Navigate the complexities of Immigration and Visas with ease. Our comprehensive guide covers all you need to know about visas, residency.
The United States economy relies on immigrant workers. Yet issuance of green cards has been flat since 2008 and migrant apprehensions are near record lows.
Obtaining citizenship is a major benefit because it allows U.S. citizens to travel freely in most countries without a visa and receive assistance from the U.S. government abroad.
Immigrants Contribute to the Economy
Immigration bolsters the economy in many ways. Immigrants help drive business entry and expansion; they are consumers, entrepreneurs and investors and therefore increase the country’s output and GDP. Immigrants also fill jobs that Americans don’t want to do, including care for children, the elderly and the sick. This boosts the overall economic performance of the nation and creates better-paying jobs for Americans in other sectors of the economy.
In addition, a large percentage of immigrants are highly skilled workers, including scientists, engineers, computer software developers and doctors. In fact, according to a former economic adviser to President Joe Biden, immigrants account for about a fifth of America’s productivity growth over the past four years. In addition, immigrants bring entrepreneurship and innovation, as well as a work ethic that makes them more productive than their American counterparts.
A large number of immigrants come to America on family-based visas, and those who move up the socio-economic ladder and become citizens are a huge contributor to the economy. The remittances that immigrants send home are also a crucial factor in ensuring America’s continued economic growth.
However, a substantial portion of the current population of unauthorized immigrants is not as economically dynamic. This group tends to have larger families and more children who use public schools, which puts a heavy burden on state and local budgets. In addition, a substantial proportion of these unauthorized immigrants are low-income and lack legal status.
Giving this group permanent legal status would improve their labor market outcomes and make them more economically dynamic, resulting in higher contributions to the economy. Moreover, a significant proportion of the families that await green cards are from countries with a high rate of GDP growth and are expected to add a substantial amount of economic output over time. Thus, the economic gains of granting these families legal status outweigh the cost to combined federal, state and local budgets. In short, a new study by Harvard economist James Robinson concludes that the best way to make the economy more dynamic is to increase immigration and offer legalization to all unauthorized immigrants.
Immigrant Women Participate in the Labor Force
As we celebrate International Women’s Day, it’s important to remember the vital contributions of immigrant women to the United States economy. While some of their work goes unnoticed, the vast majority of immigrant women are working to support their families and contribute to our nation’s prosperity.
There are 23 million women immigrants in the country, and they generally outnumber men. Most are a part of the population through family-based immigration, and many have achieved U.S. citizenship. Over half of immigrant women have a bachelor’s degree or more education. Those from Mexico and India are the most highly educated. Despite the overall high levels of education, some women face barriers in the labor force, especially those who have recently arrived or who are undocumented.
Those with less formal qualifications face greater obstacles in entering the workforce, and those without a job often face discrimination, low wages, and poor quality jobs. Undocumented women also face additional challenges, including limited English proficiency and, for those without legal status, a lack of access to employment.
Working-age immigrant women are more likely to be in the workforce than native-born women. However, their labor-force participation rates have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, falling below that of native-born workers and reaching a low point in early 2020. Nevertheless, immigrant women are still more likely than native-born women to work in the five top industries: health care and social assistance; accommodation and food services; educational services; retail trade; and manufacturing.
Research shows that immigrant women are integrating into the labor force gradually over time, with significant variation in their starting employment levels and growth rates. This is due to a variety of factors, such as the broader socioeconomic and cultural forces shaping gendered patterns of labor-market incorporation.
The current immigration system includes both family-based and employment-based categories of visas. There are a total of 675,000 permanent visas available each year for people with family connections to the United States and 140,000 visas that can be awarded annually for employment-based categories, which include skilled workers, professionals with advanced degrees, “persons of extraordinary ability” in arts, science, or education, and multinational executives and managers. Each year, more than half of those granted an employment-based green card are women.
Immigrants Help Revitalize Neighborhoods
As a group, immigrants are highly invested in their communities. They form a vital and dynamic part of the neighborhood fabric, bringing energy and dynamism that can halt a decline or even spur economic rebirth. In places such as Queens and Brooklyn, immigrant entrepreneurship has been a driving force in revitalizing urban neighborhoods and breaking the cycle of poverty. They are also a powerful source of demand for local businesses and help keep housing prices affordable in formerly high-cost metro areas.
They also provide valuable labor for family-based industries, like restaurants and retail businesses. In fact, in many cities, 38 percent of small business owners are foreign-born. And they contribute to placemaking, by building cultural bridges and making communities destinations for dining and shopping. They are a vital bulwark against population loss and can prevent the decline of neighborhoods that might otherwise be abandoned and forgotten.
But immigrants aren’t immune to the impact of changing perceptions about them. For example, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were committed by people who came to this country on temporary visas (student and tourist visas). They may be more likely than other Americans to have low incomes, but they are not a net fiscal drain for the United States: Their lifetime earnings as workers far exceed their consumption of government benefits.
Immigrants are also a force for good in our neighborhoods because they are less likely to commit crimes. Research shows that neighborhoods with more immigrants have lower crime rates than those with fewer. They are also less prone to gang violence and drug trafficking. Immigrants are more likely to be religious and more inclined to obey the law. Despite the polarizing national debate, most Americans are underexposed to the important role that immigration plays in their local economies and communities.
Immigrants bring positive impacts for all Americans, especially the poorest. But it’s important to acknowledge that immigration has costs and that mechanisms can be found to mitigate those costs for those who are most affected. With the right approach, we can preserve the great social and economic benefits of immigration while addressing its unavoidable drawbacks.
Immigrants Move Up the Socio-Economic Ladder
Amid the current immigration debate, a key question is how immigrants will fare in the labor market. While some worry that immigrants will depress wages for low-skilled workers, research shows that this is not the case.
Instead, newcomers boost labor-market performance through better job match, work productivity improvements and higher skill acquisition. These gains raise factor prices, which in turn lifts the return to capital and the wages of complementary workers. The benefit accrues to those with the most resources, such as entrepreneurs and the owners of capital, which is why it is important for policymakers to consider the full economic effects of immigration.
Immigrants enter the United States through an alphabet soup of visa categories, with some paths offering permanent residence (known as “green cards”) and others only temporary status. Eligibility for a green card depends on factors such as family relationships, employment-based preferences, humanitarian protection and the diversity visa program. Each visa category has different numerical caps and offers varying rights and responsibilities.
The most well-educated and highly skilled immigrants tend to be the first to gain legal status. The children of these parents also achieve better occupational outcomes than the children of non-immigrants, even when they live in similar neighborhoods and households. This is not due to the children of high-skilled immigrant parents having more “cultural capital” or some other type of superiority, as has been suggested. Rather, it seems that children of high-skilled immigrant fathers in particular learn how to navigate challenges and opportunities in the parallel middle class sphere in which they have been born into, and recognize that any decline in their parent’s class status is only transitory (Portes and Fernandez-Kelly 2008).
Another potential channel for improving the labor market fortunes of unauthorized immigrants is granting them legal status. This would allow them to take up Federal benefits they have been using illegally, including emergency health services and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. It could also make them more comfortable in entering the workforce. The evidence suggests that giving unauthorized workers legal status would improve their wage and earnings outcomes in the labor market, and the additional take-up of social programs could reduce government costs.