Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration became a public concern during the 1990s because many Americans wrongly view illegal immigrants as the source of all social ills. They are perceived as creating economic loss, furthering the gap between rich and poor, perpetrators of crime, and underlying it all is a brand of racism that views immigrants as undesirable. One of the problems with assessing the actual economic damage caused by illegal immigrants is their undocumented status. Nonetheless, the Urban Institute conducted a study among seven states to assess systematically the fiscal impact of undocumented aliens. The study found that “3.4 million undocumented aliens lived in the U.S. as of 1992, 34% of them in California alone, representing 5% of its population” (Zimmerman, 1995, 151).

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t had filed for refunds; 44 percent had hospitalization payments withheld” (Immigrants, 1982, 330). While domestic and foreign policy often concern themselves with the issue of illegal immigration, one of the hardest problems in accurately assessing the issue and the impact it has on American society and the economy is the difficulty of getting accurate information. Obviously, few illegal immigrants or employers who hire them illegally are going to come forward and admit they are doing something illegal. Charles B. Keely writes for the Population and Development Review. He argues that most of the statistics that have to do with illegal immigrants are based on speculation more than fact with actual numbers of illegal immigrants in the country varying widely “While nearly 400,000 legal immigrants are added to the U.S. population annually, the number of illegal immigrants entering the country, the number engaging in seasonal or temporary work, and the number remaining permanently are more the subject of wild conjecture than accurate measurement. The stock of undocumented aliens has been variously estimates at between three and twelve million” (Keely, 1979, 357). There are many efforts made to prevent large numbers of undocument
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Approximate Word count = 1300
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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