US Immigration
the US Immigration process
Immigration into the United States is the process of moving non residents to this country. This has been a major source of growth and cultural change for the United States. Each year the United States accepts more legal immigrants as permanent citizens than any other country in the world. There have been some effects due to the high rate of US immigration and that does include some of the nations unemployment. Immigration (US immigration)also costs the US taxpayers more in the short run but in the long run the effect is beneficial to the country, once they start working and paying their taxes. The United States knows and has recognized that if an immigrant migrates to the US and has just an average education, he will cost the state thousands of dollars per year but in retrospect if he has two or more years of college education he will generate thousands of more dollars over his lifetime.
US immigration laws
Back in time when the US enacted their first immigration laws, Congress enforced many restrictions which back then included that we, as a country, would not allow and felons, ex convicts, paupers, mental defectives or any Chinese into the US. Currently, about 1 in 10 US citizens is an immigrant. The laws did become stricter in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and those laws needed a stringent overhaul considering that of the 19 hijackers, three of them were traveling through the US on expired visas and at least two were on the government "watch list" as having potential links to terrorism. The biggest concerns have been if the new immigrants are being screened carefully enough before being allowed a Green Card and there has also been a lot of debate over which benefits they should be entitled to once they have received the green card. Many Americans still have a tendency to relate illegal immigrants with legal immigrants and that has posed quite a problem as it is comparable to comparing apples and oranges.
Immigrants who obtain visas and migrate to the US have to meet specific criteria. They have to be educated and or skilled, they have to prove that they have a reason to be in the US and if they are coming here as a result of a marriage they also have to prove through pictures and a history that they have been involved with this person and that the marriage is indeed bona fide. In other words, they have to be able to bring something to the table in order to live here and can not become a burden to society. That is one reason that visas made possible by employer sponsorship are so prevalent. Basically, the employer is vouching for the immigrant and more or less claiming responsibility for them. More and more, as we see legal immigrants migrate into the United States we should be aware of the fact that they had to fight hard to have that right and it is normally one that they never take lightly.
