Illegal Immigrants in United States Research Paper

Illegal Immigrants in United States - Research Paper Example According to statistics from 2006, immigrants originate mostly from North America, with a few exceptions, such as the 12% from Asia and 8% from South America (Colton-Sonnenberg, pp.4). The topic of illegal immigration, however, is more complex than it appears to be, since there is misinformation, opposing views as well as lack of information about certain matters (Haines & Rosenblum, pp.1). Furthermore, the legal, moral, and economic aspects add controversy to this topic, resulting in its frequent debate in the matter of politics. Not everyone sees it as a terrible crime however. Some consider it a harmless situation, since illegal immigration provides cheap labor to the US citizens. However, since these immigrants often end up draining the fiscal resources of the country, their presence is not favorable, making those people suffer, who have a lower socio economic standing in society (APRA, 2006). Although immigration brings prosperity to the country in terms of contribution of skilled individuals, as well as enriched cultural diversity, however, illegal immigration has been causing economic, social, and cultural losses to the country. In this regard, the paper will look at different aspects of illegal immigration to acquire a comprehensive understanding of the issue. In particular, illegal immigrants are those people who enter a country undocumented, live there without any formal documentation and authorization, or are living there longer than the authorization. Such immigration occurs in every country, though not with the same high frequency as in the United States. These immigrants are usually from developing countries such as the Philippines, India, and Korea. They perform arranged marriages solely to get a green card, not caring about having a compatible spouse to live with. In addition, after settling down, they create several problems for the US government by engaging in several crimes such as drug trafficking, violent acts and robberies (Edmonston, pp. 45-50). Some illegal immigrants, however, are simply those people who entered the country through legal means, for example as a student, tourist, or businessperson, and then outstayed their allowed time, thus becoming illegal immigrants. They only make up around 1.5 percent of the US populat ion, as research shows. However, their presence in the US has a significant effect on the economy. In addition, since the country often requires specific skills and knowledge from different parts of the world, they are high in demand. In fact, the highly developed lifestyle, economy, and environment of the US often tempt these immigrants into wanting to stay in the country despite their expired visas. Thus, they succumb to becoming illegal citizens (Srivastava, pp-18). The table below divides these immigrants according to the states in which they illegally reside: Names of the State Number of Immigrants California New York Texas Florida New jersey Arizona Georgia Virginia Washington North Carolina Michigan 343,693 159,126 134,597 122,430 60,361 28,918 28,376 28,340 27,301 26,903 24215 (Hansen, pp-64) These results show how the illegal