Immigration one of the great debates that will weigh in the presidential elections with a divided society

Economists advocate immigration as a solution to problems such as maintaining pensions or labor in specific sectors, in a world in which receiving societies are increasingly reluctant to this phenomenon. In the United States, the most popular country in the world for asylum seekers and the one that receives the most migrants, the issue is treated as a border crisis by the media and, after being the center of political debate, has become in a thrown weapon by the parties.

However, companies have been having trouble finding workers for a long time. The causes are various. From the recent Covid pandemic that restricted the possibilities of mobilizing workers for two years, to the population deficit suffered by some countries limitingor the number of professionals available. And while a part of the citizenry maintains a positive perception of migrants, another faction thinks that they are a burden on economies, a threat to their security and a danger to the welfare state.

Currently, the United States remains the world’s leading migratory destination, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. More of 50 million international migrantsas of 2020, result in this country also being the one with the most sending remittances does to the rest of the world. It is also the one that receives the largest flows of asylum seekers and refugees, especially from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

From the arrival of the Mayflower, which marked the genesis of a nation founded by settlers from Europe, to the reopening of the borders in the United States in the mid-20th century, which caused a flow of mainly non-European arrivals, the country has been a receiving area for people seeking a better life.

Workers who arrived from Asia under the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965, Latinos thanks to special programs or Africans with diversity projects started in the 1990s, have shaped the country with the largest number of international migrants in the world. According to Pew Researchof in 2020 the United States had more than 51 million of people arriving from abroad, of the total number of 281 million existing migrants worldwide.

The migratory phenomenon is produced by the differences in income between the countries of origin and destination. For this reason, the richest countries attract more immigrants, especially from countries with young populations, while the nations with the lowest per capita income are the ones that produce the most emigration. War conflicts and insecurity are also causes that generate significant flows of people in search of a future in countries other than their own.

There are numerous reports from experts that praise the benefits produced by immigration, as stated in the study published in 2017 by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, entitled “The economic and fiscal consequences of immigration”, which highlights that the children of immigrants become among the strongest economic and fiscal contributors in the population recipient, which feeds the cash that the country needs to guarantee pensions and other social programs.

The International Monetary Fund also published a investigation, in 2020, which pointed out how immigrants in advanced economies increase production and productivity, both in the short and medium term. This is because native and immigrant workers bring to the labor market a diverse set of skills that complement each other, leading to improvements in even the average income of natives. This is not visible, however, in the immigration of refugees, due to the difficulties that they face to integrate into the local labor markets.

The increasing levels of immigration are causing greater rejection among the US population regarding the reception of people from other countries who want to stay and work in the country. This is revealed by a recent survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, showing how 4 out of 10 adults believe that the level of immigration and asylum seekers should be reduced, while about 2 in 10 say it should be higher. Only a third want the numbers to stay the same.

Between the republicans, two-thirds of the participants they think there should be fewer immigrants and asylum seekers, while only 1 in 10 say there should be more. by the democratsabout a quarter believe that the number of immigrants should increase, a quarter part say it should decrease and 4 out of 10 think it should stay the same.

This division of opinions is already reflected in the proposals that the two major US parties have regarding the immigration issue, which has become one of the star points of the presidential campaign for 2024. And it is that the rulers are aware of that politics, along with the media, are the promoters of the issue towards public opinion. Factors such as the size, origin, religion and skill level of migrants also contribute to this, as well as the economy of the receiving country and certain individual characteristics of citizens such as age, education and employment status.