Immigration, America's Advantage

Posted on a commentary website known as the National Review Online in 2014, authors Lee Habeeb and Mike Leven argue about the benefits that immigration has had on America’s economic status with their short essay, Immigration, America’s Advantage. Aimed towards a hostile audience, the article points out the various ways in which immigrants have helped contribute to the United States. By beginning this essay with a discussion of how the population has been decreasing in many countries and how it affects their economy, the authors use this as a platform to build on to the argument that America is not one of them due to the secret weapon of immigration. For the majority amount of the article, the authors effectively appeals to the argument that

“Immigrants or their children have founded forty percent of today’s Fortune 500 companies, including firms behind seven of the ten most valuable global brands.” By providing the quote that Matthew Slaughter has given about the immigrants behind the wealth of America, the authors use this in aid of giving additional evidence behind their reasoning that immigrants have supplied their skills to America’s economy and how it has become an beneficial installment to the nation. The authors even went further to add within their article what Bill Gates had estimated about immigration. “For every immigrant hired at technology based companies, an average of five additional employees were added.” With this information that Gates had provided to Congress in 2008 about the H-1B program, Slaughter had calculated that approximately five-hundred-thousand jobs a year were to lost due to the nation’s restrictive immigration policy applied in regard to skilled

“Most immigrants do it not for themselves but for their families. That kind of selflessness and risk-taking is a perfect American skill set, perfectly reflecting our national character.” This statement being added in towards the closing statement was quite clever on the author's behalf, considering that this sentence allows the argument to appeal to the emotions of those who are in favor of our nation’s patriotic pride and also to those who have families