Essay About Illegal Immigration Harms And Abundance Of Illegal Workers

Illegal Immigration
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The word illegal has a very broad meaning. Most of the times it is easy to say what is legal and what is
illegal but sometimes it is very difficult for people to decide. It is people who make laws and it is them
who break them. Sometimes both are justifiable and most of the time they are not because rules and
regulations are imposed on people to make a society disciplined as a whole or else we will be living a
jungle life in a civilized society. Since the dawn of history empires rose and fell. Cities, countries which
were very rich at some point of time in history have become very poor and are called third world today.
In the twenty first century United States Of America is the richest and most prosperous country in the
world and this is the reason so many people from different parts of the world are drawn towards it. The
poor and illiterate people whose life in their countries are miserable try to enter illegally into the United
States to find a better life. They are justified in some sense but when it comes to the harm these illegal
immigrants do to the citizens of the United States , it becomes the responsibility of the law enforcing
agencies to take strict action against those people who defy the law.
It all started in 1820s and 1830s when the rate of immigration to United States increased
dramatically. Ireland and Germany replaced England as being the main source of immigrants. This was
the first time when many Americans became concerned about the negative effects of the increase in
immigration. Garret Davis in 1849 in his speech said that immigration endangers America. That was
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more than 150 years ago and today people are not concerned about legal immigration but it is the illegal
immigration which has become the focal point of all the issues.
Illegal immigration harms the US in many ways. It places a severe strain on the US economy,
health care and welfare systems. The abundance of illegal workers simply gives the employers the
opportunity to reduce the wages and downgrading working conditions. Some people say that there is
no job competition between Americans and illegal workers. Well this point is absolutely false. It is also
seen all over the country that Americans move out of areas where illegal immigrants settle. According to
the Cornell Labor specialist Vernon Briggs, twenty years ago in Los Angeles many American blacks were
employed in building maintenance jobs, then the illegal aliens moved in and many blacks moved out
and wages dropped 40 percent. Another example proves the same point, Rice University analyst Donald
Huddle found that one third of the construction workers in Houston were illegal holding down good
paying jobs that otherwise would have gone to American workers.
Illegal immigration has many other harmful effects on US citizens. According to Immigration and
Naturalization Services (INS) , between two and three thousand illegal aliens daily cross the border in
San Diego county, California. The United States has the most liberal immigration policy in the world
and when illegal immigrants are added, the government has to spend billions of dollars every year in
border patrol and other INS activities. There are certain other problems such as most of the people who
are illegal, come to United States and continue staying when their visa expires. These visa abuses are
rarely caught. Smuggling of illegal immigrants is also becoming a serious problem, especially smuggling
of Chinese illegal immigrants. The smuggling of people is fast becoming the most profitable part of the
black-market business. People pay the smugglers large amount of money to enter the country by any
means. Smugglers bring illegal aliens, liquor, drugs and anything they can make money off. In 2003
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Canadian and US authorities caught a racket of smugglers who smuggled illegal aliens from Chinas
Fujian Province, through Canada and then to US. These smugglers charged $38,000 per person to
smuggle people from China and that was five years ago and today it is getting worst. These people slip
past immigration officials by using fake passports and visas. This US Canadian border is also very lightly
patrolled. There is a stretch of land called “Smugglers Alley”. This stretch of land is used by people to
illegally enter the country. This is really very harmful and dangerous because porous borders make it
piece of a cake for terrorist to enter the country and spread disaster and chaos. Thus there are so many
reasons to prove that illegal immigration brings trouble to US. Though illegal immigrants pay more
money in taxes than they consume using educational and other social services, the illegal immigration
should be stopped and the government should take new measures and increase more legal immigration