Illegal Immigration Legalization Essay

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This Monday, millions of Americans celebrated the Labor Day, a day which honors the American labor movement and recognize the contributions those workers have made to the U.S economy and society. For decades, immigrants and their families have played a crucial role of the labor force and economy in the United States. However, the broken immigration system somehow strangles the contributions of those immigrants, and then hide the significant benefits from American workers. Illegal immigration in the United States of started at 1920s. Thereafter to the 1980s, the phenomenon of illegal immigration increased dramatically. Although after an intense internal debate between the government and various interest groups enacted appropriate legislations, but illegal immigration still remains a difficult situation. According to Passel and Cohn studies (2013) “There were an estimated 11.7 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States as of 2012”. Pew (2013) found that “Unauthorized immigrants account for about 3.7 percent of the total U.S. population and about 5.2 percent of the labor force. Note that unauthorized immigrants are a larger share of the labor force than of the total population because the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants are working-age adults”. Some economists and many business leaders indicate that the US economy depends on illegal labor; those illegal workers accept low-wage jobs, pay taxes, spend their money, all of which expand the development of the national economy. Other economists stress that the influx of illegal labor costs government health insurance, law enforcement, education spending increase, in all those illegal workers did not play enough taxes for what they have cost. But the fact is that illegal workers are “a net positive for public budgets because they contribute more to the system than they take out” (Rau 2013). The reason is that illegal workers cannot receive benefits from government programs such as public education, medical care and welfares, but most of them still pay taxes, the majorities of them property taxes through properties that they rent or own, pay sales taxes in states with sales taxes. Additionally, most illegal immigrant workers also pay income taxes and payroll. Do illegal immigrants take jobs away from American workers? This is a most frequent asked question, the evidence shows in the long run, on average, immigration do not reduce the native employment rates. On the contrary, they actually have positive impact on the labor market outcomes of native-born workers. However, there is some debate that within the overall positive impact, certain group of American worker are harmed, particularly those with low educations. But it is not like a one-to-one exchange, one illegal immigrant gets a job does not necessarily mean a U.S citizen lose his/her job, because generally immigrants and native-born workers tend to have different skill sets and therefore they will seek different types of jobs. So those illegal workers are not increasing the labor market competition for native-born workers, therefore, they do not negatively affect …show more content…
S. 744’s legalization provisions would greatly improve economic potential and lives of the currently undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Allowing these immigrants to reach their greatest economic potential and eventually will have positive economic effects on all American workers. Research from the Center for American Progress Kugler, .Oakford (2013) shows that “undocumented immigrants’ earnings will increase by 15 percent over 5 years when they receive legal status and by an additional 10 percent over five years when they acquire citizenship” Because with legal status and citizenship, enables those immigrants to fully participate in the labor force, find jobs that best match their skills, earn significantly more than they do when they are working without legal rights and receive full protection under employment laws, they no longer in constant fear of deportation. Their wage gains and resulting productivity ripple through the economy, because those immigrants are not only workers but also consumers and taxpayers. In particular, they will spend their increased wages purchase items like food, housing, clothing, cars, and electronics. In turn, that spending will stimulate demand for more services and goods which will create the need for more workers. In other words, it will generate more jobs for American

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