Dayana Enriquez
Professor Hornburg
ENC1102
29 March, 2014
“Illegal immigration is hurting North America’s economy”
Illegal Immigration is one of the major issues affecting the economy of the United States
of America. The government needs to take action about this and have more control on the
illegal immigrants that are affecting our economy. There is an estimated of 12 million
illegal immigrants in the US. Most of them just come to look for a better life, but they
don’t know the consequences that it causes to the United States economy. For some people
illegal immigrants don’t affect the economy of the USA. On the other hand there are other
people that state that Illegal immigration is hurting North America’s economy by receiving
welfare money from government programs, taking jobs from American citizens, and not
paying taxes.
Although an Illegal person in this country cannot receive benefits from welfare, foods
stamp program and medical care, any USA-born children of illegal immigrants are eligible
for cash assistance (welfare), food stamps and other medical programs, such as Medicaid
or Medicare, therefore they become government dependents. Since these immigrants have
an illegal status, their employment is not reported and they receive these benefits based on
no income. It means that the government is supporting them with the wrong income
calculation and guidelines just because they will not report the real wage and hours that
they really work. Since they do not report taxes and get pay in cash, there is no way for the
government to track how much are their real earnings. It absolutely affects the States
funding and also the people who work legally, by increasing their taxes and reducing jobs
for government, county or federal employees due to lack of funding. “Consider California
that has an estimated 2.8 million illegal immigrants, more than any other State. California
has one-third of the nation’s welfare population, among its highest unemployment and tax
rates, and chronic budget deficits” “In the Golden State, the cost for educating the
schoolchildren of those in the country illegally, for example, has been estimated at $1.9
billion, tens of millions of dollars for higher education and $670 million in welfare cash
assistance. An estimated 778,000 illegal immigrants are on Medi-Cal, California’s version
of Medicaid, at a cost to the state of $580 million” After looking at these numbers we can
calculate how many billions of dollars the government spends in assistance for illegal
immigrant people that some times are not looking for a legal status in the USA. They just
