Illegal Immigration in America

One of the most controversial political issues today is illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants is a serious problem that has to stop, because it is unfair to the people here in America. Illegal immigration is also unfair for the country that the immigrant left. It is public knowledge that the majority of the illegal immigrants in America come from Mexico. This is a problem that must me stopped as it hurts America’s economy and tax paying citizens. Illegal immigrants live off tax payers, take jobs and housing of hard working citizens, and leave there country of birth without skilled workers and help leave their own country into poverty.

Legal American citizens pay taxes that help support welfare, health care, public schools and many other social services, many of which are taken advantage of by illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants do not have to pay as many taxes as citizens do, illegal immigrants don’t have to pay social security. This isn’t fair to Americans. I personally don’t care if people migrate here I just want them to have to pay taxes just like everyone else. Illegal immigrants need to abide by the same laws as Americans. If a child is born in America, even if the parents are illegal, the child is a American citizen, making this child a burden to the state to make sure the child receives adequate care. So every tax paying Americans dollars are going towards welfare and food stamps, just because the child was born here in America.

The majority of Americans are predominantly a working middle class, who are accustomed to a middle class life style? Illegal workers come to this country and working for less than the average pay. This makes work salaries of legal workers to go down, because some employers are getting cheaper labor from undocumented citizens. This is making it harder for American citizens to get good paying jobs. Douglas Sunkel said “I was a very successful contractor until I hired two illegal immigrants to work for me”. (Douglas Sunkel) Douglas lost his business to these two illegal immigrants. Douglas had to file bankruptcy and go into a different profession. Douglas is now a manager at Wal-Mart. This is just one example of what cheap labor from illegal immigrants can do in society. Illegal immigrants sometimes tend to bring down the standard of living in the communities. Cities with higher immigration rates have longer commuting time, more people living in poverty, more high school dropouts, twice as many violent crimes, twice as many unemployed, more than twice the welfare dependency and more than seven times as much crowded housing.

Illegal immigrants not only hurt America they hurt the country they are leaving, and are taking away skilled professionals from that country. This causes a smaller work force and can lead to poverty in small communities, which can lead to more illegal immigrates coming to America. Illegal immigrants has become a very serious problem in America and it really needs to be addressed. They drain the American economy, by taking from the system and never putting back into the system. Most immigrants come to America to get rich and go back home. Therefore they don’t invest in the economy here they take it back to their country of origin. Undocumented citizens are users in our community who don’t contribute anything but working for less money than American citizens. They come here in most cases with only the clothes on their backs and they bring their families here until they get enough money to be wealthy or rich in their own country then they flee back home with all the money they have made here in America.

I have personally work with some illegal immigrants for the past fourteen years they come and go on my job. When the government started cracking down about seven or eight years ago on illegal immigrants we had the police to come to the job several times looking for people that were illegal. These immigrants where sent back to their countries. I felt like the job knew that a lot of the employees were illegal, but they didn’t care. They worked them thru temporary agencies, but when the government initiated E-Verify, companies got fined.

Everyone had to bring their identification cards, their social security cards and the company ran a check on everyone, if you could not produce these documents you could no longer work for the company. Every time I looked someone would be missing or gone and no one would say what had happen to them but we all knew it was because their documents were not legal. These immigrants were taking jobs that American citizens needed and no one seemed to care, (at least not at this company) but when they received fines more Americans started getting hired for, the jobs. I personally think it is bad that people in today’s society have to be made to do the right thing. I guess that’s why we have laws, to keep everyone in line, because everyone just will not do right!

I don’t feel like immigration should be stopped just as long as it is legal. Many farmers feel that they need immigrant workers because a lot of Americans in today’s society will not work doing farm work. (most farmers pay low wages). Most Americans feel they are not going to work at minimum wage. Their ancestors did it, but they feel they are moving forward and not backwards. However, many immigrants come to America and they are willing to work for lower wages and the America farmers need help on their farms. Some factories and smaller businesses seek workers to work for lower wages. For these reasons, I feel we need migrant workers but they still need to be legal. Everyone can’t start at the top we all have to crawl before we walk it would be nice if we were all born rich, but that’s just not the case. Some body has to still do the smaller jobs that some feel are little, but society needs these jobs growing.

President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012 announced an executive action that would allow an estimated 800,000 undocumented immigrants in the U.S. to remain in the country and work legally. Under the action, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would end deportation actions against undocumented immigrants under the age of 30 who had arrived in the U.S. before they turned 16, had resided in the country for at least five years, had no significant criminal record, and were either students, high school graduates or military veterans in good standing. Anyone who met those criteria could apply for “deferred action” status, which would allow them to apply for work permits to avoid deportation. (http://www.2fact.com.article/2012 554375) Obama in a speech delivered that day said his action was a “temporary stopgap measure,” and that it did not constitute amnesty or provide undocumented immigrants with a path to citizenship.

Nonetheless, immigration activists hailed the move, which provided un- documented immigrants with many benefits included in the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (Dream) Act, an immigration reform bill by Obama had been blocked. (by the Senate Republicans in 2010). The Dream Act had gone a step further by offering undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. (http://www.2fact.com.article/2012554375) Analysts said Obama’s announcement was intended in part to appeal to Hispanic voters and to some Democrats who had criticized him for overseeing the deportation of more than 1.1 million immigrants from the U.S. since he took office in 2009. Observers said Obama would need strong support from Hispanic voters to help him carry several swings States in the November 2012 presidential election. (http://ww.2fact.com.article/2012 554375)

Nevertheless, Latino voters overwhelmingly supported Obama in the 2012 election, as they had in 2008. More than 7 of 10 Latino voters, who constituted 10 percent of the electorate? voted for Obama. Within days of his second inauguration in January 2013, Obama began to outline his plan for immigration reform, which included a clear path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. “The time has come for common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform,” he told an audience in Las Vegas, Nevada. “Real reform means strong border security,” the president said during his State of Union address in February 2013. “Real reform means establishing a responsible pathway to earn citizenship.”()

The immigration system is broken. On that much, pro- and law- immigration groups agree. But they disagree sharply on how to fix it, and the divided defeats any attempts to fix it even if it can be fixed. Pro immigration groups like to talk about the “three-legged stool” of immigration reform: legal channels for family and job based immigrations; a path to citizenship for unlawful aliens already in the America, and a better boarder security.

Low- immigration groups agree on the need for better border control but want to make it harder, not easier, for would be immigrants and generally oppose legal status for the near record number of unlawful aliens. Public opinion is ambivalent and conflicted on immigration issues even as immigrations, legal and illegal, has reached record levels. The nearly 14 million new immigrants, legal and illegal, who came to the United States from 2000 to 2010 made that decade the highest ever in U.S. history, according to the low immigration Center for Immigration Studies. (www.cis.org/articles/2011record-setting-decade.pdf.)

In conclusion, Immigration is to come to a country of one which is not a native to take up permanent residence. (Merriam-Webster pg. 439) If no one cared about immigration, it relatively easy problem to fix. (/contributors/stuart-stevens.html) Most Americans care about illegal immigration more today than they ever had because the economy is so uncertain. Middle class workers such as I don’t want illegal immigrant taking jobs from people that pay taxes and need work. I feel if you want to live here become a citizen and pay taxes like everyone else. Living the American Dream is there for anyone who wants it, but you have to do it the right way.

Works Cited

Steven A. Camarota, “A Record-Setting Decade of Immigration 2000-2010. Studies October
2011, (www.cis.org/articles/2011/record-setting-decade.pdf.)Web June 20, 2013

“Immigration: Obama Action Allows Young Undocumented Immigrants to Remain in U.S.”
Facts On File World News Digest: n. World News Digest: Facts One File News
Services, 19 June 2012. Web. 22 June 2013. (http://www.2facts.com/article/2012554375)

Merriam-Webster 439

Stuart Stevens (/contributors/stuart-stevens, html) June 18, 2013 4:45 am EDT

Sunkel, Douglas. Telephone interview. 23 June 23, 2013

“Immigration Policy.” Issues & Controversies. Facts On the File News Services, 8 Apr. 2013.
Web. 22 June 2013. (http://www.2fact.com/article/i1800130)