Illegal Aliens: Friend or Enemy?

Illegal Aliens: Friend or Enemy?

The illegal alien debate has raged on for several decades; however in recent years citizens have become more aware of the crisis. Illegal immigration is one of the most controversial political issues of today’s society. Illegal aliens and their immigration to the U.S. is a problem that needs to be addressed. It is unfair to Americans and to the country from where they immigrated from. Whether they (illegal aliens) take jobs or put a strain on Americans social service programs, the constant invasion of illegal aliens has promoted disrespect for the law and also limits our ability to control immigration.

With the many different ethnic groups coming to this country in search of a better life, we should cut back on who we should allow to have citizenship. There are thousands of immigrants coming to the United States every day. A lot of these immigrants are illegal aliens in pursuit of the elusive American dream. We can all understand a person wanting a better life for their family than the one they had, every generation wants that. The two biggest reasons that they are attracted to coming to the United States illegally are family connections and jobs. However, the cost associated with maintaining millions of these, “undocumented workers” the term used ever so loosely by the Republican Party, but at what cost to the country and taxpayer?

Illegal aliens did serve a vital role in our economy at one point in time, cheap labor. However, they have out lived their importance in this money driven economy. Their cheap labor comes with a price, and that price has become too great for Americans to except anymore. The cost associated with these illegal aliens are far to great, they are a drain on Social Security, Medicare, School systems, food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunch programs. And they are undermining the core values this country was established on. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than twenty six point three billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only sixteen billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost ten point four billion according to the Census Bureau. That’s about two thousand seven hundred dollars per illegal alien household the tax payer is having to fork over. The Census Bureau has also developed estimates of its own. Their estimate at the time of the 2000 Census suggests that the illegal immigration population was more than eight million. Using this number, it can be concluded that the illegal-alien population has grown by almost half a million a year in the 1990s. This conclusion is derived from a draft report that has been given to the House immigration subcommittee by the Internal Revenue Service that estimated the illegal population was three and a half million in 1990. For the illegal population to have reached eight million by 2000, the net increase had to be four hundred thousand to five hundred thousand more per year during the 1990s.

There is also another dilemma that few people have thought about. Illegal’s lack of education being another major problem facing illegal aliens and their struggle to be able to attain a comfortable life. With some estimates that nearly two-thirds of illegal aliens are lacking at least a high school diploma, it is hard to imagine the American Dream. An education nowadays in our society is the basic building block to success, and without a basic education you are setting yourself up for failure. There is usually a correlation between ones education and their income, and even a high school diploma in this day in age is not sufficient enough to sustain a comfortable way of life.

What ever the solution to this problem may be the plain truth there is no easy answer to fixing this huge and complex problem. We could legalize all the illegal aliens but what kind of message would that send to everyone who took the long and tedious road to citizenship? Why would we reword up to eleven million people citizenship when there first act in our country was breaking the law. On the other hand how do we get rid of the eleven million people without violating the rights of legal aliens? There are more unanswered questions to this problem than solutions. However their can not be a legalization of all aliens without a negative effect on the economy, the burden who just be too great.

The standard response to illegal immigration has been increased border enforcement. To deal with the problem of illegal aliens entering the United States, some say a mass amnesty together with increased legal immigration, while