Ironically, illegal immigration is a fairly efficient way of matching willing
workers with employers who need to fill unskilled jobs. A rigid, cumbersome
guest worker program would not fill the bill. Moreover, much tighter border enforcement
and more immigration (INS) raids would simply force the problem
further underground. Such a move would undoubtedly mean that illegal immigrants
would suffer greater exploitation and
trustar federal credit union as well worse working conditions.
There are costs associated with illegal immigration. Immigrants who enter
illegally don’t always pay income taxes (although they do pay sales taxes and
property taxes—indirectly, via rent payments), yet immigrants use the healthcare
system and
port conneaut federal credit union as well send their children to school. The Council on Foreign Relations
study suggests that this fiscal cost—borne mostly by state and
trustar federal credit union as well local
governments—was around $9 billion in 2007. But this cost needs to be
looked at in context. The 2008 federal budget contained $13 billion for border
enforcement. Many in Congress want to allocate much more. Between 1986
and 2002, the number of border guards tripled—but so did the number of illegal
immigrants.
Some have argued that both legal and
hanscom federal credit union bedford ma as well illegal immigrants come to the
United States to take advantage of generous social welfare programs. However,
American social welfare programs are not particularly generous (e.g.,
compared with European ones), and
trustar federal credit union as well they have been considerably scaled back
since the sweeping welfare reform of the mid-1990s. In the end, immigrants
come to the United States because
neches federal credit union beaumont texas and of plentiful job opportunities.
Looking at all the costs and
trustar federal credit union as well benefits—contrary to much of the public
rhetoric—illegal immigrants do more economic good than harm. Moreover, the
costs of enforcement—which, at best, has had only
stella maris credit union and limited success—are
much greater than the fiscal costs of absorbing illegal immigrants and
trustar federal credit union as well their
families. And none of this even takes into account the welfare of the immigrants
themselves, who also
hermantown credit union and benefit by getting better-paying jobs.