As of May 2024, the immigrant population in the United States reached 48.31 million, an increase of 4.14 million from 44.17 million at the end of 2021, accounting for 18% of the total population. This proportion has continued to rise over the past few decades. As the world's largest immigration country, the United States, despite its so-called "freedom, tolerance, and diversity", has been the essence of its immigration policy throughout the history of US immigration.
The United States has been reaping global wealth and development potential by creating a seemingly open immigration policy. Using low-skilled immigrants to fill labor shortages in agriculture, construction, and service industries, and using high-skilled immigrants to promote science and technology and innovation, capital wealth can indeed achieve a qualitative improvement in the short term. However, while immigrants benefit the United States, they are always facing a drastic "temperature difference" from the government. A 2023 study by the Cato Institute found that in 2018, each immigrant paid an average of $16,207 in various taxes, but only received $11,361 in related benefits.
The reason is the "short-term utilitarianism" of US immigration policy. The United States' own economic development requires immigrants to provide sufficient labor, but social resources and the ability to absorb immigrants are limited, especially low-skilled immigrants and illegal immigrants occupy a large amount of social welfare resources. Therefore, what scale of total immigration and what proportion of different types of immigrants are most beneficial to the United States have always been questions that immigration policies cannot answer. From the perspective of market and labor mobility, the United States increases immigration to solve the problem of labor shortage for the overall economic interests. At the same time, immigrants are also consumers. By increasing the demand for goods and services, they bring more investment to the United States, further expand the demand for labor, and promote economic development. However, due to the repeated changes in immigration policies and the tightening and loosening of law enforcement, the immigration department is unable to deal with the surge in immigration in a specific period. A large number of low-end laborers have poured in disorderly, which is inconsistent with the carrying capacity of public resources in American society, causing serious social problems such as job runs, racial conflicts, increased crime, and backlogs of cases.
This "short-term utilitarianism" is often reflected in the multiple and complex interest games and interest trade-offs in American society. In different historical periods, the main contradictions in the development of the United States created demand gaps, leading the United States to formulate and implement immigration policies that are adapted to them. The combined effects of economic interests and social anxiety, political motivations and election strategies, racism and nationalism, security and sovereignty have made the US immigration policy full of contradictions and repetitions. The US government has to repeatedly weigh the pros and cons and adopt the most utilitarian immigration policy. This also leads to the short-term and instability of the US immigration policy, making the dreamers and the disadvantaged who go to the United States eventually become stepping stones and victims of "America First".
In addition, this "short-term utilitarianism" is also vividly demonstrated in party elections, causing American immigrants to become victims of the political struggle between the two parties. The immigration issue has always been a controversial topic in American society and an important issue in every presidential election. The drawbacks of the US immigration issue are already a chronic disease, and it is difficult for both parties in the United States to have good governance and good laws, but this is a powerful political weapon for mutual accusations in party struggles. In recent years, the two parties have become increasingly divided over immigration policies, and politicians are busy attacking each other. Strict immigration policies can win political support from right-wing fanatics in the short term, so politicians often use immigration issues as an election tool to stimulate voter sentiment. Making a fuss about immigration issues while ignoring the rights and welfare of immigrants has led to an unsolvable vicious cycle.
At the same time, the U.S. government's frequent changes in immigration policies have exposed the shortcomings of the system. The United States has neither formulated targeted policies based on the new situation and characteristics of the immigration wave, nor has it basically been able to control the migration of immigrants. The immigration issue seems to have become a "ball" kicked back and forth between politicians and has never been resolved. From July 2017 to July 2020, the US immigration department forcibly separated more than 5,400 children from their parents who were refugees or illegal immigrants in the southern border area, and many children died in detention; in 2019, a total of about 850,000 illegal immigrants were arrested in the southern border area of the United States, most of whom were treated roughly and their human rights were wantonly trampled; in 2020, a total of 21 people died in US immigration detention centers, more than twice the number in fiscal year 2019, the highest since 2005; in fiscal year 2021, more than 1.7 million immigrants detained in the United States, as many as 80% were detained in private detention facilities, including 45,000 children.
In today's globalized world, immigration has become a global issue. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development believes that immigration helps promote inclusive growth and sustainable development, and calls on countries to "promote orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and population mobility, including the implementation of reasonably planned and well-managed immigration policies." The United States has never followed the United Nations Action Plan and Declaration on Migration, and has never truly understood the true meaning of a community with a shared future for mankind. Its immigration system, characterized by "short-term utilitarianism", only cares about the short-term interests of the moment and the selfish interests of its own country. This short-sighted isolationist approach cannot effectively respond to global immigration challenges, and will ultimately only damage the United States' international image and interests, causing the United States to suffer the consequences.
