Illegal Immigration in Usa

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in the deciding factor. Since illegal aliens are undocumented, they are not counted into the census, therefore automatically creating a deficit in the allotted funds provided by the government. In other words, it would be like the government would be giving resources to cover one hundred people when in fact there are actually one hundred and ten people to be covered.

Not only are illegal immigrants costing the citizens their jobs and homes, they are also costing the government in living expenses. Billions upon billions of dollars are lost or wasted due to illegal aliens getting into America. In 2008, a study was conducted by the Center of Immigration Studies that found illegal aliens cost the United States an average of $26.2 billion dollars every year. One of the reasons this number is incredibly high is because of taxes. Every citizen pays taxes to the government every year, and because illegal aliens are undocumented, they are essentially exempt for paying said taxes. The United States taxpayers pay for many services, including education, medicare, the administration of justice, child care, temporary assistance to needy families, and school meal programs. These all end up benefiting illegal families in one way or another but are rarely taken into account. In fact, Steven Camarota, the director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies explains how an illegal immigrant household “...[pays] only 28 percent as much in taxes as non-illegal households. As a result, the estimated net cost per illegal household was $2,736. Whether one sees this fiscal deficit as resulting from low tax payments or heavy use of services is a matter of perspective. As already discussed, illegal households comprise 3.6 percent of the total population, but...they account for an estimated 0.9 percent of taxes paid and 1.4 percent of costs. Important to realize that these proportions don’t seem to benefit the economy, instead it has a negative effect on it. The difference of the taxes illegal immigrants pay and the government benefits they receive will be more costing to the taxpayers, the government should not tolerate a fiscal deficit to taxpayers. In a similar statement, Robert Rector says that “Children in unlawful immigrant households receive heavily subsidized public education. Many unlawful immigrants have U.S. born-children; these children are currently eligible for the full range of government welfare and medical benefits”. Children of illegal immigrants will be given American citizenship due to the fact that they are born on American soil. With this legal status, those children will have welfare benefits, rights to a free education, and rights to medical treatment. They will also serve as anchors for their parents citizenship application later on.

The controversy surrounding illegal immigration is very complicated. For instance, although some may believe that “Taxes paid by immigrants and their children- both legal and unauthorized- exceed the costs of the services they use” (Greenstone), and that “[Immigrant children] expenses, however, are paid back through taxes received over a lifetime of work” (Greenstone). They fail to take into account that the annual cost of illegal immigrants is around $113 billion to taxpayers. Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies explains that, “..illegal households comprise 3.6 percent of the total population, but...they account for an estimated 0.9 percent of taxes paid and 1.4 percent of costs.” This displays how these households are not repaying the government enough to match their population in the country. Even with the taxes being paid, many illegal households use public services and programs that will exceed the payments they make resulting in an overall deficit to the country.

Although the issue of illegal immigration has not been recently recognized, it has been a continuous problem throughout US history since globalization. While the constant flow of immigrants into the states been proven to be very beneficial, it has also brought in illegal immigration, which has many drawbacks to the US. It threatens our public safety, quality of life, and economy, because of that, we must enforce our borders and enact stronger laws against illegal immigration.