up by $5,100 on average from 1990 to 2007 after adjusting for inflation, accounting for 20 percent to 25 percent of the gain during those years” (Davidson). He used several studies, conducted by prestigious universities, as evidence to prove his initial claim that “immigrants expand the U.S. economy’s production capacity, encourage investment, and promote specialization that boosts productivity in the long-run.”
It is also important to keep in mind that a majority of illegal immigrants still pay their taxes just like any other citizen, but without receiving most of the benefits such as social security, health insurance, and the feeling of safety. A study from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that they paid more than $11.8 billion in state and local taxes in 2012 (Pianin). A little ironic considering the fact that a portion of those funds would be allocated to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which is responsible for locating and deporting those same exact immigrants. With the ICR’s 2012 fiscal budget being $5.8 billion, “unauthorized alien’s” tax payments had actually exceeded the U.S.’ expenditures on attempting to remove them (Zong and Batalova).
Some experts believe that illegal immigrants have much more potential to the U.S. economy than the tax revenues they provide. In particular, Patrick Oakford, professor and chair of the Department of Economics at Washington College, and Robert Lynch, the research assistant at the Center for American Progress, came up with multiple scenarios where all immigrants in the U.S. would be given full citizenship and calculated the potential outcomes of such events in their research paper, “The Economic Effects of Granting Legal Status and Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants”. Considering both specialize in public policy, public finance, international economics and economic development, they have the expertise to provide accurate statistics. The main argument Lynch and Oakford attempt to make is that providing both legal and illegal immigrants with full citizen status will not only boast their prosperity, but the whole U.S economy as well. They believed that “unauthorized immigrants are currently earning far less than their potential, paying much less in taxes, and contributing significantly less to the U.S. economy than they potentially could.”
Patrick Oakford and Robert Lynch Graph on Outcomes of Specific Immigration Reforms
Oakford and Lynch mathematically analyze scenarios where all immigrants would be given citizen status and semi-citizen status, and calculated their effects on the economy. From their results, they had a fair amount of numerical evidence that portrayed a statistically significant boost to the American economy if said immigration reforms were passed. According to the data, if immigrants were granted legal status in 2013, the economy would see an increase of 1.5 trillion dollars in GDP and an annual increase of 203 thousand jobs over the next 10 years (Lynch and Oakford). On top of economic benefits, the authors also cited legal protections, better jobs, investment in education, and entrepreneurship that the immigrants would be able to achieve through this reform. With respect to legal protections, Lynch and Oakford stated “newly legal immigrants will be better equipped to contest an unlawful termination of employment, to negotiate for fair compensation or a promotion, and to file a complaint if they believe they are being mistreated or abused.” With all their insightful estimations and statistics, the authors make a potent pro-argument for the passing of new immigration reforms.
Immigration reform that creates a pragmatic process for acquiring citizenship would not only significantly benefit our economy, but in addition provide millions of illegal immigrants with the opportunity to improve their living standards and have access to vital government amenities. It is important to understand that immigrants are also human beings who deserve a chance to achieve the “American Dream;” which is essentially impossible for them without us taking action. Not all immigrants will share the same stroke of luck as my cousin. The time has come for American people to shed their many misconceptions about foreigners and embrace the predicted benefits, such as considerable boost to our economy and increase in wages, that will come with reform.
Works Cited
Bump, Philip. “Where America’s Undocumented Immigrants Work.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 27 Mar. 2015. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.
Davidson, Adam. “Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
Ecoffet, Adrien Lucas. “What Is It Like to Win the Diversity Visa Lottery?” Forbes.com. Forbes Magazine, 18 Mar. 2014. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
Lynch, Robert, and Patrick Oakford. Center for American Progress. The Economic Effects of Granting Legal Status and Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants. 20 Mar. 2013. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
Pianin, Eric. “Study Finds Illegal Immigrants Pay $11.8B in Taxes.” The Fiscal Times. The Fiscal Times, 16 Apr. 2015. Web. 13 Apr. 2016.
Zong, Jie, and Jeanne Batalova. “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States.” Migrationpolicy.org. Migration Policy Institute, 25 Feb. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.