Immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents.[1][2][3][4] Commuters, tourists, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.
For the practice of checking travellers' documents when entering a country, see border control. For the album by Show-Ya, see Immigration (album).
As for economic effects, research suggests that migration is beneficial both to the receiving and sending countries.[5][6][7] Research, with few exceptions, finds that immigration on average has positive economic effects on the native population, but is mixed as to whether low-skilled immigration adversely affects underprivileged natives.[8][9][10][11][12] Studies show that the elimination of barriers to migration would have profound effects on world GDP, with estimates of gains ranging between 67 and 147 percent for the scenarios in which 37 to 53 percent of the developing countries' workers migrate to the developed countries.[13][14][15][16] Development economists argue that reducing barriers to labor mobility between developing countries and developed countries would be one of the most efficient tools of poverty reduction.[17][18][19][20] Positive net immigration can soften the demographic dilemma in the aging global North.[21][22]
The academic literature provides mixed findings for the relationship between immigration and crime worldwide, but finds for the United States that immigration either has no impact on the crime rate or that it reduces the crime rate.[23][24] Research shows that country of origin matters for speed and depth of immigrant assimilation, but that there is considerable assimilation overall for both first- and second-generation immigrants.[25][26]
Research has found extensive evidence of discrimination against foreign-born and minority populations in criminal justice, business, the economy, housing, health care, media, and politics in the United States and Europe.[27][28][29][30]
Quality of institutions
A 2015 study finds "some evidence that larger immigrant population shares (or inflows) yield positive impacts on institutional quality. At a minimum, our results indicate that no negative impact on economic freedom is associated with more immigration."[237] Another study, looking at the increase in Israel's population in the 1990s due to the unrestricted immigration of Jews from the Soviet Union, finds that the mass immigration did not undermine political institutions, and substantially increased the quality of economic institutions.[238] A 2017 study in the British Journal of Political Science argued that the British American colonies without slavery adopted better democratic institutions in order to attract migrant workers to their colonies.[239][240] A 2018 study fails to find evidence that immigration to the United States weakens economic freedom.[241] A 2019 study of Jordan found that the massive influx of refugees into Jordan during the Gulf War had long-lasting positive effects on Jordanian economic institutions.[242]
Welfare
Some research has found that as immigration and ethnic heterogeneity increase, government funding of welfare and public support for welfare decrease.[243][244][245][246][247][248] Ethnic nepotism may be an explanation for this phenomenon. Other possible explanations include theories regarding in-group and out-group effects and reciprocal altruism.[249]
Research however also challenges the notion that ethnic heterogeneity reduces public goods provision.[250][251][252][253] Studies that find a negative relationship between ethnic diversity and public goods provision often fail to take into account that strong states were better at assimilating minorities, thus decreasing diversity in the long run.[250][251] Ethnically diverse states today consequently tend to be weaker states.[250] Because most of the evidence on fractionalization comes from sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, the generalizability of the findings is questionable.[252] A 2018 study in the American Political Science Review cast doubts on findings that ethnoracial homogeneity led to greater public goods provision.[254]
Research finds that Americans' attitudes towards immigration influence their attitudes towards welfare spending.[255]
Education
A 2016 study found that immigration in the period 1940–2010 in the United States increased the high school completion of natives: "An increase of one percentage point in the share of immigrants in the population aged 11–64 increases the probability that natives aged 11–17 eventually complete 12 years of schooling by 0.3 percentage point."[256] A 2019 NBER paper found little evidence that exposure to foreign-born students had an impact on US-born students.[257]
Studies have found that non-native speakers of English in the UK have no causal impact on the performance of other pupils,[258] immigrant children have no significant impact on the test scores of Dutch children,[259] no effect on grade repetition among native students exposed to migrant students in Austrian schools,[260] that the presence of Latin American children in schools had no significant negative effects on peers, but that students with limited English skills had slight negative effects on peers,[261] and that the influx of Haitians to Florida public schools after the 2010 Haiti earthquake had no effects on the educational outcomes of incumbent students.[262]
A 2018 study found that the "presence of immigrant students who have been in the country for some time is found to have no effect on natives. However, a small negative effect of recent immigrants on natives' language scores is reported."[263] Another 2018 study found that the presence of immigrant students to Italy was associated with "small negative average effects on maths test scores that are larger for low ability native students, strongly non-linear and only observable in classes with a high (top 20%) immigrant concentration. These outcomes are driven by classes with a high average linguistic distance between immigrants and natives, with no apparent additional role played by ethnic diversity."[264]
After immigrant children's scores were included in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 15-year-old school pupils' educational evaluations in Sweden the Swedish PISA scores significantly decreased.[265]
Social capital
There is some research that suggests that immigration adversely affects social capital.[266] One study, for instance, found that "larger increases in US states' Mexican population shares correspond to larger decreases in social capital over the period" 1986–2004.[267] A 2017 study in the Journal of Comparative Economics found that "individuals whose ancestors migrated from countries with higher autocracy levels are less likely to trust others and to vote in presidential elections in the U.S. The impact of autocratic culture on trust can last for at least three generations while the impact on voting disappears after one generation. These impacts on trust and voting are also significant across Europe."[268] A 2019 study found that "humans are inclined to react negatively to threats to homogeneity... in the short term. However, these negative outcomes are compensated in the long term by the beneficial influence of intergroup contact, which alleviates initial negative influences."[269]
Housing
A 2014 study of the United Kingdom found that immigration generally reduced local house prices in the areas they moved to, because natives at the top of the wage distribution respond to immigration by moving to other areas, locally reducing demand for housing.[276] At the national level, an increase in the number of immigrants increases house prices.[276]
Bogus recruitment agencies and rogue recruitment agencies make fake promises of better opportunities, education, income, some of the abuses and crimes experienced by immigrants are the followed:
In many countries there is a lack of prosecution of this crimes, since these countries obtain benefits and taxes paid by these companies that benefit the economies and also because of the current shortage of workers.[315][316][317][318]
Impact on demographic tension
Assimilation
A 2019 review of existing research in the Annual Review of Sociology on immigrant assimilation in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain concluded "we find an overall pattern of intergenerational assimilation in terms of socioeconomic attainment, social relations, and cultural beliefs."[319]
