Got workers? Thank immigrants
To the Editor:
Why are people so afraid of immigrants, treating them as the other while regularly slandering and marginalizing them? The truth is immigrants contribute greatly to our work force and our economy, paying into Social Security and Medicare with no hope of benefitting from the programs.
Worried about your benefits? The truth is in 2019 undocumented immigrants paid $165.9 billion to Social Security and $45.1 billion into Medicare, with no path to claiming those benefits. The truth is immigrants are not taking our benefits.
Worried about crime? Immigrants are repeatedly accused of bringing crime into the United States. Violent crime rates dropped in 2021 and 2022 and then significantly dropped in 2023. A study from Stanford University revealed that immigrants are 30% less likely to be incarcerated than are U.S. born individuals that are white. Abramitsky et al reported that recent waves of immigrants are more likely to be employed, married with children and in good health, far from the disease-ridden rapists and drug dealers that anti-immigrant politicians claim them to be.
Let’s talk about North Carolina. When COVID was raging, and the administration enforced extreme separation laws, immigration numbers dropped, having a negative economic impact on our state. With an aging population work force numbers are naturally dropping and without immigrants there is a risk of the economy becoming depressed.
Immigrants tend to be of prime working age and show up and do the job at a greater rate than their native-born counterparts. Immigrants are vital to maintaining, and growing, our agricultural, construction and hospitality economy.
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Republicans have proposed the following if they gain the presidency this fall: Increasing the number of agents for ICE raids, building detention camps to hold undocumented immigrants awaiting mass deportation, reinstating the ban on immigrants from some or most Muslim countries, and ending birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants.
Immigrants come to this country full of hope for a better life for themselves and their children. Painting them with a broad brush of criminality is harming whole communities. Historically we are a country built by immigrants. There is rarely a person among us who is not descended from immigrants who frequently lived life as a second-class citizen as they assimilated. They took jobs others rejected as the country grew. How different is that than today? Isn’t it time we welcome immigrants rather than demean them? Slamming the door on immigration will ultimately do more harm than good for our country.
Margaret Pickett
Highlands
