Comparing The Worker Next Door And David Cole's Five Myths About Immigration

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Currently one of the nation’s biggest debate topics is immigration and how to deal with the influx of the people coming into our country. David Cole is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a volunteer staff attorney for the Center of Constitutional Rights. In David Cole’s essay “Five Myths about Immigration” he lists of many reasons of why immigrants are not hurting this country and if anything they are helping. Barry R. Chiswick holds a Ph. D. in economics from Columbia University and is the head of the economics department at The George Washington University. In Barry R. Chiswick’s essay “The Worker Next Door” he describes how it’s better to reduce the numbers of low-skilled foreign workers to bring more benefits back to American people and society. Both of these essays have some strong points and differ greatly in opinion, but I believe David Cole’s essay has more merit. Both essays describe how the country is affected by the numbers of immigrants entering our country. Cole says that the accusations of America being overrun by immigrants is false. According to Cole, the total immigrant population as of 1990 was only eight percent. He says much of those …show more content…

Cole argues that immigration stimulates the economy by creating new jobs and contributing billions in revenue each year. He also argues that immigrants create more in taxes paid than the government funded services they partake in. Cole argues that illegal immigrants are not allowed to receive most benefit programs anyway. Chiswick disagrees and argues that immigration is hurting the economy. He states by having so many of them taking up the low-skilled working jobs in America they are actually creating an increase in wage inequality. He states that by decreasing the numbers of low-skilled workers in America that it would actually reduce the wage inequality and strengthen the wages for people in those