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The reality of illegal immigration is that essentially all arguments against it lack intellectual merit or validity. I live in a border state, and I can see the benefits of all forms of immigration firsthand. The myths commonly cited against illegal immigration can be easily debunked.
So immigrants dont pay taxes? They pay plenty of taxes. They pay sales taxes, gas taxes, and property taxes if they own a house. They pay all the taxes that anyone who works in the informal economy is required to pay. As for those who work in the formal economy, they use fake social security numbers (an act necessitated by their illegal status) and pay payroll, income, and Social Security taxes. Theyre the only ones who get a raw deal, since they dont receive any benefits. Studies have shown that legal immigrants and citizens use far more public services than illegal immigrants do. Furthermore, the members of an illegal immigrant household most likely to use public services are their children, who are naturalized American citizens. The only reason that illegal immigrants tax payments doesnt match the amount of public benefits that they use is because of their impoverished economic condition and low salaries, which is directly caused by their illegal status, which prohibits them from seeking adequate forms of employment.
Studies have shown that immigrants salaries and tax payments drastically increase after they receive legal status. Hence, decriminalizing border crossing and granting amnesty to illegal immigrants in the U.S. would increase their salaries and thus their tax payments.
Or perhaps you think that they cause crime? Again, much of this can probably be directly linked to their impoverished status. Would illegal immigrants need to rob and steal if they had sufficient wages? We must acknowledge that no country or nation holds a monopoly on crime or criminals, and most illegal immigrants are among the most law abiding citizens one will encounter. Most are afraid of committing crimes because they fear that it would endanger their residency in the U.S. Furthermore, according to a 2005 report by the GAO, We identified a population of 55,322 aliens that had entered the country illegally and were still illegally in the country at the time of their incarceration in the country in federal or state prison or local jail during fiscal year 2003.
Now about half of that number were incarcerated for either drug-related offenses (an authoritarian drug war benefits no one) or for simply being in the country illegally. Now these immigrants are less than 3 percent of the total prison population, which means that legal citizens and legal immigrants comprise 97 percent of the prison population. Id say that immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes in some instances. A (Harvard) Kennedy School of Government study of men aged eighteen to forty found that immigrants were about one third less likely than legal citizens to be incarcerated in correctional institutions.
Does a prohibitive, police state policy towards immigrants reduce crime. If there are severe criminals amongst illegal immigrants, how can the law-abiding among them report the criminals when they would be deported for stepping forward?
But maybe you think that they all deserve punishment and deportation since they are all criminals who have broken the law. They have broken an unjust law. What they are obeying is a higher moral standard to provide for themselves and their families. Harriet Tubman broke the law. Rosa Parks broke the law. Susan B. Anthony broke the law. Martin Luther King Jr. broke the law. The Founding Fathers broke the law. But these people were in compliance with a higher moral standard than the governments restrictive law, and theyre more morally upright than those who stood by and did nothing. We recognize many restrictions of the past as being unjust, and criminalization of immigration will be one of those things in the future.
I already addressed the claim about terrorism, and I think it unlikely that terrorists will sneak across the southern border. Have they ever done so, even though they easily could? No. The major international terrorist attack that weve encountered were the plane hijackings, and only four hijackers were in the country illegally. The attack could have been carried out without four people. The World Trade Center could have fallen entirely at the hands of legal immigrants and residents. And at any rate, those planes didnt have to take off from inside the U.S. They could have taken off from anywhere and flown in and attacked those towers. Can a border ever be entirely secured? Maybe the land borders can, even at enormous cost and consequence. (And then theres the fact that the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the country wouldnt be able to get back to their native lands.) But what of entry through air and sea ports? (Since the major international terrorist attack that I mentioned was an air-based attack.) And what of domestic, homegrown terrorism such as that of Timothy McVeigh? Instead of impractically stretching guards thinly across borders that they could not feasibly protect, its a far superior strategy to guard major targets efficiently. As I said, if a person has knowledge that a bank in a city will be robbed, he doesnt spread the guards around the entire city with major entry points left unguarded; he has them tightly patrol the bank.
And if you really want to prevent Islamic terrorism against the United States, a good start would be modifying U.S. foreign policy to not aggravate Muslim radicals. Some policies that might promote this would be withdrawing unconditional support from the state of Israel. Muslims view the state of Israel as being in unjust control of Muslim lands and holy sites, and they see U.S. presence in the Middle East as a declaration of war, especially considering their distaste for what they view as the U.S.s decadent culture. (Notice that Scandinavian countries were not attacked, despite the fact that their cultures are largely more decadent than American culture. This is because they dont practice interventionist and intrusive foreign policy tactics.) U.S. leaders may also want to consider not interfering with foreign governments in the Middle East, even if they are interested in lucrative oil profits. If Prime Minister Mossadeq had remained in power in the 50s, the Ayatollah and the mullahs might not be in power today.
The reality of illegal immigration is that essentially all arguments against it lack intellectual merit or validity.
I live in a border state, and I can see the benefits of all forms of immigration firsthand. The myths commonly cited against illegal immigration can be easily debunked.
So immigrants dont pay taxes? They pay plenty of taxes. They pay sales taxes, gas taxes, and property taxes if they own a house. They pay all the taxes that anyone who works in the informal economy is required to pay.
As for those who work in the formal economy, they use fake social security numbers (an act necessitated by their illegal status) and pay payroll, income, and Social Security taxes. Theyre the only ones who get a raw deal, since they dont receive any benefits.
Studies have shown that legal immigrants and citizens use far more public services than illegal immigrants do.
Furthermore, the members of an illegal immigrant household most likely to use public services are their children, who are naturalized American citizens.
The only reason that illegal immigrants tax payments doesnt match the amount of public benefits that they use is because of their impoverished economic condition and low salaries,
which is directly caused by their illegal status, which prohibits them from seeking adequate forms of employment.
Studies have shown that immigrants salaries and tax payments drastically increase after they receive legal status.
Hence, decriminalizing border crossing and granting amnesty to illegal immigrants in the U.S. would increase their salaries and thus their tax payments.
Or perhaps you think that they cause crime? Again, much of this can probably be directly linked to their impoverished status. Would illegal immigrants need to rob and steal if they had sufficient wages?
We must acknowledge that no country or nation holds a monopoly on crime or criminals, and most illegal immigrants are among the most law abiding citizens one will encounter.
Most are afraid of committing crimes because they fear that it would endanger their residency in the U.S. Furthermore, according to a 2005 report by the GAO, We identified a population of 55,322 aliens that had entered the country illegally and were still illegally in the country at the time of their incarceration in the country in federal or state prison or local jail during fiscal year 2003.
Now about half of that number were incarcerated for either drug-related offenses (an authoritarian drug war benefits no one) or for simply being in the country illegally.
Now these immigrants are less than 3 percent of the total prison population, which means that legal citizens and legal immigrants comprise 97 percent of the prison population. Id say that immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes in some instances. A (Harvard) Kennedy School of Government study of men aged eighteen to forty found that immigrants were about one third less likely than legal citizens to be incarcerated in correctional institutions.
Does a prohibitive, police state policy towards immigrants reduce crime. If there are severe criminals amongst illegal immigrants, how can the law-abiding among them report the criminals when they would be deported for stepping forward?
But maybe you think that they all deserve punishment and deportation since they are all criminals who have broken the law. They have broken an unjust law. What they are obeying is a higher moral standard to provide for themselves and their families.
Harriet Tubman broke the law. Rosa Parks broke the law. Susan B. Anthony broke the law. Martin Luther King Jr. broke the law. The Founding Fathers broke the law. But these people were in compliance with a higher moral standard than the governments restrictive law, and theyre more morally upright than those who stood by and did nothing.
We recognize many restrictions of the past as being unjust, and criminalization of immigration will be one of those things in the future.
I already addressed the claim about terrorism, and I think it unlikely that terrorists will sneak across the southern border. Have they ever done so, even though they easily could? No. The major international terrorist attack that weve encountered were the plane hijackings, and only four hijackers were in the country illegally. The attack could have been carried out without four people. The World Trade Center could have fallen entirely at the hands of legal immigrants and residents. And at any rate, those planes didnt have to take off from inside the U.S. They could have taken off from anywhere and flown in and attacked those towers. Can a border ever be entirely secured? Maybe the land borders can, even at enormous cost and consequence. (And then theres the fact that the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the country wouldnt be able to get back to their native lands.) But what of entry through air and sea ports? (Since the major international terrorist attack that I mentioned was an air-based attack.) And what of domestic, homegrown terrorism such as that of Timothy McVeigh? Instead of impractically stretching guards thinly across borders that they could not feasibly protect, its a far superior strategy to guard major targets efficiently. As I said, if a person has knowledge that a bank in a city will be robbed, he doesnt spread the guards around the entire city with major entry points left unguarded; he has them tightly patrol the bank.
And if you really want to prevent Islamic terrorism against the United States, a good start would be modifying U.S. foreign policy to not aggravate Muslim radicals. Some policies that might promote this would be withdrawing unconditional support from the state of Israel. Muslims view the state of Israel as being in unjust control of Muslim lands and holy sites, and they see U.S. presence in the Middle East as a declaration of war, especially considering their distaste for what they view as the U.S.s decadent culture. (Notice that Scandinavian countries were not attacked, despite the fact that their cultures are largely more decadent than American culture. This is because they dont practice interventionist and intrusive foreign policy tactics.) U.S. leaders may also want to consider not interfering with foreign governments in the Middle East, even if they are interested in lucrative oil profits. If Prime Minister Mossadeq had remained in power in the 50s, the Ayatollah and the mullahs might not be in power today.
Okay, I'll make like a teacher for you.. It would help I we knew the assignment, though.
Wow. that's going to be mighty hard to prove...even if it is true. You have already written yourself into a corner.
Okay, do so
Good point. It fails to address the question of whether the combined positive effects of they're being here exceed the social costs (and government costs) of them being here, but the point you do make has merit.
True. Those not working in the underground economy definitely are helping the system and getting nothing back for it.
Citing those studies would do much to strengthen your argument here.
On average, the costs that illegal households impose on federal coffers are less than half that of other households, but their tax payments are only one-fourth that of other households.
Assuming they were born here, yes.
Much like most citizens workers of this nation don't you mean? Quite right.
Well...possibly true up to a point. You point presumes that if they had legal status they could get a job that pays a LOT more than they currently make and I am not at all sure that is true. EXPECIALLY given that most citizesn in the USA cannot find those better paying jobs, either, I mean.
The question lawmakers attempt to answer is: Do undocumented immigrants pay enough in taxes to cover the services used? For undocumented immigrants, the answer is unclear. However, for legal immigrants, studies have shown that first generation immigrants pay more in federal taxes than they receive in federal benefits. The same does not hold true for state taxes and services, however, as first generation immigrants often use more in services than they pay in taxes. However, the descendants of the first-generation immigrant correct that pattern and contribute more in taxes at both the federal and state level than they consume in services at both levels. Each generation successively contributes a greater share due to increased wages, language skills, and education.
What studies? If this paper is for school, you need to document your declaritive points better than you do. Anybody can say anything, but providing supporting evidence to support those declarations is what scholars do.
Assuming that they can find better paying jobs, of course... a declarative statement that you haven't really proved.
Yes poverty and crime seem to go along. But you're actually making the case for exclusing them with the above.
A statement of faith, based on what data?
You're supporting the antithesis of your original argument here, I think.
Big difference in crimes. Needs further clarification
Okay, at least you're beginnign to support you argument with some evidence to support it there.
By dialing 911 just like citizens?
Good point.
Excellent points
We might.
Interesting discussion but not really germane to the question of illegal immigration, I think.
The above is a fascinating topic but it's not really about illegal immigration, is it?
If you're in high school, this is a pretty good paper.
You need to focus specifically on the topic at hand though.
You drifted off topic toward the end, because the question of illegal immigrants and terrorism are so marginally related that your paper lost its argumentative momentum.
I'm unsure as to why you responded. You don't seem to have rebutted my post, only made odd and condescending remarks about this being a "high school paper."
The reality of illegal immigration is that essentially all arguments against it lack intellectual merit or validity.
In Costa Rica we have a similar issue, the difference being that Nicaraguans come into Costa Rica to work legally or illegally. During the brutal rape of the country in the 80s there were as many as 500,000 around the place. I believe remittances from Costa Rica to Nicaragua are ultimately beneficial to us, as well. No country is an island, and protectionism is dead. The problem is the fact that what is marketed as free trade is not "free" at all. It's managed trade, with disproportionate benefits towards Capital, Technology, and Finance. It facilitates the movement of capital (what the rich have), but seeks to restrain the movement of labor (what poor people have). And the same policies usually go hand in hand with cutting social services- basically subsidizing private capital profit at the expense of the public. The only way that liberalized markets can work is with a strong and effective provision of services to "buffer" the impact of the market.
Since you did not post a single valid argument yourself, you are not in a position to claim that I have "failed to live up to my argument." If there is an argument that you believe I cannot sufficiently address, by all means, post it.
As you have posted nothing in the way of arguments, I shall assume that you cannot provide any.
The first sentence is an opinion presented as fact.The reality of illegal immigration is that essentially all arguments against it lack intellectual merit or validity. I live in a border state, and I can see the benefits of all forms of immigration firsthand.
There are no other words, other than a false interpretation of what I posted.In other words, you can't think of anything...is that really so hard to say?
Your failure to understand my response is an indication of your (lack) of ability.Your failure to respond was a great enough indication that you did not possess the ability to do so.
Your failure to understand my response is an indication of your (lack) of ability.
Go blow your nose.
Whatever you say.Really, post something rational or don't post anything.
Let's make this even simpler: if something is illegal, it is wrong by the law of that particular jurisdiction.
