Illegal Immigration: Birthright Citizenship
Introduction
Illegal immigrants are the people who leave their country to other nations in which they reside without permission (U.S. Immigration Support, 2011, p.1). There are several reasons why people may leave their country some of which include wars, natural disasters like floods and droughts, political unrests among others. The United States of America has been the most affected nation when it comes to the issue of illegal immigrants.
This is because, unlike other nations, the United States has an open border policy. The constitution of the United States of America has procedures that allow the illegal immigrants to be present in the country for several reasons. This is just but one of the unique scenarios as most nations disregard the presence of illegal immigrants. This paper is an in-depth analysis of the issue of illegal immigrants and their need to acquire birth right citizenship of the nation they settle in.
The Pros and Cons of Illegal Immigrants
The issue of illegal immigrants has attracted significant controversy for many years from different groups of people. First, the citizens of the country in which the illegal immigrants settle have made several complaints regarding them. They argue that the illegal immigrants have come to overload their facilities for instance the schools, healthcare centers, roads and other social amenities.
For instance, the expenditure on public education for children of illegal immian grant in K-12 in Minnesota for 2004-2006 went up to $118.14 from $78.76 and $67 million in Mexico during the same period. In healthcare, it is difficult to establish the actual expenditure since most hospitals do not look into patients’ legal status.
Others claim that illegal immigrants are to be blamed for the increased rates of crimes in the areas they settle in. Many antagonists argue that whether or not they carry out criminal activities more often than the legal populace is of no consequence. The position is that the great core lawbreakers, a lot of them are hard-edged repeat offenders who sneak into other nations together with added illegal immigrants.
Therefore, even if the majority of illegal immigrants are not part of very serious offenses, they are all the same accountable for a considerable number of grim crimes (U.S. Immigration Support, 2011, p.1). However, most sociologists and sociological research do not content with the fact that illegal immigration is associated with increased criminal activities. In fact, various sociological researches dispute the insight that immigrants, particularly illegal immigrants, are to blame for elevated crime rates.
Despite the fact that the illegal immigrants have been disregarded in most nations, there are instances when they have positive impacts in the areas they settle in. There have been several noted benefits of illegal immigrants in the area of taxpaying, subsidizing social security, and depressing prices to the benefit of consumers. Illegal immigrants have turned out to be undocumented taxpayers who have been assumed in the past, not to pay income taxes and thus assessing services that they did not participate.
However, on the contrary, the IRS approximates that around 6 million illegal immigrants, file personal tax returns yearly. It has also been estimated that between 50 and 75 percent of illegal immigrants disburse state, federal, as well as local taxes. In general, they are estimated to contribute up to $7 billion annually towards social security.
For instance, in 2006, out of the 1.4 million people who used the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN), half of them were illegal immigrants. They have also contributed to a great extend in subsidizing the workers’ social security because most of them pay social security payroll dues, although they are not entitled to the benefits.
In addition to this, illegal immigrants have been great news to the nations they settle in and especially the United States of America, where they provide cheap labor (Tranaes and Zimmermann, 2004). They also perform manual work that most of the American citizens cannot perform, such as tractor driving, farm work, machine operators, and masonry, just to mention a few.
The need for Birth right Citizenship for illegal immigrants
Having discussed the pros and cons of illegal immigrants, the cause of disagreement lies as to whether the children born by illegal immigrants have a birth right citizenship. Early this year, the government of the U.S had initiated a plan to make the 14th Amendment on the constitution such that the children of illegal immigrants would be granted U.S citizenship (Redmon, 2011, p.1).
This decision attracted a lot of controversy with most of the lawmakers arguing that the children of illegal immigrants are also illegal immigrants and will have the same negative impacts on the state just like their parents. On the other hand, the protagonists argue that the children of illegal immigrants deserve the right to acquire U.S birth right citizenship in the event they are born in the state. Because of the weight of the matter, most critics have regarded the issue of birth right citizenship for illegal immigrants to be a federal issue.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is clear the issue of birth right citizenship for illegal immigrants is a controversial one, which requires a balance between either option. Therefore, before coming up with the final decision, it is important that the pros and cons of illegal immigrants be carefully weighed so that the decision is fair to all.
Reference List
Redmon, J. (2011). States seek to tackle birth right citizenship, illegal immigration. The Atlanta Journal- Constitution. Web.
Tranaes, T. and Zimmermann, K. (2004), Migrants, Work, and the Welfare State. Odense, University Press of Southern Denmark.
U.S. Immigration Support. (2011). Illegal Immigration. Web.