The immigration debate, one of America’s oldest and most divisive issues, has recently taken on a sensitive new cast. Swarms of children, fleeing violence and poverty in Latin America, have made their way to the U.S.-Mexico border this year. Prior to 2014, the U.S. received about 6,560 unaccompanied minors through the U.S.-Mexican border, but because of recent gang violence and widespread rumors in Latin America of amnesty laws for minors in America, we’ve seen about 60,000 unaccompanied minors crossing the border in the past year. Sharply divided as always, the left and right hold diametrically opposing views on how to handle this crisis. 

 Liberals tend to frame the recent waves of young immigrants as a humanitarian concern. “This crisis, that people keep viewing as a crisis, we have to view as an opportunity,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi implored of a crowd in Texas at a recent address. “I’m a mother of five; I have nine grandchildren. I wish that I could take all those children home with me.” 

Pelosi and other Democrats understand the deplorable conditions from which these immigrants came and wish to provide amnesty for illegal immigrants. Liberals also see this crisis as part of a broader need for immigration reform, which would provide a more streamlined pathway to citizenship for prospective immigrants, while some on the far left call for an open border with Mexico. 

Conversely, conservatives tend to frame this crisis as a national social concern. With  public infrastructure and education already financially strained, conservatives feel the United States cannot feasibly accommodate so many more immigrants, especially those more likely to rely upon social services. Conservatives generally call for the forcible end of illegal immigration through tighter border security, with some Republicans, including Texas Governor Rick Perry, demanding the National Guard intervene in keeping the border clear. Bill O’Reilly best summed up the right’s stance on the current immigration crisis when he recently stated that “the United States simply cannot afford to absorb millions of uneducated people.” O’Reilly then went on to cite the Center for Immigration Studies’ statistic that more than 50 percent rely on government welfare once they get here, which would lead to the development of what he calls an “underclass” of unproductive people.

O’Reilly’s statement regarding welfare is correct in this instance, as recent immigrants to the United States are poorer on average than native workers, and therefore more likely to rely upon government assistance. However, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, among the very same recent immigrants, approximately 75 percent have a job, comparable to the 76 percent of natives who do. Recent immigrants are working just as much as natives, they simply work lower-paying jobs. Known as the “jobs gap,” this is primarily caused by significant educational disadvantages affecting immigrants; few speak English, and 50 percent lack a high school education, which significantly reduces their access to higher-paying jobs. Because of this disadvantage, more recent immigrants occupy different employment sectors than native workers, leading to economic cooperation between immigrants and natives, not competition. A comprehensive analysis of immigration data from the Immigration Policy Center concluded that “there is no statistically significant relationship between the unemployment rate and the presence of recent immigrants,” despite conservative fears that immigrants threaten native employment. 

At the same time, immigration has also been proven to slightly bolster our economy, not drag it. A comprehensive study published by the Hamilton Group demonstrated that immigrants “slightly raise the average wages of all U.S.-born workers” by “complementing the work of U.S. employees and increasing their productivity,” again, primarily because immigrants and native workers occupy different places in the current job market. The inverse of this scenario is also apparent; when Alabama enacted its strict anti-illegal immigration bill HB 56, the resulting crackdown cost Alabama up to 140,000 jobs, and $2.3 to $10.8 billion in its gross domestic product. While it is true that young immigrants necessitate a temporary investment in welfare and education, they represent also an investment in a worker class that has been demonstrated to encourage economic growth, proving that conservative claims which portray immigrants as a drag on the economy are blatantly distorted. 

The investment we must make in these children in order to improve their chances in the job market is by no means a significantly heavy burden; as a nation we spend an average of $10,608 per student annually on education, which for 60,000 immigrant children is $636 million, or about two dollars per current U.S. citizen. 

Ironically, this is a fraction of the $22.4 billion that Customs and Border Protection say would be required to complete construction of a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexican border. The jobs gap should also significantly subside over several generations as immigrants’ children attend U.S. public schools and are better immersed in the English language. According to the U.S. census, almost 90 percent of United States citizens have a high school diploma while dropout rates are falling, and college degrees are becoming more common—and that’s across every racial demographic. It’s clear that as a nation we are becoming better, if gradually, at educating our population, and there is every reason to expect that this trend would apply to immigrant communities. While our public school system is by no means perfect, it still greatly outperforms those public schools where our most recent immigrants have come from, hence our higher graduation rates. 

Providing amnesty and a pathway to citizenship for these desperate children from Latin America is by no means advocating for an open border state; we must of course remain vigilant in protecting our borders from drug cartels and weapons smugglers. But taking a “tough” stance on immigration by banishing desperate children back to dangerous countries is not only unethical, it is economically impractical and cuts us off from the economic benefit immigrants have been demonstrated to provide. Conservatives must realize that the United States is, after all, a nation of immigrants; a nation built upon the process of welcoming foreign peoples into our country, educating them, and integrating them into our workforce. This process, though sometimes difficult, reaffirms for us that the American dream persists and is beneficial to immigrants and native citizens alike.