Immigration Reform
Elizabeth Garza
English112
October 15, 2011
Immigration Reform
The question of whether or not to allow illegal immigrants to remain in this country and eventually become citizens of the United States is a hotly debated issue. Illegal immigrants should have the right to amnesty. It does not make sense to spend billions of dollars rounding people up, breaking up families, shutting down businesses, and deporting people who are working, learning English, and putting down roots here. For immigrants who do not have a legal status, we should require them to come out of the shadows and register, pay taxes, and start working ...view middle of the document...
Currently there are millions of workers, one in twenty in the U.S. workforce, that are vulnerable to employers who seek unfair pay wages. There are employers who are unfair and take advantage over their competitors by not paying workers minimum wage or by ignoring labor rights protected by law. Many undocumented workers do not complain about the low wages they receive from their employers for fearing that they might be fired or deported. Many illegal immigrants have their families here and are just trying to make a living to support their families. Some employers take advantage of the fact that they know people are undocumented, so they pay them below minimum wage, knowing that illegal immigrants would not turn it down since that is their only way of bringing in money to support their families. By bringing in undocumented workers into the system, it will allow them to stand up for their rights and to unionize. When illegal immigrants are on an equal level as with other workers, employers who are unfair will not be able to easily put one group of workers against another, which would stop driving down wages for all Americans. Workers should not settle for a downwardly spiral competition for lower wage jobs. United States needs more jobs, more rights for workers, and better wages, and no more laws to keep workers out or to keep workers down. Amnesty for illegals would have an increase in gross domestic product, but amnesty would also create new jobs and increase wages for American workers as well. Many increases in new jobs would come from legitimizing existing gray economy jobs that the illegals hold today (Hinojosa-Ojeda, 2010).
By extending amnesty to illegal immigrants, it will also directly benefit Uncle Sam. According to Hinojosa-Ojeda, “Being legitimate and lawful employees means that the immigrants will be paying federal and state income taxes that they are not doing today. It also means that they will be paying into social security and that will cause their employers to contribute as well” ("UCLA study,”2011).
Now there are others who do not agree with giving amnesty to illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, the problems with illegal immigration interfere with this idealistic point of view. People say that high paid American workers “willing to work hard” are often laid off, because illegal immigrants are willing to work just as hard, but for a lot less money. That is true; illegal immigrants will work hard for jobs that do not pay much money. “Between 40 to 50 percent of wage loss among low skilled American workers is due to the immigration of low skilled workers. American workers lose their jobs through unfair competition. An estimated 1,880,000 American workers are laid off from their jobs due to immigration. Corporations interests gain the benefits of cheap labor” ("Amnesty for illegal," 2011).
Even though this may be true, immigrants will fill a lower paying job that an American worker would not fill. ...
