Why is there so much hate? Why are people labeled as “aliens” if they are not from the U.S.? The growing amount of tension between “Americans” and “the others” has left an extremely bitter taste in the land of the free. Ironically, the U.S. supports democracy, and yet society is functioning in unequal ways.
One of these inequalities is the debate revolving around immigrant reforms; opposing sides of reforms state that immigration laws should be bolstered to prevent these “aliens” from taking jobs away from the “American” people. But what is defined as an “American”? A piece of paper that states you are a citizen of United States, the amount of taxes you pay, and the way you view “the others”. That is just a joke: a blasphemous piece of work.
It is understandable that illegal immigrants are draining the U.S. economy by taking away the jobs from the people as well as avoiding taxes due to their “un-certified” citizenship, but these reasons are only the “face values” of the effects that immigration. Also, it is important to also take into consideration that immigrants are not actually taking away jobs, but rather filling the jobs we don’t like; Dr. James Johnson, a professor at Kenan Flager Business School, states that immigrants take jobs known as “the 3D jobs- dirty, dangerous, and difficult-these are jobs that the natives don’t like to do”. Thus, to fully understand the contribution immigration has on the U.S. society, we must look at it in terms of how the parts of society allow for society to flow the way it does (i.e. functionalism).
Functionalism interprets each part of society in terms of how it contributes to the stability of the whole society. Society is more than the sum of its parts; rather, each part of society is functional for the stability of the whole society. If we look beyond the “surface value” of how immigration drains the U.S. economy, we can see how immigrant reforms can actually improve the U.S. in both the short term and long term.
In the short term, immigrant reform creates an equal playing field for both the employer and employee (which seem nonexistent right now). It might seem counterintuitive to enact immigration reforms and legalize up to 8 million workers in the U.S. But the simple truth is that updating our immigration laws will generate tax revenues by requiring all workers and employers to be in the system and level the playing field for business owners, who play by the rules. In other words, if we look at this from a functionalistic perspective, the parts of society, that creates the stability of the whole society, are the relationships between the employer and employees. By giving immigrants an opportunity for citizenship, it reduces the inequality the employer places on the immigrants due to their weakness (i.e. illegal passage to the U.S.); as a result of their weakness, employers take advantage of it and pay immigrants significantly less than an average “American” worker. This leads to instability of the whole society rather than stability; the parts of society (i.e. employers who pay significantly less to workers) that functions in ways that are skewed from the parts of society that function to enable stability to the U.S. economy, explains why society is the way it is. In other words, we take into consideration that immigration leads to depletion of jobs and tax revenue, but we don’t take into consideration why that occurs. From a functionalistic perspective, it is not immigration that explicitly causes these depletions, but rather the effects of not having immigrant reforms; placing “illegal” into the word “immigrant” allows for employers exploit this opportunity and reduce wages. As a result of this functioning (i.e. reduce wages), it creates these instabilities within society as a whole.
So, the surface value of immigration seems meaningless if we look at the source of the problem, and not at the individual. In the short term, allowing immigrant reforms to pass can create opportunities for immigrants to create their own business and thus, increase the competition in the U.S. This competition comes from increasing production and consumerism that immigrant reforms create; if immigrants are allowed to fairly function in the U.S., it can enhance the economy by increasing consumption and as a result, tax revenue.
Even though immigrant reforms will not immediately increase the U.S. economy, it will gradually appear throughout the years. However, these short term effects also come with their long term goals. If immigrant reforms are passed, it can affect the way globalization occurs. In “U.S. Business vs. Us”, Charles Derber explains that globalization has led to corporate wilding, or the increasing greed of corporations to increase profit at the expense of another’s well-being. With the enactment of immigrant reforms, this can actually reduce the way globalization is functioning. The parts that make global capitalism occur (and thus corporate wilding) are the instability of other countries, the corruption of other governments, and the political influence corporations have. So, how do immigrant reforms come into play? By increasing the leniency of immigration into the U.S., it challenges the corruption and instability of other countries; immigrants come to the U.S. for a reason, and these reasons include unequal opportunities in their native countries due to corruption. By allowing immigrant reforms to pass, it challenges the corrupt ways that globalization is functioning within society as well as the ways the corrupt government treats the native people. If immigrant reforms are passed, it reduces the exploitation of globalization by giving immigrants an opportunity to start anew rather than stay at a job that pays less than it should be. “Pay” is the significance of immigrant reforms to challenge corporate wilding; by giving immigrants an opportunity to function in the U.S., it allows them a choice to find a job of equal opportunity. This opportunity will decrease the amount of workers (and thus production) that are exploited by corporations, and as a result, decrease the way that globalization has created a segregated economy. Not only will immigrants decrease corporate wilding, but it could also reduce globalization, which had devastating effects on the number of unemployment in the U.S.; with decreasing numbers of people in other countries to work for corporations at a lower wage, it leaves corporations with a problem: no workers mean no productions. Without production, corporations will need to form businesses back at the U.S. (where most immigrants are at), which will lead to an increase in employment.
So, overall it seems that immigrant reforms can actually have a positive effect on the U.S. economy. If politicians only look at the face value of the effects immigration brings to the economic table, and not at the deeper effects, it can bring great harm to the way society functions. In other words, by using the functionalistic perspective, a deeper meaning to how immigrant reforms can affect the U.S. economy, was brought into play; this perspective allowed us to see that society as a whole needs to be taken into consideration when describing the effects of immigration and not the individual.
