Is the best solution to the problems plaguing the US immigration system to export nearly all immigrants and start over?

Ever since the U.S. election in 2016, immigration has been a heated topic. By definition, an immigrant is a person coming to a different country in order to live there. Immigration is the cause of the United States of America. It is the one of the big reason the country became an economic global power over decades.

At first, starting over in order to deal with a problem might not be an issue. In this case, exportation of nearly all immigrants is not a reasonable and acceptable solution though. Treating human beings like things is simply misanthropic.

Also, what does “nearly all immigrants” mean? Where does it start? Where does it end? In 2014, around 40 million immigrants were living in the U.S. This is a huge number of people, more than 10% of the U.S. population. Sending all these people back to their country of origin is simply impossible.

A lot of people share the opinion of immigrants bringing only crime and other bad behavior into the United States. They’re being accused of taking jobs away as well. However, this is not the case and this prejudiced way of thinking is dangerous for the society. Often times the jobs immigrants have are unpopular and underpaid jobs that a lot of “Americans” reject.

Immigrants have helped the country’s economy and it would decrease rapidly if they were to be exported. A great example for this argument is California’s Silicon Valley. People from all over the world have been supporting the technical industry and startups with their multicultural and specific knowledge. Almost 50% of Silicon Valley’s employees are not born in the U.S. Multinational concerns like Facebook or Microsoft would suffer drastically from a loss of qualified, hardworking immigrants.

Lastly, the coexistence of many different cultures is exciting about life and one big benefit for the United States, for every country in fact. Immigrants from various places have taken so many new, thrilling parts of their everyday life and are sharing it with their new neighbors and environment via food, books, or communication. Trying to blame immigrants for bad things that have happened in the past is very immature and not the solution for the problems at hand.

And let’s not forget, the United States of America is basically a country of immigrants who claimed this country as theirs and are now categorized U.S. citizens.