There are an estimated minimum of 11 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States. Whether they crossed the border, overstayed a visa, or were brought into this country, they are breaking the law and being a detriment to the United States’ legal residents. It is clear that the US should deport illegal immigrants.
Laws need to be followed. This is something most people will agree with. A country cannot stand if its laws are being broken without repercussion. Tom Homan says it best when he writes, “Laws are meaningless if there are no consequences or deterrence for violating them.” As such, when an immigrant illegally enters or stays in the country, something must be done. Deportation is the most direct and obvious solution to illegal immigration; if you are in the country illegally, you must be removed. However, the reasons for deporting illegal immigrants don’t end there.
Illegal immigrants being in the country is detrimental for native-born Americans because of their impacts on the workforce. Pew Research estimates there are “7.8 million unauthorized immigrants” working in the United States since 2016. These immigrants are taking jobs that legally residing Americans could otherwise be working at. When corporations are given the opportunity to hire illegal immigrants for lower wages, they will choose to do so instead of giving those jobs to other Americans. The Washington Post’s Henry Olsen writes of a specific instance involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids of seven Mississippi chicken processing plants which had hired illegal immigrants.
“Documents released Thursday suggest that the operators of those plants knowingly hired undocumented immigrants for years in violation of federal law. They show that many of the workers wore ankle bracelets provided by ICE to monitor their location while others used multiple names and provided different Social Security numbers when applying to work at the same plant.” Henry Olsen concludes that the plants most likely hired these immigrants because they could pay them less in wages. Although these companies’ actions are not the fault of the immigrants in question, it cannot be denied that the immigrants in question are the ones facilitating them to do so, and that the plants would have had to hire legally residing Americans if the illegal immigrants were not in the country. This problem can be avoided entirely if the undocumented immigrants are to be deported.
Deportation of illegal immigrants is also a very financially sound option. The Center for Immigration Study has found that “The average cost of a deportation is much smaller than the net fiscal drain created by the average illegal immigrant.” This was estimated by comparing the taxes spent and services used of individual undocumented immigrants over a lifetime. After calculating this number, it has been found that it is over six times more frugal to deport an illegal immigrant than to allow them to reside in the country, with each deportation costing $10,854 and a net fiscal drain of $65,292 per immigrant.
However, the cost on the American taxpayer goes beyond that. Ann Coulter for The Hill writes in her article, “Surprise! That 'cheap' immigrant labor costs us a lot,” that the Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that “for every dollar illegal immigrants pay in taxes … they collect $7 in government benefits...” If illegal immigrants aren’t even supposed to be in the country, then they shouldn’t receive so much in benefits compared to how little they give. It not only doesn’t make sense, but also is unfair to hard working Americans.
How would you tell a family of foreigners, waiting years and years for a chance to get into the United States that their spot has already been taken up by someone who illegally entered the country? Why is it fair for the people waiting to come into the country that they must wait when they come in and get to stay by bypassing laws? The laws of the country must be enforced, or else they will not be followed. A country needs well-defined borders to even be called a country. Illegal immigrants coming into this country take that away from us, and need to be removed for the benefit of all immigrants Americans alike legally residing within the United States.