Persuasive Essay On Immigration Reform

The United States is known as the land of great opportunities. People from all around the world traveled to America in hopes of finding a better life for them and their family. Harvard’s Oscar Handlin wrote, “Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history,” (Daniels). Over the years, the population of these immigrants has grown immensely and some of these immigrants become illegal, leading to immigration reform. Immigration reform is a commonly used term for improving the laws regarding illegal immigration. It is one of the most controversial issues in the United States today. As of 2011, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has estimated that the number of undocumented

A report in 2013 from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) shows that the annual cost for United States taxpayers to provide the illegal immigrants with social services along with schooling is estimated to be about $113 billion. Along with being a burden to the country, some people believe that the illegal immigrants contribute highly to the crime rate. The Federal Bureau of Prisons had reported that 26.4 percent of inmates in federal prisons are non-U.S. citizens (Vaughan and Camarota). “Most studies comparing crime rates and immigration levels across cities show no clear correlation between the immigrant share of a city’s population and its level of crime. This is one of the strongest arguments that immigrants do not have high crime rates. However, such studies generally measure only overall crime, not crimes specifically committed by immigrants, so their value is limited,” (Vaughan and Camarota). This proves that crime should not be a factor of why illegal immigrants should be denied citizenship because of how low the crime rates are carried out by illegal immigrants. Many also believe that the illegal immigrants are taking over citizens’ jobs for less pay while in reality, many of these jobs are going unwanted by the

Recent studies have shown that the higher earnings of legalized workers will yield more tax revenue, more consumers buying power, and more jobs. A study by Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, founding director of the North AMerican Integration and Development Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, estimated that in the first three years following legalization, the higher earning power of newly legalized workers would generate a $4.5 to $5.4 billion in additional net tax revenue, which would generate consumer spending sufficient to support 750,000 to 900,000 jobs (American Immigration Council). “Moreover, ‘if unauthorized Latino workers were granted legal status, the state government would benefit from a gross increase of $310 million in income taxes and the federal government would gain $1.4 billion in paid income taxes each year,’” (American Immigration Council). Another study by Manuel Pastor and his colleagues at the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration at the University of Southern California discovered that the unauthorized Latino population in California lost out on $2.2 billion in wages each year due to the lack of their legal status. By granting the illegal immigrants citizenship, it allows the legalized immigrants to earn higher wages and move into higher-paying jobs. This also encourages them