The Cost of Immigration

Until the twentieth century, the United States economy needed unskilled laborers for agriculture and other labor intensive jobs such as working on in construction, and assembly lines. The more the country became industrialized, the more the more factories needed workers. Data suggests that today there is approximately twelve million illegal immigrants living in the United States and that about 60% of them are from Mexico. Often, illegal immigrants who work do not pay taxes. Most of them use false identification and stolen social securities to obtain jobs, while others are simply hired and paid off the payroll. Undocumented workers and their employers do not pay payroll taxes, as illegal workers are hidden from taxing authorities. Furthermore, some employers know that they are hiring undocumented people, so they pay wages that are much lower than they would pay a citizen for the same job.  

It’s estimated that there are about 5 million children of illegal immigrants that attend school in the United States. The Federation for American immigration reform reported that the cost of educating these children is as high as 26 billion each year, and the parents of these children don’t pay the taxes for the education of these children. There is also concern about illegal immigrants and law enforcement. According to the Department of Homeland Security in 2009 more than 220,000 illegal immigrants were imprisoned for committed crimes such as burglary and assault.

 Public aid and health care have also being taken advantage by illegal immigrants. Once a child is born in the United States to illegal immigrants, the child is eligible for welfare since people born in the United States are American citizens. Illegal resident who have a citizen child can apply for welfare, thus adding more strain to the total bill that tax payers pick up for illegal immigration. In Los Angeles, County officials believe that by the end of 2013 illegal immigrant parents will have received more than $680 million in welfare benefits for their American citizen born children. According to the Center for Immigration Studies in 2010, 38 percent of immigrant headed households used at least one major welfare program, compared to 23 percent of native households. The problem is also serious for hospitals around the country. By law anyone coming to the emergency room cannot be denied treatment. The majority of illegal workers are not covered by insurance companies, so the hospital’s emergency room is one of their only sources to seek treatment. When the federal government proposed to spend billions to reimburse some of these hospitals, most of legal residents thought it was very unfair that they would have to be the ones playing the medical bills of undocumented immigrants. Illegal immigrants sending money back to Mexico each year also removes billions of dollars from circulation within the American economy. According to economists, illegal immigration is costing the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars in lost taxes, money that if collected would wipe out most of the budget deficit.