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How Does Illegal Immigration Affect The Economy

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Illegal immigration has both a positive and negative impact on the U.S. economy as a whole, but specifically it impacts white and black U.S. citizens concerning their jobs and salaries. In order to understand how illegal immigration truly affects the United States, one must understand what an illegal immigrant is, how illegal immigration began, and the difference between legal and illegal immigration. By definition, an illegal or undocumented immigrant is “a foreigner who enters the U.S. without an entry or immigrant visa, especially a person who crosses the border by avoiding inspection or who overstays the period of time allowed as a visitor, tourist, or business person” (“Illegal Alien”). While illegal immigration dates back to the seventeenth …show more content…
Eleven million illegal immigrants pay a total of $11.6 billion per year, which equates to $1,056 per person ("Sorry, but Illegal Aliens Cost the U.S. Plenty"). According to a 2005 report done, 50% of illegal immigrants pay Social Security (Barbour 40). Harvard’s George Borjas and Julian Simon, economists, believe that illegal immigrants increase the national income (Piore). Some illegal immigrants are not eligible for welfare nor use medical services or food stamps, so the widely-believed idea that illegal immigrants feel entitled to and take advantage of America’s resources is false. Illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crime than natives, even with low income and education (“Immigration Myths and Facts”). Without illegal immigrants, the United States’ economy would decline remarkably. If all illegal immigrants were to be deported, the economy would “suffer greatly” (“Wage War; Immigration Economics” 18). A mass deportation would result in the United States losing $400-600 billion. The groups that would benefit most from such a thing are legal immigrants and high-school dropouts, who would see their wages rise by three to eight percent according to journalist Adam Davidson …show more content…
Some illegal immigrants typically do not pay taxes but do use federal welfare services, hiking up the cost of those services $6,234 for United States citizens (Richwine). In fact, 62% of illegal immigrant households use at least one welfare service (“Sorry, but Illegal Aliens Cost the U.S. Plenty”). Schools, hospitals, and police stations are struggling with the burden of illegal immigration and states and localities are required to treat illegal immigrants in emergency rooms, regardless of whether the immigrant has health insurance or not. Doing this raises health care costs for all Americans, and overall, illegal immigrants cost taxpayers more than $113 billion per year ("The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers

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