Illegal Immigration: Economy’s Boost

Many of us know that America is known as a great country because of its diversity. The cause of this diversity is the fact that America allowed immigrants to move to this country from their home countries which had an influence on our economy. However, not everyone in America is a legal immigrant. In October 1996, there were about five million illegal immigrants living in the United States, and the population of those immigrants was growing by about two hundred and seventy-five thousand each year (United States).

Illegal immigration is not harmful to our economy since the economic security and government aid is fine, there is less crime between immigrants, no need for deportation, and illegal immigrants are a major advantage for our workforce in general labor.

Those who view illegal immigration as an issue for our economy most likely will be for the idea of deportation, but that is not a good solution since deporting someone has a lot of unnecessary problems of its own, especially for something harmless such as living in the states illegally. For the people who support deportation, often admit that it is a nasty business, but also think it is necessary. The idea is harsh, but it is consistent with the law and sends a strong preventive message. The law is there for a reason and if we do not follow it then we undermine the public that supports legal immigration in the United States. However, locating all the immigrants for deportation would dramatically increase surveillance and enforcement. Inevitably, there will be mistakes with legal immigrants swept up in the process. Furthermore, the courts that handle immigration would be overwhelmed with all the cases that will come in. The economy will be affected since there is a significant number of undocumented workers and removing them will impact their employers. Also, the whole process of deportation costs a lot of money and there are immigrants that have kids in America which automatically makes them citizens. When you deport the illegals your left with the children with no one to support them and that is where the government must spend money to support them while the parents could have been doing it all along.

Those who do not support illegal immigrants tend to think that they are the ones who bring terrorism and crime rates up and fill up our prisons which affects the economy, but that is not a valid argument because there are statistics and research that prove otherwise. According to the ones that do not support illegal immigrants, roughly a quarter of our prisoners are these very same immigrants. They also believe that we have Al Qaeda affiliated immigrants and narco-terrorists that came to America illegally. Furthermore, to hold an individual in prison or jail costs a significant amount of money that the government must provide, and the government gets this money from the taxpayers. But then again that isn’t exactly true since the southern border of United States is not a contributor to terrorism. Also, the foreigners who were involved in terrorists’ attacks have entered the United States on immigrant, work or study, and tourists’ visas. The crime rates dropped in large cities in America that were not seen in 40 years, which the criminologists were surprised and said that it was due to a major reason: increased illegal immigration (Griswold 42). This fact is baffling for non-supporters of illegal immigration, but also ironic, since the facts speak for themselves. The truth is illegal immigrants are careful since they are being watched most of the time, therefore many of them do not commit crimes; which means they do not end up in jail and the economy is not affected.

Those that support the idea that illegal immigration has a negative impact on the economy, view illegal immigrants as a disadvantage to the American workforce. If there is not enough of skilled workers available to a market, the wages tend to go up. When there is illegal immigration present there is suddenly more workers given to the market than the usual. Therefore, there is a direct correlation between workers and wages, in other words, when there are more workers the value of the job is less, and everyone gets paid less. Both lower and higher skilled natives get affected by the incursion of illegal immigrants for that very reason. Since an inconsistent percentage of immigrants do not have many skills, it affects the low skilled natives of American laborers. For all these reasons, the labor unions and natives often call to making immigration control a lot more strict to defend their jobs and wage network (Nadadur 1041). Which is going to make it a lot harder for undocumented immigrants to get a job in the United States.

However, that is not a valid argument because it is more of an advantage to have illegal immigrants in our workforce since they boost the economy. The argument usually is that when there is an increase in workers, other workers that already have been working in the business will get paid less or even lose their jobs. All of this maybe true that immigrants might increase the supply of labor, but they also increase the demand for possibly that very same labor. Just like anyone else, immigrants use the money they earned to rent apartments, buy necessary supplies for survival, buy food, and even small things like getting a haircut or purchasing a cellphone. What this means is there is going to be more jobs building more apartments and houses, selling food, selling all the supplies the immigrants need which also requires dispatching trucks to deliver them, and simply more jobs for giving a haircut. Scholars have even argued that a lot of legal and native workers in America are not willing to do many jobs that the illegal immigrants will do for the sake of survival and eliminating this kind of work force would be devastating to the economy (Nadadur 1041). The choice is simple, either reduce the illegal population and lose hard workers, or leave them to perform all the work no one really wants to do.

For those that do not support illegal and undocumented immigrants have reason to believe that the economic security and government issued aid of America is affected in a negative way because of the illegal immigrants, which influences our economy. Our economic and national security depends on illegal immigrants to come forward and come clean about there legal status and get right with the law. There also should be no special path to citizenship for those who broke the law since it would be unfair to those immigrants who did everything the right way and under the laws of the United States of America. The only way America will let illegal immigrants live without fear is if they pass all their tests, pay all the fines or the money they owe, and support themselves without government aid which has an influence on the economy of America. Illegal immigrants impact the financial security of the county’s legal residents, because undocumented workers are underpaid and that affects the wages on a certain region or occupation. They also can be a burden on our local and federal law enforcement agencies. Additionally, immigrant families tend to be larger than the families of the natives in the United States and they tend to qualify under most of the government aid programs that the citizens of America pay taxes for.

My point still stands, illegal immigrants have a good impact in America and the fact is, our economic security and government aid is fine, and our economy is better when they are around. Undocumented immigrants contribute to the state by paying a significant amount of taxes. When it comes to economic security on whether to legalize or give citizenship, it would boost the economy of America immensely if illegal immigrants were granted citizenship. Since they will be citizens there will be an increase in jobs and tax revenue. In addition, many illegal immigrants have established residency and some of them own properties and houses which they pay property taxes for. Furthermore, American taxpayers pay to enforce security at the United States border and make sure no one is crossing without legal permission (Roberts 556). Instead of spending more money to make security stronger on the border, the taxpayers could use that money on something a lot more useful. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there has been a dramatic increase in resources dedicated to the security of the border since 2003 when DHS was created (Brown 101). And regarding government aid, no illegal immigrant qualifies for any of the programs such as Social Security, Medicare, welfare, or any health-related benefits even though they pay taxes (Persaud; Letter? 14). America takes the money illegal immigrants pay as tax and are not in a big hurry to give in return which is not a good reflection on the country itself.

Since illegal immigration does not impact our economy negatively and if others see it that way, there will be less deportations, less crime and less inmates to pay for, more jobs, and our economic security and government issued aid might even be better because the economy will be in better shape. It seems that people who oppose illegal immigration have been taught or even brainwashed to fear illegal immigrants. Instead being afraid of them, Americans should welcome them, possibly even show them the right way; not scare the immigrants with laws and regulations and all the consequences. The truth is that illegal immigration has been on a decline since two thousand and seven (Persaud; The Fact? 18), so there is no reason to panic and spend money on useless security on our borders. Even if there was not a decline, illegal immigrants make a great work force and they do not complain. In addition, they bring diversity, and more importantly, improve the economy of this country. In conclusion, our country is better off guiding our illegal immigrants to do the right thing instead of frightening and punishing them.

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