Illegal Immigration

The word illegal has a very broad meaning. Most of the times it is easy to say what is legal and what is

illegal but sometimes it is very difficult for people to decide. It is people who make laws and it is them

who break them. Sometimes both are justifiable and most of the time they are not because rules and

regulations are imposed on people to make a society disciplined as a whole or else we will be living a

jungle life in a civilized society. Since the dawn of history empires rose and fell. Cities, countries which

were very rich at some point of time in history have become very poor and are called third world today.

In the twenty first century United States Of America is the richest and most prosperous country in the

world and this is the reason so many people from different parts of the world are drawn towards it. The

poor and illiterate people whose life in their countries are miserable try to enter illegally into the United

States to find a better life. They are justified in some sense but when it comes to the harm these illegal

immigrants do to the citizens of the United States , it becomes the responsibility of the law enforcing

agencies to take strict action against those people who defy the law.

It all started in 1820's and 1830's when the rate of immigration to United States increased

dramatically. Ireland and Germany replaced England as being the main source of immigrants. This was

the first time when many Americans became concerned about the negative effects of the increase in

immigration. Garret Davis in 1849 in his speech said that immigration endangers America. That was

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more than 150 years ago and today people are not concerned about legal immigration but it is the illegal

immigration which has become the focal point of all the issues.

Illegal immigration harms the US in many ways. It places a severe strain on the US economy,

health care and welfare systems. The abundance of illegal workers simply gives the employers the

opportunity to reduce the wages and downgrading working conditions. Some people say that there is

no job competition between Americans and illegal workers. Well this point is absolutely false. It is also

seen all over the country that Americans move out of areas where illegal immigrants settle. According to

the Cornell Labor specialist Vernon Briggs, twenty years ago in Los Angeles many American blacks were

employed in building maintenance jobs, then the illegal aliens moved in and many blacks moved out

and wages dropped 40 percent. Another example proves the same point, Rice University analyst Donald

Huddle found that one third of the construction workers in Houston were illegal holding down good

paying jobs that otherwise would have gone to American workers.

Illegal immigration has many other harmful effects on US citizens. According to Immigration and

Naturalization Services (INS) , between two and three thousand illegal aliens daily cross the border in

San Diego county, California. The United States has the most liberal immigration policy in the world

and when illegal immigrants are added, the government has to spend billions of dollars every year in

border patrol and other INS activities. There are certain other problems such as most of the people who

are illegal, come to United States and continue staying when their visa expires. These visa abuses are

rarely caught. Smuggling of illegal immigrants is also becoming a serious problem, especially smuggling

of Chinese illegal immigrants. The smuggling of people is fast becoming the most profitable part of the

black-market business. People pay the smugglers large amount of money to enter the country by any

means. Smugglers bring illegal aliens, liquor, drugs and anything they can make money off. In 2003

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Canadian and US authorities caught a racket of smugglers who smuggled illegal aliens from China's

Fujian Province, through Canada and then to US. These smugglers charged $38,000 per person to

smuggle people from China and that was five years ago and today it is getting worst. These people slip

past immigration officials by using fake passports and visas. This US Canadian border is also very lightly

patrolled. There is a stretch of land called "Smuggler's Alley". This stretch of land is used by people to

illegally enter the country. This is really very harmful and dangerous because porous borders make it

piece of a cake for terrorist to enter the country and spread disaster and chaos. Thus there are so many

reasons to prove that illegal immigration brings trouble to US. Though illegal immigrants pay more

money in taxes than they consume using educational and other social services, the illegal immigration

should be stopped and the government should take new measures and increase more legal immigration

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