Pro and Anti Immigration

This topic had a wide choice and range of groups for both pro and anti immigration and so finding information was not difficult. I found both sides of the argument from this website:

http://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/pro-anti-immigration.html

I shall start with the anti-immigration group called Project USA. http://www.projectusa.org/index.php

To the side of their page they have a section entitled arguments and within this have 10 reasons that people are for immigration, but are what Project USA believe in fact myths and has the title "'Jobs Americans won't do' plus nine more timeless classics!" Implying that these arguments are a joke in themselves. It then goes on to explain why each reason is inaccurate/incorrect in detail.

• Plenty of room for lots more: Highlights population density in America, that all of the major cities are overcrowded but there are vast areas of empty land that can't be inhabited. "Last year*, the United States grew at a faster rate than China. Yet, between 1998 and 1999, Wyoming lost population"
• Immigration is good for the economy They say that during the years 1925-1965 when immigration was at its lowest, America advanced in many areas such as computers, civil rights and putting a man on the moon, as well as winning world wars.
  
• Immigration adds diversity "Immigration policy should not be decided on racial or ethnic grounds, or we will end up turning immigration into a tussle between the races."
• Borders are mean They say borders are neccessary and realistic because of the changes that such a mass amount of immigrants brings to the country, changes that the majority of people don't want. They say that in this pc world today we have a problem excluding people, we can't say "us" and "them".
  
• Immigrants built this country As well as saying that the country should consider stopping "building" they say "Actually, Americans built this country. Immigration averaged only 235,000 persons per year prior to the disastrous 1965 Immigration Act. That's only 47 million immigrants over the course of our nation's history."
  
  

• Immigration reductionists are racists It agrees that there are some people who are racist but this isn't the case with all reductionists. "Those who fear racial conflict or the rise of fascism should support, as we do, an immigration time-out in order to take a breather, reassess what we are doing, and give the assimilation magic time to work."
• Immigrants do jobs Americans won't They say that it is ridiculous to say that the country cannot get by without an endless supply of immigrants to do jobs for them. (See example on website)
  
• We're a nation of immigrants 85% of Americans were born in the country, so their main argument here is that America is a nation of descendants of immigrants.
  
• Immigration helps economy It goes into detail comparing with other countries to prove that America can be rich without the help of immigrants.
  
• Your ancestors were immigrants "No matter where you live in the world you have an ancestor from somewhere else." It says that just because something was relevant in the past, doesn't make it automatically so now.
  

The pro-immigration site is http://www.borderangels.org/index.html
There introduction is as follows:

"Founded by Enrique Morones in 1986, Border Angels is a non-profit organization supporting humanity. The organization consists of extraordinary volunteers who want to stop unnecessary deaths of individuals traveling through the Imperial Valley desert areas and the mountain areas surrounding San Diego County, as well as the areas located around the United States and Mexican border. The high percentage of unnecessary deaths have been results of extreme heat and cold weather conditions, in addition some have sadly been the results of racial-discrimination crimes."

They provide a huge amount of information on how you can help, what they aim to do and even show the hate mail and messages from extreme groups against immigration. They also have a list of myths, much the same as the other site did but obviously from the opposite viewpoint. The difference between the two styles, is that this one backs each point up with facts and statistics and research papers alone and doesn't give their own opinion. It is far more formal than the anti-immigration site.

• Immigrants don't want to learn English "While first generation, non-English speaking immigrants predictably have lower rates of English proficiency than native speakers, 91% of second generation immigrants are fluent or near fluent English speakers. By the third generation, 97% speak English fluently or near fluently."
• Immigrants don't pay taxes "Between one half and three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay state and federal taxes. They also contribute to Medicare and provide as much as 7 billion dollars a year to the Social Security Fund."
• Immigrants increase the crime rate "While the undocumented immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2005, violent crime dropped by 34% and property crimes decreased by 32%."
• Immigrants take jobs away from Americans "given that the number of native born low wage earners is falling nationally, immigrants are playing an important role in offsetting that decline."
• Immigrants are a drain on the United States economy "Research reported by both the CATO Institute and the President’s Council of Economic Advisors reveals that the average immigrant pays a net 80,000 dollars more in taxes than they collect in government services. For immigrants with college degrees the net fiscal return is $198,000. "
  
• Undocumented immigrants are a burden on the healthcare system "Federal, state and local governments spend approximately 1.1 billion dollars annually on healthcare costs for undocumented immigrants, aged 18-64, or approximately $11 in taxes for each U.S. household. This compares to 88 billion dollars spent on all health care for non-elderly adults in the U.S."