Repurcussions of Stricter Immigration laws

The subject of immigration has once again come in worldview after President Trump’s policies to reduce immigration have been widely applauded by some people and criticised by whole lot of others both of which are the part of the American Republic. Immigration in a layman’s language can be described as the international movement of people into a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle or reside there, especially as permanent residents or naturalized citizens, or to take up employment as a migrant worker or temporarily as a foreign worker. As for economic effects, research suggests that immigration is beneficial for the country that is sending and the one that is receiving. Research, with few exceptions, finds that immigration on average has positive economic effects on the native population, but is mixed as to whether low-skilled immigration adversely affects low-skilled natives. Development economists argue that reducing barriers to labor mobility between developing countries and developed countries would be one of the most efficient tools of poverty reduction. Research findings provides mixed relationships between crime and immigration and it can be concluded that immigration does not directly affect the crime rate. Research has found extensive evidence of discrimination against foreign born and minority populations in criminal justice, business, the economy, housing, health care, media and politics in the United States and Europe. Providing stricter immigration laws was one of the policies within President Donald Trump’s campaign agenda – and it remains Trump’s administration’s major priorities to protect the US workers and taxpayers. Stricter immigration laws reflect the idea that inland migration reduces job opportunities for native people and citizens and cost taxpayers extra money to provide housing and social assistance. The fact that stricter immigration reform might benefit native workers, through better employment opportunities , less competition and lower tax burden is a central research question that still remains unanswered. The phenomenon of imposing stricter immigration laws is not a new one. America has imposed this before in the 1920s in hope to uplift the standard of living of the citizens and of the people that had entered the country legally. The advent of people in countries specifically US have slowed sharply since 2008.But there are many reasons to why immigration is important for a nation. Immigration fuels the economy. When immigrants enter the labour force, they increase the productive capacity of the economy and raise GDP. Their incomes rise, but so do those of natives. It’s a phenomenon dubbed the “immigration surplus,” and while a small share of additional GDP accrues to natives — typically 0.2 to 0.4 percent — it still amounts to $36 to $72 billion per year.In addition to immigration surplus,immigrants grease the wheels of the labour market by flowing into the industries and areas where there is relative need for workers- where bottlenecks or shortages might otherwise damp growth. Immigrants are more likely to move than natives, and by relieving these bottlenecks to expansion, immigrants increase the speed limit of the economy. Growth accelerates as slack falls, a desirable scenario that follows from the improved allocation of resources in the economy.
There are many examples — nationally and regionally — of immigrants moving to where the jobs are. In terms of occupations, immigrants flowed into high-tech jobs during the Internet boom and construction jobs during the 2000s housing boom. In addition, the rise in high-skilled immigration, a pronounced trend since the 1990s, has been linked to innovation, specifically to higher patenting rates among immigrants. Interestingly, greater innovation among immigrants appears to boost it among natives, too. Immigrants innovate more than natives because they are concentrated in STEM entrepreneurial activity. Forty-four percent of medical scientists are foreign born, for example, as are 42 percent of computer software developers. Immigrant workers are also overrepresented among college professors, engineers, mathematicians, nurses, doctors and dentists, to name a few. Immigration is thus a positive but also disruptive change. There are lots of historical examples of positive yet disruptive economic change. The Industrial Revolution displaced millions of farm workers and resulted in the great urban migrations and the birth of mega-cities to which we now ascribe all kinds of positive attributes, including creativity and innovation and higher wages. No great change is without some short-term cost. What is costly in the long-term is preventing market forces from funneling resources to their best use. The adjustment of wages and prices to the changing demand and supply in the economy are the levers of capitalism that direct resources to their best allocation.
Immigration has net benefits. The fact that it has some costs is not a reason to bar it, but rather to manage it. Mechanisms can be found to benefit from immigration’s gains while making up for the losses of some workers. International trade has similar effects, and workers adversely affected by trade are eligible for federal programs such as Trade Adjustment Assistance. Immigration is a net positive, even for those who don’t move, but the gains are not distributed equally. The next step for policymakers is to structure immigration reform to take advantage of immigration’s many benefits while mitigating the costs