Can America Assimilate By Robert L. Samuelson

"Can America Assimilate" by Robert L. Samuelson explains that the United States should reduce immigration. Samuelson writes, "To benefit from immigration, we may need a little less of it."

I agree with this. America cannot handle the amount of immigrants that are coming into this country, legally or illegally. Sooner or later the strain on our country will be too much from the constant stream of immigrants who are constantly entering. Samuelson explains that there has possibly been a shift in the way that Americans view immigration. He says that U.S. citizens are realizing that America, just because it is the wealthiest nation in the world and supposedly has opportunities for everyone, can't support everyone. People who are not educated on this subject and don't know the facts would most likely think that there is no problem with immigration in America.

Immigration needs to be better controlled before it is too late. The first bit of evidence to support this idea from the article that I agree with is the most recent U.S. census in 2000. It shows that the American population increase was 35% due to immigration. He also shows that there are 6 million more people than was estimated that there would be. Where did all of these people come from? Samuelson believes that it was illegal immigration. If the U.S. population continues to grow at this rate due to possible illegal immigration that would cause major problems. For example, cities could over populate and there would be too many people and not enough jobs. Welfare costs would be way up also due to the immigrant unemployment.

Another interesting set of facts that he provides is about how long it takes for an immigrant to actually become "American." A survey by the Washington Post about what Latino immigrants watch for television, the study showed that third generation Latino immigrants actually start watching their television shows in English while the first and second generation continue to watch their shows in their native language the majority of the time.

This obviously doesn't insantly prove what Samuelson is trying to say, it just is something to think about. It makes sense because it illustrates in part how long it takes for immigrants to adjust to their new surroundings in America. I'm not saying that it takes until the third generation to adjust to everything but this does prove a point. If progression towards people being comfortable and able to succeed in American society takes a long time, we need to decrease the amount of immigrants we let in and give the ones that are here more time to adjust.

The basic idea that I support from Samuelson's essay is that immigration needs to be better controlled and limited or else our country will simply be under too much pressure by these immigrants. He describes that schools, hospitals, and job markets cannot respond effectively to the amount of immigrants coming in. The amount of immigrants needs to be limited so that each immigrant can have more time to adjust to the way American life is or our country will no longer be able to handle them. The strain for America will just be too much.