The Pros And Cons Of Illegal Immigration

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The Undocumented in the U.S. Illegal Immigration has become a nationwide epidemic in the U.S. with an estimated 11.8 million undocumented immigrants in 2007 and accounting for 3 percent of the population. (Hoefer 1) Over the years the debate over whether or not to allow illegal immigrants to live and work in the United States has become a lengthy struggle for some that are trying to obtain citizenship legally. As an industrialized nation, the U.S. depends on these immigrants to provide a work for hire service for cheap during economic turmoil. There are several advantages that stem from illegal immigration that should be pointed out. Some of these advantages include contributions of billions of dollars in tax revenue on our social security…show more content…
experiences occur when our economy suffers a down fall. As a result, our economy resorts to a cheap labor source and relies on them during this time. It has long been known that immigrants provide the best source of cheap labor. They are the driving force in farm work and put food on our table, these are people who cut our lawns, or our maid and service workers. The biggest discrepancy between the pro illegal immigration groups and the anti-immigration groups is that immigrants tend to take jobs away from Americans. In reality, immigrants only take jobs that Americans normally wouldn’t want to do themselves. The anti-immigration groups argue that illegal immigrants take away American jobs, but in reality this does not happen. (AILA 1) The majority of illegal immigrants work as a form of cheap labor building houses during natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina, cleaning houses and doing housework, or in childcare services. In addition, the service industry in the U.S. keeps employing large numbers of illegal immigrants simply because they are a kind of cheap labor source that stays around for many years due to their sturdy work. (Mirande 61) Immigrants are added sources of economic growth spending billions with massive U.S. companies like credit cards, mortgage lenders, banks, insurers, phone carriers, and other consumer corporations. They bring roughly 600,000 to 700,000 new consumers to the economy every year. (LULAC 1) According to Business Week, 84% of immigrants are between the ages of 18 to 44, in their prime spending ages versus 60% of legal residents. By allowing illegal immigrants to obtain legal status to work and live in the U.S., they add a potential benefit to our economy by spending the money they work hard for and put back into our economy. In the near future it has been predicted that nearly more than half of all U.S. retail banking will come from new immigrants. This is an alarming number of illegal
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