Immigration: A Sociological Analysis

Immigration has continuously been a concern to citizens of the United States. Beliefs concerning immigrants are stimulated through different sources, whether they are accurate or not. In recent years, public officials have instilled fears about immigrants in the United States. For example, the reference of immigrants taking American jobs has become a grand concern, along with many other thoughts about immigrants. Whereas, more recently, during the presidency of Donald Trump, fears and attitudes were reinforced when action to control immigrants became one of Trump’s priorities.
The word “immigration” is often viewed in American society as something negative. Moreover, many states in America have created policies intended to harm immigrants.

For example, according to the Alabama Law Review, which was published in 2013, the commonly named House Bill 56, ”also known as the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, is to drive all undocumented immigrants out of Alabama and dissuade others from coming (Myrick, M., & Danielle, I, 2013). As a result of this bill, immigrants were forced to leave behind their homes, jobs, families, and their lives, which initially created unintentional consequences in Alabama.
Because of a large group of immigrants fleeing the state of Alabama, unintentional consequences were bound to happen. The Alabama Law Review (2013) accounted for gender inequalities within Alabama’s immigration bill by acknowledging that employers of small businesses were forced to verify employees’ immigration statuses. However, “if the same shop owner hires the same individual to come to the shop owner's home and perform the same tasks, she is exempt from the law” (Myrick, M., & Danielle, I, 2013). Consequently, the inconsistent bill clearly is benefiting American employers by exempting more women from the questioning of immigration status based on the domestic work they do for their American employers. Yet as a result of this, American employers are reinforcing gender inequality by accepting women to perform household tasks without questioning. Yet, on the other hand, they are denying immigrants their willingness to work. Myrick and Danielle reinforce this idea by stating
If one believes, as our legislature does, that undocumented workers are "taking our jobs" and that legislation of this sort will result in documented workers "reclaiming" the jobs undocumented workers relinquish as they flee the state, then one must ask why a field heavily dominated by female workers would fall outside of such "protection” (2013).
The article proceeds to state that, “our legislature enacted a harsh bill designed to drive all undocumented immigrants out of the state and did nothing to fill the gap these workers would leave”, which proposes the question of do native-born American workers “fill the gap” (Myrick, M., & Danielle, I, 2013). According to a podcast reflecting on immigration in the United States, an economist refers to a study in North Carolina, which adopted a similar bill to Alabama’s, “that found in 2011 in the wake of the recession, there was almost half a million unemployed North Carolinians, but when farmers advertised more than 6,000 job openings, only seven American workers took those jobs” (Rogers, H., Ravindian, S., & Zuckerman, W., 2017). By looking at this observation from a sociologically perspective, there are many existing reasons as to why native-born Americans did not “fill the gap” of open jobs.
Americans tend to be self-reliant on themselves, “to achieve on our own, and to look out for ourselves” creating blind spots that fail to consider other job opportunities because of negative feelings they hold toward immigration.

In fact Schwalbe suggests that “[i]deas that lead us to think of ourselves as solely as competing individuals, free to do anything we want at any time, can keep us from being mindful of the social world in which we are immersed” (2008). Because Americans are the dominant group, it is easily seen that some Americans could see immigrants as inferior to themselves. From a sociologically perspective, if one would consider factors like higher education among Americans, it would make sense on how America’s higher education could potentially contribute to the negative ideology that Americans have against immigrants. To be frank, Americans probably do not want to step down in a work position. Americans tend to isolate themselves from others, remaining individualistic. As the North Carolina study would suggest, the hard work that immigrants engage in, is most likely not a high enough standard for American workers. Therefore, Americans are ultimately remaining too prideful to consider such hard work that immigrants

perform.
It is interesting to note that Americans are strongly opinionated about opposing immigrants; one reason for such division is that citizens tend to express the belief that immigrants are hurting the economy. It seems reasonable for native-born Americans to believe this way, considering their dominance over immigrants. Furthermore, policies and bills have been created by people in power that greatly affect immigrants, possibly because of feeling threatened. Harrell (2012) suggests that economic threats Americans encounter are due to group conflict theory, which is “the basic idea of which is that negative outgroup attitudes—in this case, of natives toward newcomers—are typically the result of fear of increased competition for scarce resources like jobs and government benefits” (Harrell).
However, despite the false or negative beliefs that Americans feel towards immigration, there are studies that prove immigrants help the American economy. Nevertheless, because of American’s individualistic ways of thinking, immigrants helping the economy may not be something some Americans may take in consideration; they may reject this because it does not match up with their beliefs. In return, “people resist being sociologically mindful” (Schwalbe, 2008). According to Rosenblum (2012), “immigrants are more likely to complement the native workforce than to compete with natives for jobs” (2012). Thus, by eliminating immigrants from America may not be the best solution. In fact, as stated in a recent podcast, immigrants actually create jobs. Zuckerman mentions that immigrants, “buy food, gasoline, clothes, they rent apartments, they get haircuts” (2017). Therefore, the money that immigrants spend are most definitely creating jobs for American workers. Without immigrants, America’s economy could potentially be the one that is hurt.
Moreover, by looking at all of the factors, it can be understood that, “for every single one of them that leaves, we have less people buying stuff at our grocery stores” (2017). With all things considered, Americans and immigrants are interdependent on each other. Schwalbe would suggest that “[r]elations of inequality are also relations of interdependence. One group may be stronger than another, yet still depend on the other” (2008). In fact, if immigrants were eliminated from America, the long-term effects for the economy could be detrimental because of losing all the factors that make immigrants contributing to society.
Despite research from economists, America’s recent president, Donald Trump is not in favor of immigrants.

Trump’s ideologies, whereas, focus more on the fear of immigrants. According to The White House, United States Government, Donald Trump’s executive order states, that it is “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” (2017). In return of Trump’s executive order, the president instilled fears about immigrations being terrorists. Because the president’s position is valued very highly, Americans generally obey their legitimate authority.
Schwalbe would suggest that “[i]nstilling such ideas makes others dependent on you, in which case you can demand from them what you want” (2008). In this case, Trump created a moral panic in America. He potentially caused some Americans to generalize all immigrants into a category of terrorists. Therefore, there is quite a pushback on the positive attitudes towards immigration, which ultimately shifted towards negative.
By taking into consideration of some historical events and quite recent policies, in which favor Americans’ fears against immigrants, from looking at a sociologically perspective, one can understand why native-born Americans are so hostile towards the inferior group of immigrants. However, moral panic, along with instilling fears, has created blind spots for many Americans. Research has shown that immigrants do in fact contribute to America’s economy, despite generalizations and

beliefs.

References
Harell, A., Soroka, S., Iyengar, S., & Valentino, N. (2012). The impact of economic and cultural cues on support for immigration in canada and the united states. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 45(3), 499-530.
Myrick, M., & Danielle, I. (2013). Giving "The Help" the silent treatment: how Alabama's new immigration law punishes domestic workers, ignores certain employers, and shortchanges us all. Alabama Law Review, 64(2), 443-462.
Rogers, H., Ravindian, S., & Zuckerman, W. (2017, March 9). Immigration. Science Vs. Podcast Retrieved from https://player.fm/series/science-vs/immigration.
Rosenblum, R. (2012). Alternatives to Migration in the United States. American Behavioral Scientist, 56(8), 1101-1122.
Schwalbe, Michael. (2008). The Sociologically Examined Life: Pieces of the Conversation. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.
The White House, United States Government. (2017). Executive Order. Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states