Outline:

1. Introduction

1.1. general presentation of the main aim of the paper

1.2. The notion of immigration.

1. Historical fact about immigration to the USA

2.1. historical migrations

2.2. reasons for immigration

2.3. the ways the immigrants were entering the country

1. The impact of immigration upon population growth

1. The correlation of the economy of the country and immigration waves.

4.1. cheap labor and taxes

4.2. impact on aging society

1. Immigration policies in Canada and Germany in comparison to the USA

5.1 Canada

5.2 Germany

6. Conclusion


In this paper we are going to analyze the social impact of immigration to the USA and compare it to the immigration process of other countries: Germany and Canada.

1. Immigration (migration to a country) is one component of international migration; the other component is emigration (migration from a country). In its simplest form, international migration is defined as any movement across a national border.

There are two types of population: native and foreign – born. The term “foreign born” is usually used to name a person, who is not a US citizen at birth. This reffers to naturalized U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents (immigrants), temporary migrants (such as students), humanitarian migrants (such as refugees), and persons illegally present in the United States whereas the term “ native” referrs to anyone born in the United States or a U.S. Island Area such as Puerto Rico, or born abroad of a U.S. citizen parent.

2. The notion of immigration far not new for the USA, it has a rather long history. Before the year 1790, during the colonial-era immigration to North America people from following countries were coming to the USA: Africa, England, Scotland, Ireland, Netherlands, Wales, France, Sweden, Jews. (see appendice 1).

The immigration laws of those times didn’t allow people from Asia and Africa to enter the country legaly. Most Europeans were actually free to come untill the 1800s and Industrial Revilution.

The population of the colonies that later turned into the United States grew from zero Europeans in the mid-1500s to 3.2 million Europeans and 700,000 African slaves in 1790. At those times, it is estimated that 3/4 of the population were of British descent, Germans were forming the second-largest free ethnic group and they made up 7% of the population.

Between 1629 and 1640 about 20,000 Puritans emigrated from England, and settelted in the New England area of North America. In a famous historical event known as the Great Migration, these people got the name of Yankees of New England, they later on settled New York and the Upper Midwest.

Between 1645 and 1670, 45,000 Royalists and/or indentured servants left England and found work in the Middle Colonies and Virginia.

From about 1675 to 1715, the Quakers appeared, leaving the Midlands and North England behind for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. The Quaker movement became one of the largest religious presences in early colonial America.

Germans found place for themselves in many colonies, but most of them migrated to Pennsylvania, where they made up a third of the population by the time of the Revolution.

There was also a catagorie of people who were brought to the USA unwillingly, most of African slaves came to the future United States before it gained independence. It is now difficult to name the exact number of them, but it is about 300,000 of slaves, who came to the British North American colonies before Independence, and another 100,000 were imported in the period between the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. In the year 1808 the slave trade was made illegal, upon the expiration of a constitutional clause prohibiting such a law (Article 1, section 9).

Within the the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a lot of indentured servants came to the future USA from the British Isles and Ireland. Their serve terms were usually of four to fourteen years.

About 50,000 European convicts also crossed the seas to North America in an earlier penal trasportation system between 1700 and 1770.

The historical fact is that Germans made up about one-tenth of the whole population of the country in the 18th century. At the beginning of the 19th century about 500,000 Germans immigrated to the country. 20,000 came in the years 1816-1817, fleeing a famine. Some 61,000 fled to America after the Revolutions of 1848 were not successful.

Later on between years 1850 and 1930 another 5 million Germans immigrated to the USA, in the years 1881 and 1885 about million of Germans setteled in the Midwest.

The New England was the place where between 1840 and 1930 900.000 French Canadians came to.

Between 1910 and 1920 we should talk about Italian immigration to the USA. Over 2 million Italians immigrated in those years, with a total of 5.3 million immigrating between 1820 and 1980. Sweden was known for famine, poverty and religious oppression and about 1 million Swedes imigrated to the USA.This was about 20 % of the whole population in Sweden at that time. So, the people from southern parts of Sweden came to the USA and setteled mostly in the Midwest.

Jews moved to the USA from 1880 to 1924, many were trying to flee from Nazi Germany, but they got refusal in entering the USA.

IF to have a look at the great number of people who decided to immigrate to another country we could come to the conclusion that there should have been rather serious reasons for that. There were different main reasons for different historical periods. We are going to speak generally about some of the main periods and of the main reasons of immigration within these periods.

The first one would be of the years 1607 – 1830. The main reasosn were: 1.Political Freedom; 2.Religious Tolerance; 3. economic Opportunity – People want a better life – better job – more money; 4.Political Refugees fear for their lives; 5.Some want free atmosphere; 6. Forced Immigration (Slavery); 7. Family Reunification; 8. There are two types of motivation for immigration: Push(need to leave in order to survive) and Pull (attracted to new way of life).

The second period we will be talking about is between the years 1830-1890. It is not difficult to make the reasons of the immigration clear during these times. The land was still rather plentiful, and fairly cheap. There were many places to get job and labor was relatively dear. Another things that influenced the situation were a decline in the birthrate as well as an increase in industry and urbanization.

At those times the USA was the country of plenty of jobs and farmlands, this certainly did attract the immigrants. A German immigrant to Missouri wrote home about: “[The] abundance of overbearing soldiers, haughty clergymen, and inquisitive tax collectors…” (1).

During the next period (1890-1924) people from different countries had different reasons, for example: Jews came for religious freedom, Italians and Asians came for Work, Russians came to escape persecution, and in America they all could find jobs and religious freedom. America was hyped up in many countries as “Land of Opportunity”.

And we come to the last period to mention – 1968 – present times – there is one important reason for most people why they decide to immigrate to the USA and to some other country, as if they try to go to France or to Japan there would be really a huge risk of getting harassed, arrested or deported in those countries as opposed to US.

The ways in which immigrants entered the country were also different. We would name the most popular ones within different periods. 1607-1830 – When the ships from Philadelphia came to unload their cargoes, the Scotch-Irish would sell themselves, for the cost for their passage, to a captain. 1830-1890 – ships simply brought the people and left them standing at the wharf,

1.Immigrants: U.S. Economic Savior or Social and Economic Burden? May 2, 2005 – Voice of America , by Serena Parker

the public was afraid of the possible diseases that the immigrants were luckily to bring with themselves and they were a somewhat ousted by society. But after the year 1855, Castle Garden was made the center for receiving the immigrants. As a result the USA government had also to take a better care of the immigrants, so there were special clerks appointed, who would record the names, nationalities, and destinations of immigrants. The state of health of the coming people was also checked. The years 1890-1924 – brought a little more definite conditions for immigrants acceptation to the country, like for example: the immigrants had to: go through Ellis or Angel Island; Had to be tested for diseases and physically fit; Had to have documents from other country; Had to be mentally fit; Had to be ready for life in the U.S.

Talking about the last period (1968-Present), we mention first of all the immigrants from Cuba, who were brought by commercial air- flights, some of the sailed in small boats and some were apprehended by the Cuban navy. As soon as President Clinton said that no more refugees would be accepted many Cubans were stopped by U.S. ships and taken to the U.S. naval base in Guatanamo Bay on Cuba’s coast.

So, these were some historical facts concerning immigration to the USA in short, they are still very important for the general understanding of this notion at the moment.

3. We should mention that the process of immigration brings certain global and serious changes not only to the lives of people who take a risk to immigrate, this also influences tremendously the lives of the people who are already living in the country. In this part of the paper we are going to talk about some social/economical changes of the country receiving immigrants.

The first problem is the impact of immigration of population growth. There could be many opinions concerning this matter, but let’s start with demographic facts. The results of the researches of the year 200 showed that the number of the foreign-born population was close to 30-31 million people, including legal and illegal immigrants. Certainly this number is rather big, as it means that about 1.3 million immigrants came to the USA each year. Some assumptions could be certainly made concerning the future already, so, according to Census Bureau’s projections, if it all continues so as it is now, by the year 2050 the population in the USA will grow to 404 million people. If not the immigration process the population would be supposed to be about 328 million. After seeing such numbers we should come to the conclusion that it is vitally important for the government to concentrate upon the problem of immigration, upon the laws restricting or controlling this process.

4. No wonder that such numbers of immigrants do influence the economical development of the country. The bright example is the situation in Arizona. The Department of Labor provides the data that nearly 2.000.000 crop workers came to America from outside. They bring cheap labor and it is crucial to the $ 30-billion U.S. farm industry. Dan Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute says: “Immigrants tend to go to segments of the labor market where there is the most demand and less supply. So that is on the high end and on the lower end. Lower-skilled immigrants who come into the United States are typically taking jobs that most Americans are not interested in: picking lettuce in the hot sun, scrubbing floors or toilets in a discount store in the middle of the night, gardening, construction, that sort of work” (1).

But there is another side of the medal, on the one hand the immigrants coming to the country are supposed to pay into the system of the government retirement and medical programs, but for some reasons many of them are not able to collect their Social Security retirement checks, which certainly leaves the system with a surplus.

Some researches were made to clear the situation with immigration and aging society, the Center for Immigration Studies states that immigration won’t change the aging trends and situation of the American society much. Though numbers are usually a good basis for making conclusions, but still in this situation a great attention should be paid to the problem as actually nobody is able to predict the future and thus many factors could influence the country’s development.

1. Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, and Social and Economic Factors as Predictors of Breastfeeding Initiation , by Ann C. Celi, MD, MPH; Janet W. Rich-Edwards, ScD; Marcie K. Richardson, MD; Ken P. Kleinman, ScD; Matthew W. Gillman, MD, SM Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005;159:255-260

5. The USA was certanly not the only country which experienced the process of immigration. We would also concentrate on the examples of Canada and Germany in this paper.

Every year about 200.000 new people come to Canada from other countries. About 40 % of Canada immigration happens under the family reunion or refugee programs, and in the year 2005 it was a plan to receive even up to 300.000 immigrants to the country within the next several years. The fact is that Canada is a little bit larger country than the USA, but it has only about 33 million people ( compared to 296 million in the USA) and most of its territory is the frigid north. So Canada is trying to work out policies and laws to be able to choose the immigrats, to attract well-educated doctors or engineers. Statistics Canada states that recently immigrants earn less than Canadian-born people, although their education level is rather high. So, the plan for Canada is to learn what kind of workers are really needed and to start the so-called new “in-Canada” application – it will allow temporary workers and students apply for landed –immigrant status if they have worked there for the certain number of months.

Germany is also considered to be an immigration country, it has about 7 million foreing people living there. From the year 2005 Germany is also starting to develop the program of attracting highly skilled workers to move to the country, usually it is easy for people who are well-qualified in natural science. It is also not difficult for the members of the family of these people to move to the country to join their relatives and to find work as well. Some good possibilities have also foreign students, who enter the universities in Germany and later would like to start working there.

6. Overall, if to compare the situations with immigration in the USA and Germany and Canada, it is obvious that immigration is already a kind of historical fact for the USA, as it was already mentioned this country was a target for immigration for really many people from other countries many years ago, Germany and Canada are “younger” countries concerning this issue, but they chose the correct positions for them - to avoid receiving all people and later have problems with medical ensurance or state taxes or homeless people, they build their immigration policies in the direction of attracting highly skilled workers and well-educated specialists, to accelerate the economical and scientific development of the countries.

Sources:

1. The Impact of Immigration on U.S. Population Growth, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims August 2, 2001, By Steven Camarota
2. Methodology and Assumptions for the Population Projections of the United States: 1999 to 2100 Population Division. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Working Paper No. 38. Frederick W. Hollmann, Tammany J. Mulder, and Jeffrey E. Kallan.
3. Out Smarting Smart Growth: Immigration, Population Growth and Suburban Sprawl. 2001. Center Paper 18. Roy Beck, Leon Kolankiewicz. Center for Immigration Studies. Washington DC. Forthcoming
4. The Triennial Comprehensive Report on Immigration
5. Immigrants: U.S. Economic Savior or Social and Economic Burden? May 2, 2005 – Voice of America , by Serena Parker

1. Immigration, Race/Ethnicity, and Social and Economic Factors as Predictors of Breastfeeding Initiation, by Ann C. Celi, MD, MPH; Janet W. Rich-Edwards, ScD; Marcie K. Richardson, MD; Ken P. Kleinman, ScD; Matthew W. Gillman, MD, SM Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005;159:255-260.

1. indiafocus.indiainfo. com/immigration/usa/

Appendice 1

Group


Immigrants before 1790

Africa


360,000 (almost all as slaves)

England


230,000

Ulster


135,000

Germany


103,000

Scotland


48,500

Ireland


8,000

Netherlands


6,000

Wales


4,000

France


3,000

Jews


2,000

Sweden


500

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