If the U.S. does not enforce its immigration laws, then it will just encourage more immigrants to cross the border illegally. They see the the laws are weak and can be easily bypassed. The more illegal immigrants that are let through, the more will try. Granting amnesty to these people that have broken the law proves that our immigration laws are weak. This isn’t fair to any of the immigrants who followed the rules. It takes them longer to get their citizenship than the illegals and it inspires less people to join our country the right way.
American workers suffer due to illegal immigrants taking their jobs. Almost 20 millions Americans are unemployed and a lot of this is due to the jobs already being filled by illegal immigrants. Wages also go down because companies don’t have to pay illegal immigrants minimum wage and in order for an American to get a job over an illegal immigrant, they must accept lower pay. Illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes, which shifts the burden onto American citizens.
According to a study in 1996 of the costs of illegal immigration by Rice Univ. economist, Dr. Donald Huddle, illegal aliens were displacing roughly 730,000 American workers every year, at a cost of about $4.3 billion a year, and the supply of cheap labor depresses the wages and working conditions of the working poor. The approximate doubling of the illegal alien population since the time of that estimate means that the number of jobs lost to American workers and the costs of displacement would also likely have more than doubled.
If illegal immigrants stay in the U.S, they create work conditions that are not suitable for any type of job or position. They also lower the wages for people. Lower work conditions leads to less productive work which, in turn, creates a lower amount of efficiency for that job.