Should Illegal Immigrants Stay In The United States Essay

Should illegal immigrants be allowed to stay in the United States?
The statue of liberty is one of America’s famous icons. It stands 305 feet above Liberty Island looking at New York’s historic harbor and enshrining the idea of freedom from oppression. The Lady Liberty has been welcoming millions of immigrants seeking a better life in the United States, however illegal immigration is becoming a much larger issue than when she was built in 1886. With over 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, the question frequently arises, What should be done about them? Now is the best time to figure that out! The illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay in the United States of America. The illegals assist in balancing out demand for low wage workers and continue to boost the American economy. They benefit our local and state governments by paying taxes and dividends

and They reduce our crime rate and continue to be law abiding illegal citizens once there cross the border.

To begin, an illegal immigrant is defined as “an alien (non-citizen) who has entered the United States without government permission or stayed beyond the termination date of a visa.”(“illegal immigrant”,def.1). It is important to first define “illegal immigrant” before continuing this discussion. Illegal immigration has progressively gotten worse throughout the years, and has lead some Americans to believe that illegal immigrants have caused major economic problems and continue shrink the domestic job market for foreign workers or more importantly United States citizens. But is that really the case? The current positive economic impact made by illegal immigrant workers is tremendous, if we decided to mass deport all of them, it would cripple the United States economy. Illegal immigrants provide the United States with low-wage workers that are difficult or even scarce to find. Which allows our businesses to provide us with products at a

lower cost than if they we used United States citizens. It increases our wages and lowers prices in the long run. Even though illegal immigrants make a negligible impact on the United States economy. They have managed to return the impact and turn it into a positive impact, helping to drive our economy forward. However, Illegal immigrants take the jobs that American’s would scoff at. For example, illegal immigrants are the ones picking crops in fields. They are not just a cheap labor resource but in many cases the only resource that the farmers have to pick their crops. “According to NAWS, approximately 48% of farmworkers lack work authorization” If the farmers did not have illegal immigrants and paid American citizens to pick the crops, the economy would crumble. It would be a serious loss in profits for farmers. In fact immigrants don’t get paid well and they work for less than the current minimum wage. This allows the US business to make products affordable for the domestic consumer.
Notable, there is a common misconception that illegal immigrants do not pay taxes. This is not true, illegal immigrants pay taxes through sales on items they buy. A study conducted by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found “The 11.4 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States collectively paid $11.84 billion in state and local taxes in 2012.” The United States is profiting from the immigrants, they are not losing a significant amount of tax money from the Illegal immigrants since they are not buying their items tax free instead contributing to the government through sales tax revenue. The amount paid is even expected to rise, “ITEP’s analysis finds their combined nationwide state and local tax contributions would increase by $845 million” Even stating that under President Obama’s executive order the amount paid in taxes would increase to 2.2 Billion dollars! But what about Social Security? The truth is that illegal Immigrants are paying more into Social Security than they will take out if they become legal. “…we estimate that the excess of tax revenue paid to the Trust Funds over benefits paid from these funds based on earnings of unauthorized workers is about $12 billion.” Clearly illegal immigrants are paying into Social Security. The chief actuary for the SSA(Social Security Administration) Stephen Goss said "They are paying an estimated $15 billion a year into Social Security with no intention of ever collecting benefits," immigrants are paying into the system without taking out of it. Allowing social security to continue to run without having an issue with funding. Illegal immigrants are definitely improving the United States in more ways than one.
Finally, illegal immigrants are law abiding illegal citizens aside from entering illegally. They come to this country to avoid crime, to get a better life for their family and children and do not come here to commit crimes and add to problems that we have within our citys. According to a study done by PEW Research “about a quarter of 16-year-old native-born and second-generation immigrants have committed a crime in the past year. […] about 17% of the foreign-born 16-year olds have broken the law”. There is a clear distinction in crime rates between the two immigrant groups. First it compares the 16 year-old native-born citizens then compares it to the first generation immigrants. The study found the the first generation immigrants have a significantly lower crime rate opposed to second generation immigrants, proving that illegal immigrants do not commit as much crime as they have been perceived to commit instead there are unexpectedly reducing the crime rate. The most interesting point is that since 1990 to 2013 the amount of illegal immigrants has nearly tripled in the United States, but the violent crimes rate has dropped by 45 percent. There can not and there isn’t a direct correlation between illegal immigrants and crime, if the crime rate is going down when the united states is seeing a huge influx of immigrants. Almost 4% of the overall population is illegal and the crime rate continues to go down, contrary to the current viewpoint that it will go up. Since they are not committing a lot of crime and are in return reducing the crime rate, why mass deport something that we need in our country?
With over 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, the question arises What should we do about them? The illegals are by no means violent, a tax burden or making a huge economic impact. They have demonstrated that they are an important asset to this country, not only on the economic side, but also making the United States a much safer place. The country would be at a huge loss with a crippled economy if the illegal immigrants were mass deported! We should allow them to reside here and continue to reap the bountiful benefits they have sown for us.