The Pros And Cons Of Illegal Migration

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The Illegal, The Bad, and The Ugly ENC 1101 Professor Robin Rodgers October 26th 2011 Do American citizens ever think about how they pay for stuff that they never actually get to use or see? Do they ever have thoughts about unconsciously paying for someone to stay in our country illegally? Most likely we Americans don't even stop to think about these sorts of things and yet over 113 billion dollars of our citizens hard earned money is paying for illegal immigrants to be in our country. Illegal immigrants are a threat to America's economy in many different aspects. Anyone has a chance of becoming a citizen but not everyone is willing to. Many refuse to become legalized citizens because of the “rigorous” process involved. I think…show more content…
Taxpayers. Illegal alien families receive federal welfare benefits that total nearly $4.6 billion annually. Advocates for illegal aliens argue that these illegals are not eligible for federal benefits so they are not a burden on the taxpayers. This thought ignores the fact that the federal government, recognizing the fiscal burden on state budgets from illegal migration, provides compensation to state and local governments for the major expenses they bring upon themselves. These programs provide funding for: education programs that are used by most children of illegal aliens, compensation for medical expenses on behalf of illegal aliens, and compensation for the imprisonment of illegal aliens. Only looking at tax collections is misleading because it doesn't acknowledge the side effects of the presence of the illegal alien workers on the earnings and tax collections from American workers. A study that was done on the impact of migrant workers to U.S. workers by a group of experts in the 1990's found that low-wage foreign workers drove down wages and job opportunities for American workers. That study also found that immigration had been held accountable for 40 to 50 percent of the wage depression for workers without a high school degree in recent years (Ruark 2011). When U.S. workers are unemployed, underemployed, or have depressed earnings because of the presence of illegal alien workers, there is a greater burden…show more content…
taxpayers about $193 per household per year (Stein 2011). My family along with many others are having a hard enough time paying for their own bills and what not let alone someone else's. As long as foreigners are encouraged by our actions to ignore our immigration laws, we will forever be hard pressed to defend our borders. And, not only will America’s most vulnerable workers (minimum-wage) suffer from unfair competition against illegal aliens for jobs, but that competition will become even harsher because of the newly legalized workers competing for jobs from employers who precisely hire only legal workers (Martin 2011). Many argue that they are an economic benefit. This economic opinion makes no sense because it assumes that illegal worker's jobs would go away if they were not accessible. For sweatshop and subsidiary labor this may be correct but not for actual economic activity. Many of those workers that are and “economic benefit” are being exploited. This situation is not one to rationalize about. It should not be tolerated. There are many factors involved in the negative economic impact of illegal immigrants. I and many others feel that they are a threat to America's economy. We are loosing jobs, paying for them to be here, and giving them free stuff. This is an unfair situation that needs to be
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