Every day, millions of people emigrate from one country to another. Legally or illegally, movement from one country to another is a very common occurrence in today’s day and age. My initial question for research was as follows: “Is immigration beneficial or harmful to the United States?”, and it led me to a plethora of sources holding stances on both ends of the spectrum regarding immigration. I chose the topic of immigration specifically because of the recent political implications and because I found it most interesting. Nearly every evening, there are headlines on the news regarding immigration, and it remains a very hot topic in the United States. America has long grounded its self as the “home of the free,” where democracy and social inclusion reign free. This remains true in many facets of life in the United States- advanced rights for many types of people and surpassing rights as compared to other countries is what makes us proud to be Americans. However, these rights and freedoms pertain to the Americans who are legal citizens of this great country, as stated in The Constitution of the United States. Historically, legal immigration to the United States paved the way for great advancements such as the Industrial Revolution, as millions of people came from their homes in European countries to find better work and more opportunity. Now, in today’s problematic society of terrorism and cyber warfare, borders across the entire world have become tighter and stricter through sheer fear of attacks and war from other countries. With the election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States, immigration as a whole has been a topic under great scrutiny through Trump’s agenda to build a large wall to further secure our borders and tighten security regulations to gain access into the United States. The wall refers to the Mexican-American border, as increased illegal immigration has become a large social issue for Americans; including issues with job security, safety concerns, and increased trafficking of illicit drugs. Trump’s plan to “close the borders” is a large step and stands against many of America’s core values of inclusion for all, but throughout all of the threats and issues from abroad, I believe that these measures must be taken in order to ensure the security of America now and in the future. 

Immigration poses a large threat to the United States and its citizens on the social, economic and safety platforms, and although many Americans feel as though offering new people opportunity will continue to be prosperous for the United States’ future, my research concludes that too much immigration can only harm Americans for generations to come. Immigration is a major part of America’s history, and it led to many positive and negative outcomes in the past. But now, very serious concerns regarding America’s day-to-day safety are clear regarding immigration from foreign countries. Also, if immigrants are able to make their way to the United States, many times they are stealing jobs and opportunities from life-long Americans by offering lower salary needs, a large detriment to the United States economically. Socially, immigrants many times have trouble acquiescing to American society, causing problems for the immigrants and Americans alike. All in all, mass immigration is a major negative for the United States and will continue to be so unless major steps are taken to stop it. 

The United States has often been referred to as a “melting pot” of ideas, customs, cultures and people. In the fact, the United States was founded by immigrants and was fought for by immigrants in the Revolutionary War. Millions of people with hopes of building a new life with more freedoms and a society with a greater focus on the individual flooded to the United States, in fact, “Americans encouraged relatively free and open immigration during the 18th and early 19th centuries” (Early American Immigration Policies). Immigration led to great successes such as the Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century and led to large settlements across the United States. However, many Americans began having issues with the large influx of migrants across the nation. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was put in place in the state of California because “the Chinese, who were willing to work for less” began to put local Americans out of work simply by working for much lower wages (Immigration before 1965). Immigration policies was typically left in the hands of individual states, but beginning in 1890, the government designated Ellis Island as the sole station where migrants where granted or denied entrance to America. During its course of existence (around 60 years), more than 12 million immigrants were granted access to the United States. (Immigration before 1965). The 1917 Immigration Act brought about literacy tests and more rigorous medical examinations for immigration candidates (Early American Immigration Policies). Eventually, quotas were created for immigrants from certain countries, and America’s borders began to tighten in order to ensure America’s economy and cities could handle the amount of immigrants in the nation. Immigration to the United States fell off slightly during WWI, The Great Depression and WWII, and the amount of foreign-born Americans decreased a good deal. America began to thrive during the Baby Boomer phase of 1950 and 1960, increasing the economy and becoming known as a worldly superpower. Then, the age of terrorism became a whole new national security issue with terrorist attacks such as the plane bombings at the World Trade Center and the Twin Towers. National security as a whole tightened exponentially, including an increase in requirements for immigrants with the introduction of deeper background checks for each individual trying to gain access to America. These strengthened requirements led to an increase in illegal immigration- because people either did not have the paperwork to gain access or had negative backgrounds that would be grounds for denial from America. The history of immigration has had a very turbulent history, with many positives and negatives, but, throughout history, the tightening of national security and closing of borders have proved necessary due to problems with immigrants and worries about possible threats to the American economy or national security. 

For many years, societies and individuals have regarded America as “a place of opportunity”- opportunity to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, certain societies find these opportunities wrong and ill-regarded, targeting Americans and our country for what we stand for and believe in. These individuals and societies are additional reasons why American national border security must be increased. From 1975 to 2015, “foreign-born terrorists who entered the country, either as immigrants or tourists, were responsible for 88 percent (or 3,024) of the 3,432 murders caused by terrorists on US soil” (Terrorism and Immigration). This statement speaks for itself- a majority of the terrorist attacks that have happened in the United States could have been prevented, and American lives could have been saved if there were greater security regulations in place. A very scary realization to say the least, but definitely grounds for consideration when creating policy regarding immigration and border security. It is a sad fact that every person that tries to gain access into America must be viewed as a potential threat to national security, but it is a fact that we must live with in today’s society. Terrorist attacks happen all over the world in today’s society, and many times these terrorists gained entry to the country through legal visas and passed all immigration standards. Recent terror attacks in Paris happened because immigrant refugees gained access to France and the tragedy of 9/11 occurred because several immigrants over-stayed their student visas (Rand Paul’s Troubled Triangulation). When the government takes immigration standards into consideration, terrorism is a very large part of the discussion and must be in today’s society. The fact that people can legally gain entrance to a country that they plan to cause harm to is frightening, and must be understood by all as to why the security regulations border constraints are why they are. Immigration as a whole must be considerably slowed into the United States, because, statistically it decreases the chance for an attack to happen on our soil. Of course, many people wanting to enter the United States are wanting to gain asylum from a dangerous country or are truly wanting to work in America for better opportunities, but because of the few terrorists that do enter America, immigration tightness must be at an all-time high. Also, some terrorists that enter the country are illegal immigrants, either by forging a passport, visa or by sneaking in. With all of the past terrorist attacks on the United States coming from immigration, “well-known conservatives like Larry Kudlow, David Bossie, and Ann Coulter have called for a complete moratorium on immigration,” meaning that immigration be banned completely (Terrorism and Immigration: A Risk Analysis). Terrorism is a major national security threat and must be heavily taken into consideration when creating immigrations laws and policies, because of past events that have occurred and because future attacks can happen from legally accepted immigrants to our country. 

A very hot topic in American politics is illegal aliens sneaking across the Mexican-American border. In Donald Trump’s inaugural speech as he became the president elect of the United States, he vowed to make America “safer” again. One of the large parts of this vow was to secure the Mexican-American border, and build a wall that will keep illegal immigrants from crossing the border at such an alarming rate. In Donald Trump’s words, “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists,” and they are threatening many other aspects of American life, as well (Walker, Business Insider). Currently, anywhere from 7 million to 20 million illegal immigrants reside in the United States (Important Statistics on Illegal Immigration). These illegal immigrants do not pay taxes to the American government, therefore, they essentially have a free ride in our country and take advantage of our democratic system and economic prosperity. They are willing to do jobs that most Americans do not want to do, and will work for lower wages; this means that they are essentially ‘stealing’ jobs from American citizens, putting them out of work and hurting our economy and families. Illegal immigrants began flooding to the United States as lawmakers began making immigration standards more difficult to gain access to America, meaning far less candidates would be able to gain entry- in fact, “from 2008 to 2012, the emigration rate dropped from 6.4 migrants per 1,000 residents to 3.3 migrants” (MigrationPolicy.org). Illegal immigration across the Mexican-American border is another major issue with immigration in America, and if it continues, it will only continue to hurt the American economy, workforce and society. 

There are a wide variety of critics that do not support limiting the amount of immigrants that are allowed into the United States. They believe that immigration is one of the cornerstones to the American identity and that immigrants add culture, intelligence and history to the American population and workforce. Many Americans have protested the “Muslim ban” and wall that Donald Trump plans to institute, and many petitions are being signed by American lawmakers. Immigration bans have been implemented before in American history and they have proved to be beneficial to the safety and integrity of our country. “Obama banned immigration from Iraq, and Carter banned it from Iran,” not because of preconceived racism or dislike, but because these areas proved to be large threats to the United States (Breitbart). Burning American flags, destroying property or screaming words of hate at government buildings do not successfully show that immigration should be allowed in the United States, these actions deteriorate the society that our founding fathers worked hard to build. Another criticism on immigration reform is that America began as a melting pot of immigrants and it became great through the sharing of ideas from different cultures and people- it is central to the American identity and should continue to be so. These facts are true, immigrants did make America what it is today and were integral in making the industrial and commercial superpower that it is today. However, if immigrants are continued to be let in at high rates, overcrowding in cities can occur and basic life essentials will become more scarce and more expensive- quite frankly, the United States cannot support large influxes of immigrants. Immigrants are fleeing from war torn countries, looking for more opportunity and/ or wishing to begin a new life in a new country. There are many reasons immigrants wish to come to America, but there are many reasons that American cannot support the rate at which they wish to gain entry. Lack of room and resources and safety concerns will continue to remain at the forefront of reasoning behind immigration reform and President Trump will not stand for a country that does not have strong border protection. 

In conclusion, too much immigration is a large threat to American society on a variety of levels and it is necessary that borders are tightened and stricter immigration requirements are put in place. Millions of Americans believe that Trump and the government are being too strict with the reform, but they do not realize the detriment that illegal immigrants from Mexico are to society and the fact that too much legal immigration from other countries can become a large problem for America’s future. The United States was, in fact, built upon immigration and American society will always be a large mixture of different people, societies, religions and backgrounds. In today’s society, safety is a large concern and a necessity in ensuring the safety of our people is reducing immigration. Legal and illegal immigration have caused many negative occurrences in history, and the only way to stop these situations from happening is by limiting the amount of people that can cause these issues. Luckily, Donald Trump and his advisors have America’s safety at the forefront of their agenda, have promised Americans that immigration reform is at the top of their list to accomplish. Tightening border security, creating stricter immigration requirements and strengthening America’s safety will prove very beneficial in the future to the United States and its people, and future generations will be much better off because of these actions. 
