Summary Of Barry R. Chiswick's Harvest Of Empire

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The book “Harvest of Empire” (chap. 11) States that “Immigration policy has provoked fierce public debate in the United States for more than twenty years.” However, when this theme is touched, so many mixed emotions are heard, felt, even seen, and this is because this issue deals with everything from consideration for another human being to the country’s safety. These are people that live a life of fear, a life of invisibility, people who immigrate all for the “crime” of a better life. First of all, Americans need to understand the reasons why immigrants come to this country illegally, where they come from and why they do it. On one side of the debate are the people who believe that illegal immigrants do not pose a threat to this nation, and …show more content…

Chiswick believe that immigration is not necessary for the American economy. He argues that " Yet even in areas with few immigrants, grass is cut, groceries are bagged, and hotel sheets are changed."(P3). He does not believe that the American economy needs low-skilled foreign workers to do the jobs that American workers will not do. According to him immigrants take jobs from U.S citizens. This statement is absurd. To combat the "job-stealing" arguments used by opponents of immigration the author David Cole states " Immigrants Rights Project report, numerous studies have found that immigrants actually create more jobs than they fill. Opponents also use the argument that illegal immigration is a threat to the economy. Illegal immigrants argue that they do not steal any jobs from the citizens, due to the fact that they do not have a social security number and must work under-the-table. These illegal immigrants do most of the dirty work around the country, work that the American people will not do. So where are the jobs the American people are losing? Immigration has a very positive effect in the US economy as a whole. Latino immigrants, especially those in the country undocumented, have actually improved local economies for whites, according to several studies, because their willingness to work for lower wages has rejuvenated the profitability of ailing industries and thus presented further their job