Illegal Immigrants: Do they hurt or help the economy

 

Take a look around, what do you see? Most likely you’ll see a Latin American restaurant on almost every corner. Why? Well, over the past half century, there has been an increasing amount of immigrants both legal and illegal coming from Latin America to the United States. Their origin may vary but, there purpose is the same. Almost all immigrants come to the United States to work towards a better life.

 

 

There has been an ongoing debate whether or not illegal immigration helps the economy. My opinion on this topic is pro illegal immigrants because they have a positive effect on the economy. Though, don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s wrong that they come illegally to our country. But, look at the outcome because they do. Once these immigrants get into the country their first thought is to look for a job and begin working to better their life. Think how many Americans are on our welfare or not currently employed though they could be. Of course these illegal immigrants are not capable of taking jobs we see as being average, such as: an office position, a teacher, a doctor, or a lawyer. Instead they find one’s at the bottom of the pyramid that no one else wants. Which usually involve manual labor, long hours, and crappy pay. You learn fast when you come to this country you have to take what you can get. Most of the time, illegal immigrants work in the industries field, agriculture, landscaping, and even textile production. Illegal immigrants account for 5 percent of the total labor force. If you think about it, if we shipped out all the illegal immigrants not only would it affect the workforce by leaving giant holes for an employers to fill. All of the money they spend in the housing, food industry and everything in general, the economy would take a turn for the worst. Without all that cash being pumped back in the country’s economy which, is 5 percent of our work force we would experience higher fluxes in the food prices, gas prices, and the cost of living would drastically go up. Yes, it is illegal. I understand that but if you take a caterpillar a little, ugly, annoying bug and you give it time, eventually, it will grow and blossom into a beautiful butterfly. I believe there should be laws and regulations to entering this country but, if we didn’t have people illegally crossing the border the negatives of fixing this problem and taking away hard working people who do jobs no one wants to with a smile on their face, it would far out weight the positives.

 

(http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/debate/index.asp?article=d090108)
(http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/01/news/economy/immigration_economy/)