Person explains why 'no immigrant has ever taken a job from an American,' sparking debate

America is a country built by immigrants and yet politicians often use immigrants as a bogeyman to pursue their political dreams. No election is complete without anti-immigrant rhetoric. One of the common rhetoric tropes is that of immigrants stealing jobs from hardworking Americans. One person explained why that was never the case and to be fair, they have a point. Twitter user, who goes by Mike Wise, explained that it was a case of misdirected anger and many agreed with them. They elaborated that no job was ever taken away from businesses on compulsion or without their knowledge but it was the case of them giving those jobs to immigrants.

"No immigrant has ever taken a job from a "real American," they wrote. "You were laid off by a capitalist who took advantage of that immigrant to increase his profits, and nothing makes him happier than to hear you're a f*cking idiot who is actually mad at the immigrant and not him." The tweet was shared on Reddit where it sparked debate, leading to more than 13k upvotes. Some pointed out that the lack of adequate labor laws and protection enabled businesses to discard American workers for immigrants who they could employ for fewer wages. Given the circumstances under which many immigrants arrive in the United States, they are desperate to land a job to make ends meet and this further enables businesses to pay them as low as they possibly can.

One person who lost his job spoke from personal experience. "An immigrant didn't take my job ... it was sent to Mexico. I was an engineer with 15-years of experience, at that time. They paid the person 10% of my wage, promised to retain me, and then laid me off. So yea... companies are full of it," they commented. Some argued that many Americans weren't willing to do the work that many immigrants were willing to take on. "The US Agricultural industry relies heavily on immigrant labor to function. I've had conversations with farmers about it. They aren't able to harvest the fields properly and there's a lot of waste when they have to rely completely on American labor because Americans aren't willing to do those kinds of hours for low pay. I'm absolutely not saying that means it's ok to pay immigrants low wages but something has to be done to improve conditions on the side of the workers," wrote one person.  

According to a study published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, immigrants do not take American jobs. “We found little to no negative effects on overall wages and employment of native-born workers in the longer term,” said Francine D. Blau, an economics professor at Cornell University who led the group, reported New York Times. The study also stressed the importance of immigrant workers to the country. “The prospects for long-run economic growth in the United States would be considerably dimmed without the contributions of high-skilled immigrants,” said the report.

Some debated that workers were always being pitted against each other. "The greatest trick the rich ever pulled is convincing the poor that the source of their pain is racial divide, instead of class," wrote one person. "Corporations and politicians have been pitting us against each other for generations and we keep falling for it. Stop being mad at your fellow middle\lower class\poverty stricken brethren and start being mad at the people who keep us in these roles so they can continually line their pockets with more and more of OUR money," wrote another Reddit user. One person called for better labor laws that protected workers. "People do not come to this country and steal our jobs, owners hire them at below poverty wages because they think they can get away with it. We don't have to close the borders, we have to close the companies that hire undocumented workers to try and pay them under the table, they wrote.