America: land of the free and home of the brave. Many people from all around the world boldly leave their native country to make a living in the United States. These risk-takers total more than 1 million each year. Are there too many immigrants in America? Immigration has been a major issue since 1965 when Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments. A few decades earlier in 1921, Congress had established the first quantitative immigration law, the Quota Act. It restricted any Eastern Hemispheric nationality coming to the U.S. to 3% of their population. There was however no limit for the Western Hemisphere. Thus when Congress repealed this law, the number of immigrants and of different races substantially increased. Currently, nearly 10% of the national population is foreign-born. Experts today credit the newcomers for sustaining the nation’s economic prosperity. Meanwhile, there are certain critics who call for stricter limits on immigration, accusing immigrants of suppressing wage levels for Americans. Despite the arguments against unrestricted immigration, America should not limit the number of newcomers.
Though immigrants make up the majority of the labor force, o
[2] Quoted in John Micklethwait, “The New Americans,” The Economist, March 11, 2000.
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