Liz
Foreigners
The United States has been facing an ongoing debate for several years, about illegal immigration and how they cause a financial burden to America. According to New York Times, there are about 11.7 million illegal immigrants in the United States and every day it continues to increase. These immigrants are migrating to America to have the opportunities they do not have in their homeland. The majority of them want to give their children a better future and a fresh start. These foreigners come to the United States in pursuit of the American Dream, but without legal statues their opportunities are limited.
Many of these foreigners are really not so foreign. Most were brought to the United States as infants or toddlers and have lived here well over half of their lives, being mostly culturally Americans. For most of them English is their native language. They have gone or are currently going to school here. Many have that fear in the back of their minds that maybe tomorrow their whole world, everything that they know could change because they are not here legally, everything about them says American except their birth certificates.
There are many arguments about these illegal immigrant students and how they come here illegally. In June 2012, the Obama administration started accepting applications for the Dream Act (DACA) Deferred Action for Children. The Dream Act is not an Amnesty, it has specific criteria that have to be meet in order to be qualified for it and only ages between 15 and 30 are eligible to apply. The act was a major step, allowing young people who were brought to the U.S illegally to apply for temporarily residency and if they continue to meet the requirements throughout the years, they would be eligible for permanent residency. It gives qualified candidates to have a social security, allowing them to get a drivers license and work legally. The Dream Act offers many positive outcomes. The qualified student can go to college and get student loans allowing them to continue with their education, but the negative part is that they cannot qualify for any Pell Grants and the application fees for the Dream Act are very expensive and not many low-income families can afford them.
The Dream Act would help over 2.1 million qualified young people to gain access to have legal statues helping the U.S. economy by adding a $329 billion dollar increase over the next 20 years. Having legal statues will allow them to purse a higher education and allowing them to have a higher income. Overall, helping to boost the economy. Now the argument has come up about higher competition in the work field. Republicans say that legalizing illegal immigrants is only going to create new workers, who are going to take American jobs. Immigrants, legal or illegal, not only fill jobs, but create them. U.S. employers need a legalized workforce. According to ThinkProgress, “Nearly 50% of agricultural workers, 17% of construction workers, and 12% of food preparation workers lack legal immigration statuses.” These type of employers benefit from having laborers and legalizing these immigrants would make sure that they have them. Historically, there is no correlation between higher immigration and higher unemployment. In 2008, Rob Paral & Associates found that there was little apparent relationship between recent immigration and unemployment rates at the regional, state, or county level (Immigration Policy). Many politicians argue about our economy and how illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes, causing a burden to U.S taxpayers. Although, that is a concern to many taxpayers, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that many illegal immigrants actually contribute more taxes than the cost of the providing service at the federal state (Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare). Legal or illegal immigrants pay sale taxes and pay property taxes. So, wouldn’t it make sense to expect a positive outcome in the
