Affirmative Action

After you graduate from college, you will be putting in your application for a job that you went to college for. Even though you might be the most qualified for the job you still might not obtain the position. Affirmative Action sometimes causes this because companies have to hire a certain number of minorities relative to the size of the company. This means that if there are no minority citizens available, immigrants who aren’t even US citizens can take the position. This is why Affirmative Action should be readjusted, because it is helping immigrants instead of the people it was meant for, American citizens.

The fact is that the current Affirmative Action plan is helping immigrants more than it is helping the American people. For instance, millions of immigrants and foreign visitors are eligible for, and many are actually using, Affirmative Action benefits to grab a head start of US born minorities because they do not have enough US minorities to fill the positions. In effect, many of today’s immigrants are coming to this country and moving right to the head of the line. James Robb, a Senior Analyst of the The Social Contract, a quarterly journal and the author of the study, “Affirmative Action For Immigrants: The Entitlement Nobody Wanted” came up with a great example of how immigrants are using affirmative action to there advantage. He states, “Of all US science doctorates awarded in 1993, forty-six percent went to foreigners. There were ten science PhD’s awarded to non-citizen Asians to every one awarded to a US Asian” (Robb). It doesn’t end there, because after they receive their PhD’s many immigrants will stay in the US to take jobs. This is bad for American citizens who have their PhD’s because they struggle to find jobs, many of which are already taken by people who aren’t even U.S. citizens.

It is a big deal that immigrants are using Affirmative Action to their advantage. There is something wrong with giving opportunities to non-US citizens over US citizens. Yes this is a big deal because if you put non-citizens and US citizens in the same job market, you are taking away opportunities from people that have been living here their entire lives. This creates a feeling of hatred between US and non-US citizens, which is the last thing we need. In contrast, there is nothing wrong with giving immigrants job opportunities because this is America, the lan...

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...tive action would count if and only if they are minority citizens, which would give American citizens a better chance of finding a job because immigrants wouldn’t be accepted towards the number of minorities companies have to hire. After this subparagraph would be added, the president would then have to sign an executive order stating that although contractors may hire immigrants, only US born minorities would count toward meeting the affirmative action set goals. I think this would then take care of the non-citizen immigrants hiring problem.

By reading the facts and opinions of this paper, I believe you will understand that this is a problem that needs to be faced. Affirmative Action is not pulling its weight in what it was initially created to do. Steps need to be taken to right this wrong, so people who deserve a shot, in turn receive a shot.

Works Cited

Robb, James S. “Affirmative Action For Immigrants: The Entitlement Nobody Wanted” 1996. http://pwz.netcom~jimrobb/NR-article.html(July,1996)

Skerry, Peter. “Borders and quotas: immigration and the affirmative-action state

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