Trend of Globalization

Introduction:

With the trend of globalization, it has become more and more prevalent for people to immigrate to other countries. In fact, there are various reasons for people to immigrate to another country; for example, living standards have been the most important criteria for immigrants to choose their home. The United States has the most advanced education level, the strongest economy, and excellent social welfare. In addition, the United States is more willing to accept immigrants than some European countries such as England, Germany.^[1]  Therefore, the United States attracts millions of immigrants from other countries every year. The immigration not only impact the economic growth, but also it results in the demographic effect. In recent years, many U.S. citizens and residents have concerned that the large amount of immigrants might result in some negative impacts to the country. ^[2]

As a whole, there are several most accessible ways for immigrants to move to the United States. First of all, the highest priority of immigration policy is to ensure the family unification. Family-based immigration policy allows U.S. citizens and permanent residents to bring their family members to the U.S. In addition, there are many immigrants who meet the employed-based immigration requirements. The United States provides many ways for immigrants with valuable skills to move to the U.S either temporarily or permanently. There are many more types of visas available for nonimmigrant workers. On other hand, the government also issues permanent resident cards for immigrants with the yearly numerical limit of 140,000. This allowance is usually given to persons with extraordinary ability in arts, science, education, business and outstanding professors and researchers. In addition, skilled workers with at least two years of training or working experience are also eligible for the employment-based immigration.  Furthermore, people who invest $500,000 in a job-creating company that employs at least 10 full time U.S. workers are also qualified for the employment-based immigration. The third type of immigration is used for refugees. The United States provides protection to refugees based on an inability to stay in their home country due to persecution, which might result from their race, membership in a social group, political opinion, religion or national origin. ^[3]

It is important to ask: how does the immigration policy impact our economy? Family-based immigration is to guarantee family reunification for U.S. citizens and residents, and it does not have any economic function. Because this paper is to test the impact of economic growth, we will only focus on the employment-based immigration policy. In general, people who are qualified for employment-based immigration must be able to make some contribution to the country. For example, more experts, researchers, skilled workers can definitely promote the level of human capital. In addition, people who make more than $500,000 can definitely increase the saving rate of physical capital per capita because the saving amount is much higher than the average domestic level. As we can see from the employment-based immigration policy, the government is willing to accept those immigrants who have the ability to make some contribution to the country in many ways.  However, the U.S. government has to take the population growth into account. Due to the numerical limit of immigration per year, too many people who tend to immigrate to the U.S. have to wait for many years. If the U.S government removes the numerical limit, the population growth rate will become much higher. This paper will use the Solow-Swan model to explain the variability of the economic growth with the saving rate of physical capital, the saving rate of human capital and the population growth rate. Then, we will have more evidence to judge the current immigration policy in the United States.