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Are Illegal Immigrants Helpful Or Harmful To America

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Are Illegal Immigrants Helpful Or Harmful To America
The United States of America was founded and built by hardworking and innovative immigrants. Immigrants, whether legal or illegal, perform most of the dirty and arduous jobs that many native-born Americans are unwilling to perform. They are hardworking and taxpaying individuals that positively impact our economy and our communities. Many immigrants, especially illegal immigrants (those who enter the United States illegally or without proper documentation) work long hours and for little pay. There are over 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States who deserve a chance to have a good job, earn citizenship and become a legal member of American society. According to the Organization for U.S. Immigration Support, amnesty can be defined …show more content…
They perform the necessary high labor and menial jobs that many native-born Americans are unwilling to do. According to the March 6th 2007 issue of Conservative Politics: U.S. , President George W. Bush was quoted as saying, "There are people doing jobs Americans will not do. Many people who have come into our country are helping our economy grow. That is just a fact of life" (Illegal Aliens: Helpful or Harmful to America? 1). Increasingly fewer educated, native-born American workers are unwilling or unable to perform the strenuous jobs that don 't even require a high school diploma…but immigrants are. According to an immigration policy brief written by Rob Paral of the American Immigration Law Foundation, it is evident that immigrants come here to fill available jobs by the "fact that, as of 2005, 94% of adult male undocumented immigrants and 86% of adult male legal immigrants were in the labor force. Immigrants are already an integral part of U.S. society and an indispensable part of the U.S. labor force" (Paral 1). Illegal immigrants also contribute to the United States economy by purchasing American goods and services. They purchase houses, automobiles, as well as, patronize the local supermarkets and Mom and Pop stores. Francine Lipman of the Chapman University, School of Law strongly believes that "undocumented immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services" (Lipman 1). Lower consumer prices are one of the many contributions that immigrants make to our economy. Annually, illegal immigrants contribute at least 300 billion dollars to the U.S. gross national product (Immigrant Workers: Making Valuable Contributions to Our Communities and Our Economy 1). Even though there are critics who are

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