American citizens work tirelessly every day to earn money to make a living and provide for their families. It isn’t easy for everyone, and that’s why we are given the benefits like food stamps and unemployment. So, imagine the frustration in rewarding someone with benefits and jobs who break the law. There are many financial and social issues concerning the illegal immigrant outbreak that’s documented over the years. This problem is being repeatedly disregarded. We currently house 11 to 12 million most of which come from central and southern Mexico, South America, and Latin American countries. Moreover, this is a representation on why illegal immigration impacts our nation greatly.
The most common misconception about illegal immigration, is that immigration in general is not wanted at all.
There is an extensive difference between being smuggled into the country, whether it be by boat, tunnel, or air travel versus applying for a visa and obtaining your citizenship. Opinions surrounding illegal aliens coming into our country are both good and bad. However, people don’t want to see how the bad may overshadow the good. It’s good when there’s unchallenging admission to the laborer that would do work no citizen is willing to do. It’s considered bad when they ingress to the United States illegally with their families and are supplied with free social services like healthcare, public– or sometimes private education and welfare.
Say their children are born here, they’re instantly granted citizenship which automatically allows the parents welfare checks. For example, “Households headed by immigrants illegally in the country have higher use rates than native households overall and for food programs (57 percent vs. 22 percent) and Medicaid (51 percent vs. 23 percent)” (Meyer, WashingtonBeacon). Bad is when they now live in this “American Dream”, and still commit crimes like killing American citizens because of gangs or just plain ignorance. Most importantly, it’s gotten bad when illegals become so entitled that they parade cities and streets demanding rights given to legal citizens, downright forgetting they are here illegally and without citizenship.
President Donald Trump has been seeking to prevent more unjustified deaths, some because of illegal immigrants, administering crucial immigration laws and pushing for a border wall. This comes straight after the new rise of American deaths. For example, “Gustavo Perez Arriaga, a 32-year-old Mexican illegally living in the U.S., was arrested for the murder of California Police Officer Ronil Singh, 33. Officer Singh was shot and killed during a morning traffic stop involving Arriaga on December 26, 2018. Two days later Arraiaga was captured in Bakersfield, CA, 280 miles away from the City of Newman. Police stated they believe Arriaga was attempting to flee back to Mexico. Arriaga, reportedly had been involved in a gang and arrested twice previously for DUI. He had also been previously deported back to Mexico” (Salvi, ojjapc).
Officer Singh recently welcomed a baby around Christmas and now his child has to grow up without a father. This is where the problem starts and never seems to end. If there were tighter security and stricter laws on illegal immigration, this could have been prevented. Now granted, not ALL illegal immigrants are like this, and people see that, it’s just that we’re tired of seeing our citizens die, because yours chooses to be unlawful. Another example, “Gustavo Garcia, 36, an illegal alien has been arrested for the murder of Rocky Paul Jones, 51, of Visalia, California.
Garcia was caught on store video confronting Jones in a convenience store parking lot at 2:30a.m on December 16, 2018. Garcia is then alleged to have shot and killed Jones. That night Garcia was involved in multiple shootings, including the shooting of a farm worker and robbery of a gas station in another town. Garcia is alleged to have a criminal record dating back to 2002 and apparently ordered to be deported in 2014 and had past multiple immigration holds” (Salvi, ojjapc).
This further proves the point that actions need to be taken by Congress and the Executive branch to secure our borders and put U.S. immigration laws into place. In current studies put together by fairus.org, 12-15 American Citizens are killed every day by illegal aliens. It is almost impossible to keep track of the illegals that flood into the country, so by not cracking down on regulations for them and making excuses that they need to be here, it becomes that much easier for these immigrants to violate the law. A border patrol agency identified 240,000 illegal immigrants who were convicted for criminal charges in 2017 alone.
An important and heated debated, especially between politicians, is the effect of illegal immigration on the economy and work force. A 2017 approximation stated 12 million unlawful immigrants in the United States today, can have both a positive and negative effect on the economy.
Lower wages provided to illegal labor workers in low-skill jobs slash the price of manufacturing. This helps lower costs of American people in well-known professions such as chefs, farmers, and or construction workers. Undocumented workers are known to come to the U.S. to send some of the money they make to their home country. They still have effects on the economy because of the money they make and spend. Undocumented immigrants also help to save jobs in ways. For example, “By providing work at low cost, for instance, undocumented workers keep firms from investing heavily in new, expanding technologies that would make the firms significantly less labor-intensive and more automated (Payoo, 2018).
Another well-articulated argument relating to illegal immigration usage of services provided by the government. Illegal workers (not all), get payments by cash most of the time and don’t have to are not exposed to pay federal taxes. Therefore, many people try to express how illegal immigrants are damaging the government and making it lose lots of money. This is because they are acquiring free things like public education, health care, and welfare. So, there is no definite answer to the issue concerning the effect on economy because of the fluctuating pros and cons.