Immigration in America Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Immigration in America - Research Paper Example This stark increase in immigration quantities poses a variety of problems in the United States, including economic issues, concerns associated with law enforcement, wages provided to native citizens, and even problems with drugs and criminal behavior. VOLUME OF IMMIGRANTS IN THE COUNTRY According to a 2006 report, there were over 10 million illegal immigrants living in the United States (Kane and Johnson 2). By March of 2011, this number was estimated to be at 11.1 million (Passel and Cohn 1). The volume of immigrants currently residing in the country is representative of approximately 3.1 percent of the total American population, including native citizens. PROBLEMS WITH MEDICAID PAYMENTS Having established volume of immigrants entering and currently living in the U.S., it is important to identify the plethora of problems associated with illegal entry into the country. One of the main problems is the burden placed on state-level and federal-level governance related to economics. An a dministrator of the National Policy Institute identifies that illegal immigrants put a significant burden on the Medicaid system, a government-funded health care program designed to ensure that native citizens living below the poverty level maintain access to affordable health care. In 2005, it was estimated that state budgets would be burdened with a 12.1 percent increase in total Medicaid costs, with an expectation that costs would double every six years. This has significant ramifications for state-level budgets, in today’s society, many of which are already fraught with large-scale budgetary problems. It is estimated that 21.8 percent of all immigrant households are receiving Medicaid assistance (Rubenstein 9). This is a substantial problem as many illegal immigrants have children while living within the borders of the United States, therefore automatically making their children legitimate U.S. citizens. This makes the child, and the household caregivers, eligible for Med icaid when their incomes fall below poverty level. Currently, the federal government is concerned about long-term sustainability of Medicaid reimbursements during a period of economic decline stemming from a variety of different factors including decreased taxation revenues and over-spending at the Federal level. CONCERNS OVER WAGES FOR NATIVE CITIZENS In the United States, there is a very large segment of the native population that maintains low-level job skills and do not have the benefits of holding a college degree to improve their standard of living that is dictated with higher wage provision. Because of this, they are forced to take low paying jobs in a variety of sectors, with a majority in the service sector. When illegal immigrants enter the United States, employers have significant incentives to hire these aliens since they can provide them with very low-paying jobs without having to provide legally-mandated supplementary benefits such as business-sponsored insurance. It b ecomes more advantageous for businesses to choose illegal immigrants over low-skilled native citizens since native workers are entitled to certain benefit packages. A whopping 20 percent of all workers in service, construction and manufacturing production are immigrants (Gans 2). The demographic that is most significantly impacted by increases in immigration is the low-skilled black worker in the United State