Immigration Contributes to Better America

Immigration Contributes to Better America

America is an immigrant nation. Some of the best and brightest ever to grace the Earth have moved here for our freedoms and opportunities, not the least of which were Albert Einstein, Madeleine Albright, John Muir, Subranhmanyan Chandrasekhar and Martina Navratilova. America is known for the freedom and opportunities that this country has to offer, which is the main reason why a majority of immigrants migrate here from a variety of countries. Usually the type of immigrants that do come to America are the ones with dreams, the ones who have a goal in life, the ones who want to become somebody that they admire, therefore causing them to work harder and smarter than regular run of people. Just like John Bellows, recently highlighted in his remarks on comprehensive immigration reform, immigrants are not only an integral part of American culture and society but also important contributors to the United States economy (Bellows). Most of Americans believe that immigration does contribute to a better American for various aspects that immigrants have been helping to develop American economy, and to provide diversity American cultures.

Immigrants have been contributing to American domestic and international Business to spur the economy. It has been an argument against immigration is that all the immigrants are poor, and low-skilled. Native-born Americans worry about that the United States has been importing poverty. But the truth does not like that at all, actually the fact does quite opposite; not all the immigrants are low-skilled and low-educated. Some report shows that compared to U.S.-born Americans, immigrants are more likely to hold an advanced degree and are almost twice as likely to hold a Ph.D (www.pbs.org/intlemix/shows). Many of our most productive scientists and engineers are foreign-born, keeping the United States at the forefront of global innovation. In today's world, immigration is a necessary consideration for any company contemplating or conducting business operations in the United States. Immigrants are an important part of our international competitiveness, especially in technology-intensive and service industries.

Actually, U.S. immigration policy has been made in an information void, although the current immigration policy significantly undervalues the contributions these skilled immigrants make to high-growth segments of the U.S. economy, some research still appears that immigrants spur innovation in the United States and even help foment innovation by non-immigrants. AnnaLee Saxenian's 1999 report Silicon Valley's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs was the first comprehensive assessment of the critical role that immigrant capital and labor were playing in Silicon Valley's regional economy. She found Chinese and Indian engineers at the helm of 24% of the Silicon Valley technology businesses started from 1980 to 1998 (Saxenian). And late research updated and expanded her research; between 1995 and 2005, by polling companies selected randomly from the Dun 8c Bradstreet Million Dollar Database, study found that in one of four companies, the chief executive officer or chief technologist was foreign-born. A regional survey found that immigrant entrepreneurs were prominent in New York; Chicago; San, Diego; Boston; Washington, DC; Austin; Seattle; and elsewhere. Studies have shown that: Immigrants are more likely to be self-employed and start new businesses and small businesses, in some industries and regions, immigrants played a particularly critical role see the table 1. In the semiconductor sector, immigrants found 35% or startups. In Silicon Valley, the proportion of startups that were immigrant-founded had increased to 52% (A Reverse Brain Drain: The United State, long the beneficiary if talented immigrants, needs to act quickly to keep these valuable workers from lewaving to purse expanding opportunities in their home countries). Furthermore, immigrants help to provide business leadership in developing new products and industries. For example, some of the companies at the forefront of the digital revolution were co-founded by immigrants: Intel, Sun Microsystems, eBay, Google, and Yahoo to name a few examples. This entrepreneurial spirit is particularly important in the wake of the recent recession as we look towards the private sector to find new opportunities for growth and to create new jobs for American workers. Clearly, immigrants are contributing significantly to U.S. intellectual property, a key ingredient for the country's economic success.

Percentage of Immigrant-Founded Companies by Industry (The Table 1)

Defense/ Aerospace 7.9%

Environmental 9.2%

Bioscience 20.1%

All Industry Fields 25.3%

Innovation/ Manufacturing-Related Services 25.3%

Software 27.9%

Computer/Communications 31.7%

Semiconductors 35.2%

Immigrants also provide a diversity culture to America. The United States is already, and has always been a multicultural society. In fact this continent was made up of many different indigenous cultures even before the arrival of the Europeans. The first African Americans were forcibly brought to the colonies in 1619. Chinese immigrants came in the mid-19th century to work on the railroads. Large numbers of Mexicans were living on land annexed by the United States from Mexico in 1848. Today people of color are a majority in many large cities and in the states of America. New immigrants have always had a dynamic relationship to U.S. society, adapting to its diverse cultures and values, just as the society adapts to the immigrants, their traditions and perspectives.

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