As you likely know from yesterday’s post, the numerous metrics I compiled did not conclusively answer the question I posed about immigrants, whether they are a benefit to the country or a detriment. The question asked of me by some of my friends was whether the work was worth it. Yes it was, because it gave me a better understanding of the various immigration data and issues.

I now have a reliable and well-sourced data from which to work from.

As I stated originally when I started this project, one of the hardest things to get passed when debating immigration issues are the many well-entrenched assumptions and misconceptions about immigrants. It took too much time to gather that data to dispel the distortions.

I now have a good set to build up and to use to address specific issues.

For example, it has been argued that one of the issues about immigration is the pressure it has put on the job markets for certain industries. For example, the agricultural and service industries. The argument being that immigrants have lowered the wages in these sectors making it difficult for the native population to compete.

However, my data set points to the declining agricultural market as one possible reason for the pressure put on farmers and their laborers.

Now that I have a valid data set I can start adding other data metrics to address some of these questions. For example, I can now add a metric about the service industries by states to see how, if any, they correlate with the immigrant populations.

As new questions arise, as others are clarified or as new metrics become available I will use my original data set to address them.

Therefore, as time-consuming and difficult as this exercise was it has given us a place from which to expand the debate about immigration.

Stay tuned…