The problem with Americans today is that they want to live like, well, Americans. To do that costs money. Money that you can't make doing the jobs Americans won't do. Let's see how much it costs to live in my area.
Housing. A room with kitchen privileges and a shared bath. $800. That's the cheapest you can get. A car, insurance, and the gas to drive it around, $500 a month. We're talking 10 year old Ford escort. Food $200 a month. That's peanut butter, processed cheese food, beans and rice in bulk. No Micky Ds. Let's just stop right there.
To support this princely lifestyle you've got to have a full time job that nets you $9 an hour. With the standard payroll deduction package, your job needs to gross you $12 an hour. If you want the clothes, cell phone, the computer with the DSL connection, Friday night out on the town, whatever, then you're looking at another 20-40 hours a week of work, and most people do just that. The bottom line though is $12 dollars an hour. The problem is, of course, that 30-40% of the jobs in the economy pay less than $12 an hour. This is why we have illegal aliens.
The big fence won't stop them. Legislation won't make them go away. Anger will not make them afraid.
3 comments:
The solution is to prosecute the businesses and people who use illegal aliens. After all, there are laws against that.
Immigration Reform; Securing the Borders
Your statement on U.S. companies causing illegal immigration through low compensation is unjustified. As a matter of fact, I would state just the opposite, illegal immigration has created lower pay scales. Would raising pay scales in the United States stop immigration? People migrate to the United States expecting a better life and higher earnings than their native country can provide. Raising pay scales would only allow immigrants to earn more money. Consider this: if illegal immigration through border crossing was abolished and legal immigration controlled, how would this affect national expenditure, unemployment, earnings, consumer spending, health care, paid taxes, social security, drugs, crime, or terrorism? Immigration reform is necessary for our society, both economic and social, to prosper and create more opportunities for citizens of the United States. The primary step in restoring our economy is securing our borders.
The United States currently houses 10.5 million illegal immigrants, of which 6 million are Mexican, and an additional 1 million per year are crossing our southern border (Hoefer 1). As well, it has been estimated that 750 thousand illegal children are born each year to immigrants (Burkhardt 1). This equates to influxes of more than 1.5 million people annually through our southern border alone. The National Research Council on Immigration has projected, conservatively, that we spend approximately $22 billion dollars annually on illegal immigration related expenses. The cost to fence our southern border, the highest transit area, is estimated between $2 and $7 million dollars (Gamboa 1). At a cost of one to three thousandths of a percent to our annual expense, does it now make sense to secure this border? This would allow the Border Patrol Agents to focus their efforts on apprehending existing illegal aliens instead of monitoring our borders. Border security is necessary on these facts alone.
You also stated, “The problem is, of course, that 30-40% of the jobs in the economy pay less than $12 an hour. This is why we have illegal aliens.” Allow me to present an argument in the simplest form, supply and demand. We have too many people with to few jobs available. Illegal immigration has eroded Americans’ employment and earnings opportunity by 2.3 million jobs between 2000 and 2004 (Camarota 1). Half is comprised of illegal immigration while corporate and family visas’ are responsible for the remainder. Securing our borders will assist in alleviating the overpopulation of employment-aged individuals. We would then be able to support an additional quarter million jobs annually for American citizens. In doing so, the monies earned will generate additional consumer spending.
How many illegally earned U.S. dollars are spent outside of our economy? That is an extremely difficult question to answer without a few assumptions. We have approximately 5.5 million illegal aliens employed in the United States (Camarota 9). Historically, these people are unskilled laborers fulfilling jobs lower on the pay scale. In using your figure of $12 dollars per hour, that’s $150 billion dollars a year. What impact would this have on our economy if taxes and social security were paid on these dollars? How would our local, state and national corporations benefit from the additional consumer spending? This is speculative, but my guess is every U.S. Citizen would benefit from this conversion.
Bringing these dollars back into our economy is the ultimate goal. If consumer spending is down, companies are forced with the daunting task of maintaining profit margin. This is done through consolidation, layoffs, pay-cuts, and sales growth through price increases. Consumers lose in this scenario as cost of living rises when their compensation remains idle or worse yet is lowered. If more Americans are using more U.S. dollars to purchase U.S. goods, our economy will thrive. When the economy thrives and companies prosper, typically employees will have a share in this wealth.
Open borders also solicit terrorism, drugs, crime, and disease all of which are detrimental to a healthy society. Border cities indicate higher crime levels than similar, non-bordering cities. Illegal immigrants have burglarized, kidnapped, killed, stolen, and committed crimes of sex against citizens within border communities as well as across the country. “While most illegal immigrants only seek safe passage, he said, tribal members have also seen their homes broken into and occasionally have become victims of assaults and kidnappings,” Sgt. Tobias Nez (Dolan 3). What if we were able to prevent 911 and similar terrorist acts through more secure borders? Consider the number of peoples’ lives’ affected by this tragedy. Terrorists have utilized the Mexican border as entry to the United States and will continue to do so unless we close the open door.
Have you considered looking at this from a humanitarian viewpoint? How many deaths occur each year from border crossing attempts? In 2005 alone, 472 immigrants died attempting to cross the Mexican Border (GAO 4). That represents bodies which were found, actual deaths are projected to be much higher. This figure has more than doubled in the last decade without relative increases in total migration. This confirms that illegal border crossing has become more popular while presenting greater risks for those attempting to reach the United States illegally. More people are attempting to cross in isolated areas that do not provide food, water, and shelter for the extreme environment as border patrol has tightened security at the transit locations. One such location, the Tohono O'odham lands, is now one of the deadliest crossing areas surveyed. Joseph Delgado, assistant police chief stated, "We found some of them hanging who committed suicide," and, "One time, we found they were close to death and they had buried themselves in the dirt because of the heat." (Dolan 3). Fencing these areas will have a positive affect on the death rate within these regions.
Border crossing, one form of illegal immigration, is the greatest threat to our economy, society, and national security as it generates the highest influx of people each year. Currently, our borders offer the easiest means of reaching U.S. soil without documentation or acceptance. Granted the cost of securing these lines will not be minimal, but how does one put a price tag on social welfare, homeland security, human life, and freedom. That is why we are considered one of the greatest countries in the world. We must allocate all necessary resources, both human and financial, to close this supply line of illegal immigrants before considering any additional Immigration Reform.
Brian Hamernick
Dr. Lewis
English 1022
December 4, 2006
Immigration Reform: Securing the Borders
Your statement on U.S. companies causing illegal immigration through low compensation is unjustified. As a matter of fact, I would state just the opposite: illegal immigration has created lower pay scales. Would raising pay scales in the United States stop immigration? People migrate to the United States expecting a better life and higher earnings than their native country can provide. Raising pay scales would only allow immigrants to earn more money. Consider this: if illegal immigration through border crossing was abolished and legal immigration controlled, how would this affect national expenditure, unemployment, earnings, consumer spending, health care, paid taxes, social security, drugs, crime, or terrorism? Immigration reform is necessary for our society, both economic and social, to prosper and create more opportunities for citizens of the United States. The primary step in restoring our economy is securing our borders.
The United States currently houses 10.5 million illegal immigrants, of which 6 million are Mexican, and an additional 1 million per year are crossing our southern border (Hoefer 1). Additionally, it has been estimated that 750 thousand illegal children are born each year to immigrants (Burkhardt 1). This equates to influxes of more than 1.5 million people annually through our southern border alone. The National Research Council on Immigration has projected, conservatively, that we spend approximately $22 billion dollars annually on illegal immigration related expenses. The cost to fence our southern border, the highest transit area, is estimated between $2 and $7 million dollars (Gamboa 1). At a cost of one to three thousandths of a percent to our annual expense, does it now make sense to secure this border? This would allow the Border Patrol Agents to focus their efforts on apprehending existing illegal aliens instead of monitoring our borders. Border security is necessary on these facts alone.
You also stated, “The problem is, of course, that 30-40% of the jobs in the economy pay less than $12 an hour. This is why we have illegal aliens.” Allow me to present an argument in the simplest form, supply and demand. We have too many people with to few jobs available. Illegal immigration has eroded Americans’ employment and earnings opportunity by 2.3 million jobs between 2000 and 2004 (Camarota 1). Half is comprised of illegal immigration while corporate and family visas are responsible for the remainder. Securing our borders will assist in alleviating the overpopulation of employment-aged individuals. We would then be able to support an additional quarter million jobs annually for American citizens. In doing so, the monies earned will generate additional consumer spending.
How many illegally earned U.S. dollars are spent outside of our economy? That is an extremely difficult question to answer without a few assumptions. We have approximately 5.5 million illegal aliens employed in the United States (Camarota 9). Historically, these people are unskilled laborers fulfilling jobs lower on the pay scale. In using your figure of $12 dollars per hour, that’s $150 billion dollars a year. What impact would this have on our economy if taxes and social security were paid on these dollars? How would our local, state and national corporations benefit from the additional consumer spending? This is speculative, but my guess is every U.S. Citizen would benefit from this conversion.
Bringing these dollars back into our economy is the ultimate goal. If consumer spending is down, companies are forced with the daunting task of maintaining profit margin. This is done through consolidation, layoffs, pay-cuts, and sales growth through price increases. Consumers lose in this scenario as cost of living rises when their compensation remains idle or worse yet is lowered. If more Americans are using more U.S. dollars to purchase U.S. goods, our economy will thrive. When the economy thrives and companies prosper, typically employees will have a share in this wealth.
Open borders also solicit terrorism, drugs, crime, and disease all of which are detrimental to a healthy society. Border cities indicate higher crime levels than similar, non-bordering cities. Illegal immigrants have burglarized, kidnapped, killed, stolen, and committed crimes of sex against citizens within border communities as well as across the country. “While most illegal immigrants only seek safe passage, he said, tribal members have also seen their homes broken into and occasionally have become victims of assaults and kidnappings,” Sgt. Tobias Nez (Dolan 3). What if we were able to prevent 911 and similar terrorist acts through more secure borders? Consider the number of peoples’ lives’ affected by this tragedy. Terrorists have utilized the Mexican border as entry to the United States and will continue to do so unless we close the open door.
Have you considered looking at this from a humanitarian viewpoint? How many deaths occur each year from border crossing attempts? In 2005 alone, 472 immigrants died attempting to cross the Mexican Border (GAO 4). That represents bodies which were found, actual deaths are projected to be much higher. This figure has more than doubled in the last decade without relative increases in total migration. This confirms that illegal border crossing has become more popular while presenting greater risks for those attempting to reach the United States illegally. More people are attempting to cross in isolated areas that do not provide food, water, and shelter for the extreme environment as border patrol has tightened security at the transit locations. One such location, the Tohono O'odham lands, is now one of the deadliest crossing areas surveyed. Joseph Delgado, assistant police chief stated, "We found some of them hanging who committed suicide," and, "One time, we found they were close to death and they had buried themselves in the dirt because of the heat." (Dolan 3). Fencing these areas will have a positive affect on the death rate within these regions.
Border crossing, one form of illegal immigration, is the greatest threat to our economy, society, and national security as it generates the highest influx of people each year. Currently, our borders offer the easiest means of reaching U.S. soil without documentation or acceptance. Granted the cost of securing these lines will not be minimal, but how does one put a price tag on social welfare, homeland security, human life, and freedom. That is why we are considered one of the greatest countries in the world. We must allocate all necessary resources, both human and financial, to close this supply line of illegal immigrants before considering any additional Immigration Reform.
Works Cited
Burkhardt, Alan. “Bordering on Insanity.” The New Media Journal. September 7, 2006. 19 September 2006.
Camarota, Steven. “A Jobless Recovery; Immigrant Gains and Native Losses.” Backgrounder. October 2004. 19 September 2006.
Dolan, Matthew. “Guarding the country from the border line.” Sunreporter.
September, 17 2006. 19 September 2006.
Gamboa, Suzanne. “House Approves U.S.-Mexican Border Fence.” Deseret News. September 15, 2006. 19 September 2006.
United States. Department of Homeland Security. Office of Immigration Statistics. Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrants Population Residing in the United States: January 2005. By Hoefer, Michael, Christopher Campbell, and Nancy Rytina. August, 2006. 19 September 2006.
---. U.S. Senate. Government Accountability Office. Border-Crossing Deaths Have Doubled Since 1995; Border Patrol’s Efforts to Prevent Deaths Have Not Been Fully Evaluated. August 2006. 19 September 2006.
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