I’m going to try and be as unbias as possible about illegal immigration. I researched data from many sites – both pro-immigration and anti-immigration. You’ll have to throw in the word ‘illegal’ yourself, these groups don’t always make this distinction.
Not surprisingly I found that much of the data contridicted itself. In both cases, the group repeatedly beat the same drum over and over. Pro-immigration point out that illegal immigrants make up an important part of our nation’s workforce and many pay taxes into social security that they’ll never be able to take advantage of.
On the other hand the anti-immigration groups talk about increased crime rates, drug trafficking, stealing American’s jobs and sucking our social services dry. So what side of the fence are you on? Here’s the stats:
Pro-immigration
1. While many people automatically assume a person of Mexican descent is an illegal alien, only 33% are actually undocumented. As for the remaining illegal immigrants 22% come from other Latin American countries, 13% from Asian, 6% from Europe and Canada and 3% from elsewhere. (That leaves quite a few percentage unaccounted for…)
2. Illegal immigrants pay the same taxes as everyone else in America. Sales, income and social security tax. Even property taxs are paid because landlords figure them into rent prices.
3. It isn’t that illegal immigrants don’t want to learn English or assimilate (mix in) with American culture. Sometimes they are only planning on living here a couple of months or years and working hard to make money to take or send back home.
4. Illegal immigrants do not steal jobs from American. They work jobs that Americans don’t want to do. In fact the gap in employment between dropouts (citizen dropouts that is) and high school graduates has stayed relatively the same since the 1980s.
I tried to find some pro-immigration or objective information on crime statistics from illegal immigrants but was able to find only vague comments and editorial opinions with no facts to back them up. When it comes to terrorism they make a good point when they say that none of the terrorists from 9/11 came across the Mexican border. It just doesn’t make sense to me, however, that the fact that people can sneak into this country somehow doesn’t increase the chance of terrorists sneaking in.
Now for the other side of the story (and my 2 cents too)
1. The Department of Homeland Security found that 70% of illegal immigrants are Mexican. I have read other reports putting the figure between 54 and 80 percent.
**I don’t understand what difference it makes whether an illegal immigrant is Mexican or not. I don’t think anyone should be assumed to be here illegally no matter what they look like. I also don’t think a criminal should be given a break due to proximity or population. Just because there are a large group of Mexican people living in this country doesn’t mean they ones who are breaking the law are any less wrong.
2. Bear Stearns (Wall Street investment firm) estimated that the U.S. is losing $35 billion a year to income tax collections from off-the-books jobs. Meanwhile Harvard Professor, George Borjes, has stated that illegal immigrants displaced American workers at a cost in excess of $133 billion dollars in 2005.
**This is a touchy one for me. I have met and known too many people who are out of work who would have been happy to get anything. When pro-immigration groups claim these are jobs “Americas don’t want to do” they always seem to forget to add “at the same wage.” Employers get away with paying slave wages far below the minimum wage forcing illegal immigrants to work two of more jobs.
3. I’m pretty sure we can all agree that there are sub-cultures in America and Hispanic people are no different. I’m not really sure that illegal immigrants are any more hesitant to learn English and adopt the American culture than legal immigrants. People want to be with people they feel comfortable with. Common language and common culture are bonds that aren’t going to be broken just because they cross the border. However I think they should make the effort to join the American culture as well. As for saying some illegal immigrants don’t learn English because they don’t plan to be here long, just a few months or years to earn some money, well isn’t that a problem in itself?
4. Each year, an estimated 1,880,000 Americans will lose their jobs because of immigrantion – the majority of whom are illegal. Providing welfare and other state services to these unemployed Americans costs more than $15 billion a year.
When all the stats are in and the data combed over and the debate heard out, I still revert to my original position of a law is a law and those who break them are criminals. Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime – it victimizes all involved. The only people benefiting are the greedy and the criminal.
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