Introduction
Immigration is the international movement of individuals from their native country to a destination country of which they are not citizens to settle or live as permanent residents of that particular country. Illegal immigration of people is when they move to a certain country without following the required immigration rules of that nation, or the constant residence of individuals without the lawful right to reside in that country. Illegal immigration can be seen as the movement of people from a developing country to a more financially stable country. This paper discusses if illegal immigration is a threat to a country, and what a government is required to do about it.
Is Illegal Immigration a Threat to the U.S.?
For the past years, the United States has reported increasing cases of immigration into the country. Many people violated federal immigration laws and started living in the United States without the required legal process. Most of these immigrants reside in Texas, and most of the illegal immigrants are said to come from Mexico. For many years, illegal immigration in the United States has been a hot topic, whether it is a threat to national security or does it bring prosperity to the United States. According to a certain research, it states that unlawful immigrants in U.S. augment the size of the United States economy and also back to the economic development (Orrenius, Pia, and Madeline 52-61). Illegal immigrants pay more income than they earn. This is because the employers of the United States hire illegal settlers at a lower cost than the Native U.S. citizens. Although illegal immigrants say that they like working for these employers because they pay them more than they would have earned in their own country. The illegal immigrants are more vulnerable to abuse because of their status. The employers exploit these illegal immigrants because they are ready to work for low salaries in poor working environments.
According to a certain study, it states that the employers in the United States hire illegal immigrants for three main reasons:
Absence of Legal Migration Channels
Global economic change. This has been said to be one aspect for illegal settlement because transportation and information technologies now nurture internationalized labor, manufacture, consumption and distribution. Due to this, the United States has opened its economy to outside investment, and thus hiring more low-skilled laborers and partaking in global labor markets. Since the education system of the United States makes relatively few individuals who lack education, there has been a shortage of employees who need to work in the low-skilled job sectors. To fill these gaps, the United States employers are hiring illegal immigrants to work for them at lower costs.
The incompetence of present employer approvals for illegal hiring. Due to these sanctions, the illegal immigrants in the United States can easily find and secure jobs. The ineffectiveness happens because there lacks political will because of labor requirements in the economy of the United States, and lack of required mechanisms to prove the employment suitability. Hence, it is prohibited to employ an illegal settler knowingly. Still, because there are no effective mechanisms to prove the papers of the immigrants are authentic, the employers end up hiring them.
Although the connection between crime and immigration is a hot topic in the United States, it is not a new subject. According to Orrenius, he stated that most of the Americans pointed out that illegal immigration has led to rising of criminal organizations in the United States such as the Mafia cartels from Mexico and this has been as a threat to the national security (Orrenius, Pia, and Madeline 52-61). Also, illegal immigrants are thought to commit crimes more because of their low earnings. In his research, Orrenius pointed out that the government of the United States has put out callous measures on crime offenders, mostly the illegal immigrants (Orrenius, Pia, and Madeline 52-61). If you are charged with a crime, the immigrants face harsher punishments than the United States natives, and to avoid this, the immigrants are less likely going to break the law. Also, if one is caught to have committed a crime, he or she might be deported back to their native country. Since they do not want to lose this opportunity of living in the United States, they are less likely to commit crimes. In a certain interview with the illegal immigrants, they said that they earn more money from the United States employers than the wages they earn in their native country. Hence they cannot risk committing crimes and get deported back to their country.
According to a certain study, it states that despite poor working conditions and low wages of the illegal immigrants, they are less likely going to break the law, and their dwelling places have lower lawbreaking rates compared to where Native Americans live (Orrenius, Pia, and Madeline 52-61). This can be seen because the government of the United States has put tougher measures on the American borders, such as building the U.S-Mexico border, where President Donald, J Trump build the American wall to prevent the Mexicans from migrating to the United States illegally. Even though these tough measures have been imposed to curb illegal immigration, studies show that the crime rates in the United States have not reduced, and hence this proves that illegal immigrants are less likely to commit crimes.
There are numerous latent reasons why immigrants are less likely going to break the law than the native U.S. citizens regardless of their low wages, vulnerability and worse labor market projections. First, the dissimilarity in the dissuasion effect may control the variations in economic opportunities. The immigrants are more responsive to crime-deterrence strategies such as augmented police presence. This is because they have a fear of deported. Hence, they tend to support the police activities in reducing crime; also, due to their hard work, they bring major economic impact to the American impact. This shows that illegal immigrants should not be seen as a threat to national security but as aspects of economic growth.
Government Actions Towards Illegal Immigration
The government of the United States should provide a guest worker program to all the illegal immigrants in the United States. This program states that illegal immigrants should register as guest workers, and they can live in the U.S. as long as they have employment proof. Also, the current illegal immigrants in the country should be made U.S. citizens. The U.S. government has to increase border security while completing this action to prevent criminal cartels from migrating to the U.S. When undergoing the naturalization process, the U.S. government should conduct thorough inspection of the illegal immigrants to find out if they have criminal backgrounds. If an immigrant is found to be having a criminal record, he or she should be deported back to his native country, and this will help to reduce migration of criminal cartels in the country.
Another way to curb illegal immigration is that the U.S. government should help in growing the Mexican economy. By investing in the Mexican economy, Mexico would become a better country, with more job opportunities because their economy would be strong and this would reduce the number of people migrating to U.S. illegally, and also the negative effects of illegal immigrants would be decreased (Crowe, Susan, and Jamie 115-1129).
Conclusion
In conclusion, illegal immigration has brought both positive and negative impacts on the U.S. economy. Even though there are many advantages associated with illegal immigration, still there are criminal cartels who migrate to terrorize the U.S. and for their won benefits. Any immigrant caught in criminal activity should be deported to their country or given a long term in jail, to reduce migration of criminals in the U.S.
