Essay on Immigrants in the States

Submitted By siphan188
Words: 2271
Pages: 10

As one of the most developed industries, America attracts people from all over the world. A large number of foreigners want to stay in America and get the citizenship. The Department of Homeland Security reported that there are about 1.1 million immigrants moving to the US in 2005 and over 1.3 million in 2006 (“Annual Immigrants to the United State: The Real Number”). However, according to the article “Annual Immigrants to the United State: The Real Number” of MPI (Migrant Policy Institute), the number is actually much higher. In reality, the actual level of immigration averaged about 1.8 million between 2002 and 2006. It is a common thought that America is a dreamland where people can get better jobs and earn more decent lives. However, the fact is that the risks and difficulties they take, by moving to the United States, are greater than what they actually achieve.
There are number of reasons why foreigners want to come to the United States. According to John Bodnar, author of the book “The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America”, it was the growth of industrial expansion at the beginning of the twentieth century that attracted people from all over to come to America with the hope of finding better jobs and getting decent lives. In fact, in order to maximize the profit, American companies looked for cheap labor from developing countries, such as China, India and Vietnam. As a result, employees from all over the world were brought into America to expand the industry of the country. As for the people who decided to move to America, they are fascinated by the developed and diverse society of America. They assume that they can earn more money and attain a higher position in their society by coming to America. Not only does the American government offer jobs with better salary, but it also gives people great human services. The K-12 education system is totally free for all Americans. Medical aids are always available to assist the citizens. However, after coming to America, foreigners became more conscious about the difficulties they have to encounter in America. For immigrants, the opportunities are usually not what they expected. While employment seeking is one of the most important reasons for immigrants to migrate to the US, they usually find it hard to participate in the U.S. work force (De Castro, Rue and Takeuchi 500).Most immigrants struggle with employment frustration, which may lead to further physical and mental health problems. According to a research from the article “Associations of Employment Frustration with Self-Rated Physical and Mental Health Among Asian American Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Force” from the journal “Public Health Nursing” published in 2010, there are 24.3 percents of immigrants suffering from employment frustration. Despite this, there are over eighty percent of immigrants who say that their reason for moving to the US was for employment. It leads to the fact that although immigrants seek work when moving to America, there is a large number of them not satisfied with their occupations. Immigrants to the US usually have to face difficulties in finding the right jobs which offer enough money for them to survive and provide satisfaction. Some people may argue that immigrants can easily get jobs because there are numbers of choices for them as the American industry makes millions of jobs per year. In fact, according to the article “Illegal immigrants might get stimulus jobs, experts say” from USA Today, “studies by two conservative think tanks estimate immigrants in the United States illegally could take 300,000 construction jobs” (Welch). Even illegal immigrants take up a large number of jobs. There are a lot of employers who do not really check the legal immigration status of their employees. As a result, a lot of immigrants can work illegally without any documents or certification. However, due to difficulties in learning English, lack of proper education and cultural