Illegal Immigration

Almost all of us have relatives who, at one time or another, were immigrants who came to America seeking freedom, opportunity, and ultimately a better life. Many illegal immigrants leave their native countries because of the lack of jobs and poor living conditions, among other reasons, and come to America looking for the same dream like so many before them. They live illegally in America because many feel that bureaucratic red tape is holding them back from coming in legally and because the wages are usually far higher than those in their native countries.

As of March 2009, the majority of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. came from Mexico (sixty percent) and other Latin American countries (twenty percent), while the remainder came from Asia (eleven percent), Europe and Canada (four percent), and Africa, and other countries (4 percent) (pewhispanic.org). There were an estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in March 2009, with most living in California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and New Jersey (pewhispanic.org). It is usually easy for them to get jobs doing manual labor for little pay from farmers or other employers who usually do not check their legal status. The employers may suspect that the aliens are here illegally, but they do not report them because they have hard-workers doing the jobs many Americans would not want to work, and for less money. The economy benefits because it helps keep the price of many goods and services low. Undocumented migrants also contribute to the economy by paying for goods, services, sales taxes, and real estate taxes, if they own property.

"Every empirical study of illegals' economic impact demonstrates... undocumenteds actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services. Moreover, undocumented immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker...