Added Info for Pros and Cons About the Situation
Immigration will always cause some issues in the host country. One of the major problems, at least in today's America, it the continued scarcity of some types of jobs. People who are fine with the influx of immigrants, whether legal or illegal, when economic times are good will bemoan the problem when jobs are scarce. The reason that the people from Mexico come the United States, for the most part, is that they have more economic opportunity in the United States than they did in Mexico. The issue now is that there are not as many jobs as there have been in the past, so the jobs that citizens did not want before are now in demand by the general populace of legal residents. Although this is not necessarily true (the amount of people willing to work in fields and other more menial jobs taken up by legal and illegal Mexican immigrants is about the same as it was prior to the economic downturn (Genesco Migrant Center, 2011). The statistics show the 81% of these migrant farm workers are foreign born and 77% of those come from Mexico. That figure has not changed in the past two decades by any appreciable amount. That means that the argument that these individuals are taking jobs is relatively false. Of course, these individuals do other jobs besides that of a migrant farm worker, but even these are usually unskilled labor that is left to fringe workers. It is not true that they take the jobs of American citizens.
Of course there are some issues that have to be addressed such as the fact that illegal immigrants are a burden to the state and federal economies. One of the main reasons that there are controls regarding the number of people who enter the country every year is because the government looks at what jobs are available, whether the healthcare systems can handle the influx of people, and whether there will be an undue burden on the tax payers already in the United States (AILA, 1999). The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a division of the Department of Homeland Security is tasked with making sure that all of the laws regarding the number of immigrants allowed to be in the United States legally is enforced. The number of people allowed in caps at approximately 620,000 people per year because of the restrictions already mentioned (AILA, 1999), but there are millions more that come in each year by illegal means. Because of the financial burden these individuals are prosecuted if found, but there is not enough active enforcement to catch them all, and there are also not enough enforcement officers.
It is difficult to think of any pro arguments for illegal immigration, even the fact that many are farm migrant workers. If illegal workers did not have those jobs, they would be filled in some other way. But once the individual is on the United States, if they have brought children, many believe that it is cruel to penalize the child for the sins of the parents. Many children are brought to America illegally, they being illegal themselves because they were not born in the U.S., and they are educated and cared for by the U.S. system. If the U.S. is willing to take care if these individuals until they are 18, it does seem cruel to deport the child once he or she reaches and arbitrary age. The U.S. system has flaws, and this one should be addressed. To an extent it already has been by a presidential order, but this may not meet the rigor if the courts.
Cost
Of course the greatest con to the entire equation is a financial one. More and more immigrants are using the facilities that should have been reserved for legal residents, and this is costing the taxpayers in California billions of dollars each year. This cost comes in the form of medical treatment that cannot be denied to any person by law (Blair, 2011). Education in the state of California is free to all citizens whether legal or illegal also and cannot be denied to those who wish to complete high school. There are many financial issues that will be discussed in further sections of this report.
Inmates -- State and Federal, housing them
Many people who illegally immigrate to the United States either have a checkered past, or they commit crimes once they get into the United States. To put a personal face on some of the crimes, it is more likely that an illegal immigrant will commit...
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