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Effects of Immigration on the Economy Essay

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| Illegal Immigrants Are They A Stress On Our Economy. | | | Joanna Przyborski | 10/27/2012 |

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Illegal immigration is an issue that has been highly debated in the United States for decades, and the effects of these immigrants will be for many to come, especially with the country in a recession and many people in economic trouble. December 1, 2008 the National Bureau of Economic Research officially declared the U.S. in a recession. Before 2007, U.S. economy has grown in 23 of the last 25 years. During this period, the U.S. attracted record numbers of new immigrants. The U.S. foreign-born population had quadrupled from 9.6 million in 1970 to 38.1 million in 2007. In the past decade, more than one million …show more content…

Many are not only building the houses but also buying them, so if the immigrants were taken away not only would it create a problem in production of goods and the work force, it would also put the housing market at a higher risk. Simmons identified many problems that immigrants present to our economy, instead of contributing tax dollars to education, health care, and prison systems residents of California have to pay nearly $1,000.00 per household to aid in the regulation of the population of illegal immigrants (Simmons 2006). Illegal immigration has both negative and positive impacts on different parts of the economy. Wages for low-skilled workers go down, therefore that means the benefits by Americans of paying lower prices for things like meals at restaurants, produce, and construction. Another negative impact is on expenditures by the government. This is because illegal immigrants do not pay taxes but their children go to public schools and they use other services. So many people perceive them as a strain on government spending. If you averaged all the negative and positive effects over the whole economy, the effect is a small positive, according to George Borjas a Harvard professor, the average American’s wealth will increase by less than 1% because of illegal immigration. In February 2011, article the “Federation for American Immigration Reform”

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