Would you rather buy an apple for three dollars or one dollar? Would you rather get paid more, or less? Would you rather be a construction worker or a businessperson? All these questions relate back to the effects of illegal immigration on the U.S. economy. Immigration has been a part of the culture, history, and economics since the beginning. Illegal immigration, especially from Central America, Asia, and the Middle East, has been a problem for the last few decades. An illegal immigrant is a foreign-born person that lives in another country illegally, usually by sneaking into the country or coming in by a visa and staying past the expiration date. These people usually sneak across borders or stay past when they were told to leave. This problem is important, because it affects millions of lives every day on both sides. Illegal immigration costs the U.S. billions each year. Immigrants want better lives for themselves and their families, but does breaking laws and cutting corners overshadow the moral issue? There are more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. today. Most of them have below a high school level of education. These workers compete with the ten percent of Americans of the same level of education. Illegal immigrants come to the U.S. to seek work to support their families. The annual influx of illegal immigrants is directly proportional to the demand for labor in the U.S. market. These immigrants compete with Americans because they work for much lower than minimum wage. Undocumented workers save businesses billions per year. Many businesses such as construction, agriculture, and manufactures use undocumented workers to cut costs. Illegal immigrants use public services that they do not pay for, which puts a strain on local governments. Illegal immigration has positive and negative effects on the U.S. economy. The overall effect of illegal immigration on the U.S. economy is positive because the inflow of tax money, and the increase of consumers of goods/services and suppliers of labor. 

Illegal Immigration has positive effects, but there are costs. In general, illegal immigrants have less than a high school education. In the U.S., only around ten percent of the citizen population has below a high school education. Businesses chose to hire these illegal immigrants due to the lower wages they work for. This causes competition between these immigrants and the U.S. workers. Millions of illegal immigrants come to the U.S. to try to support themselves and their families by working. Most of these immigrants work lower paying jobs. Citizen also need work to support themselves and their families. This competition is a major part of the negativity towards illegal immigrants. However, many businesses that use low-skilled labor greatly benefit from the use of illegal immigrants. (Borjas) These workers are cheaper and easier to replace than citizen workers. This benefit to businesses allows that citizens with jobs to be paid more and for goods/services to cost less. Illegal immigrants are also harder for businesses to use.. This is because hiring illegal immigrants is illegal. Some states also pay companies subsidies if they do not use illegal workers. This helps the competition between illegal and illegal immigrants because legal citizens have much more stable jobs than illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants do not benefit from programs like welfare. Legal citizens can use programs like this to help their families, but illegal immigrants cannot. The influx of new illegal immigrants is directly proportional to the demand for labor in the U.S. market. The number of new immigrants per year has decreased largely in the past several years.  The work by Volker Grossman discusses the pros and cons of immigration. In his article, he states that low-skilled workers (most illegal immigrants are low-skilled workers) do not increase productivity in the workplace and immigrants, both legal and illegal, lower the prices of real-estate. (Grossman) But, the number of workers helps the market by meeting the demand for worker and help the housing market by purchasing houses. The increased supply of workers causes a gain for workers, and the increased demand for houses helps stimulate the housing market.  Illegal immigrants decrease wages by more than one hundred billion dollars. (Borjas)This is due to the hiring of immigrants over citizens and the lowering of wages by companies because of the increased supply of labor. In economics, as the supply of labor goes up, wages go down. So, because of the larger pool of workers, businesses lower wages. The decrease in wages for lower-skilled jobs can increase the pay for higher skilled jobs. This is because employers can pay low-skilled workers less and pay high-skilled workers more due to the savings from using illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants negatively affect the smaller communities where they are more heavily concentrated.  This is in areas such as Arizona, California, and Texas, where the number of illegal immigrants are the highest. These areas are more negatively affected because the higher number of illegal immigrants in the local communities use the public services that they don’t pay for. This puts a burden on these communities, as they have to support more people who put less into the local economy. This effect is lessened because illegal immigrants pay taxes in one form or another. And these taxes cause a net benefit at the Federal level. The short term increased cost on local communities is downplayed by the benefits to the system as a whole. These immigrants also buy goods in these communities. They work in these communities, which helps the community by supplying workers.The influx of consumers stimulates these local economies and help support them. The strain on the local government is lessened by the boost to the local economy. Illegal immigration does have negative effects on the U.S. economy. There are also many positive effects that lessen the impact of the negative ones. 

Illegal immigrants have positive effects on the U.S. economy. In his New York Times article, Davidson writes argues against the stereotype that illegal immigrants hurt the U.S. economy. Davidson claims that illegal immigrants have a positive effect on the economy. Businesses save money by hiring illegal immigrants to do the lowskill work and labor. These workers compliment higher-skill workers because businesses can pay higher skilled workers more for what they specialize in and pay illegal immigrants for lower-skilled jobs. Davidson also claims that many illegal immigrants put into Social Security. The savings from hiring illegal immigrants benefits mostly businesses like construction, manufacturing, and farming. The input of extra Social Security however greatly benefits the retired population of Americans. This surplus is due to the fact that undocumented workers can put in to Social Security, but they cannot take out of it.  The article by Cooper, Costa, and Shierholz from the Economic Policy Institute also tries to clear up misconceptions on illegal and legal immigration. “Unauthorized immigrants are a net positive for public budgets because they contribute more than they take out. Unauthorized immigrants generally cannot receive benefits from government programs except in some cases, such as when unauthorized immigrant children receive public education, and in some states that allow unauthorized immigrants to attend state colleges at in-state tuition rates. Nevertheless, most of these unauthorized immigrants pay taxes. The vast majority pay sales taxes in states with sales taxes, and property taxes through properties that they own or rent” (Cooper, Costa, and Shierholz 9). This quote explains the main points for the benefits of illegal immigration from the article. Illegal immigrants pay millions in taxes and cannot take in return. This helps the economy by adding more money for public use. The use of local programs does hurt local economies, but these effects are balanced out by the benefit to the overall economy. The illegal immigrant children are citizens if they are born in the U.S. Most believe that this just creates more problems because the children cannot be deported. Because these children are citizens, they can make use of public programs and opportunities such as public education to become a higher skilled worker, which benefits the economy and workforce long-term.  Many of the costs of illegal immigration are short term. For example, the drain on local communities. The influx of new people who pay less in taxes and use public programs hurt the local and state governments. But because illegal immigrants move around more than legal citizens the costs start to spread out, and the benefits to larger programs relieve stress from the local governments in the long term. According to the George Borjas, a renowned and respected economist, “Appling the standard textbook model to Illegal immigration shows that illegal immigrants increased GDP by $395 to $472 billion … The Immigration surplus or benefit to natives created by illegal immigration is estimated at around $9 billion a year or 0.06 percent of GDP… Although net benefits to natives are small, there is a sizeable redistribution effect. Illegal immigration reduces the wages of native workers by an estimated $99 to $118 billion a year, and generates a gain for businesses and other users of immigrants of $107 to $128 billion” (Borjas). As mentioned earlier, many of the positive effects of illegal immigration are long-term. In Borjas’s article, he tells the gains to the Gross Domestic Product(GDP), losses to wages, and gains to businesses. Businesses profit over a hundred billion dollars from illegal immigrants. According to the video from Audiopedia, illegal immigrants help stimulate the economy. Illegal immigrants demand and purchase goods, as well as pay some taxes. The increased number of consumers in the market increases demand for goods and services. This increased demand allows businesses to benefit from the influx of money spent on their goods and services. The money saved by businesses from the use of illegal immigration allows the lowering of the costs of good. Services like agriculture and construction, cost less which saves the consumer money. The flexibility of the immigrant worker is a very positive attribute. As Gordon Hanson says in his report: “Illegal immigration thus accomplished what legal immigration does immigration does not: It moves large numbers of low-skilled workers from a low-productivity to a high-productivity environment.” (Hanson 15).  Illegal workers are more likely than American to move to find a job. Illegal immigrants go where the demand for jobs is high. This is a great benefit for the American market because it helps assuage the demand for low-skilled labor. Because of the position and desperation of illegal immigration, businesses usually take advantage of them. Much lower wages and poor working conditions usually result. The is especially true in the agriculture and manufacturing industries. Employers will pay illegal workers less, and usually have them work jobs that most Americans would prefer not to do. These workers do low-skill jobs that most Americans would not want to do. Many illegal immigrants work in agriculture, manufacturing, and construction.. Because illegal immigrants are so desperate, companies take advantage of them. They cut corners for health and safety, but there is not much illegal immigrants can do. Illegal immigrants are usually easily substituted for one another. As they have similar same skill levels, companies can use them interchangeably. This interchangeability benefits businesses greatly as they have a large pool of workers of similar skills to choose from. This greatly reduces bargaining room for workers which helps businesses set wages and make sure workers try their best so they stay employed. Illegal immigrants impact the economy both as consumers of goods and suppliers of labor.

Illegal immigration has been a rising issue for the past twenty or so years. The inflow of illegal immigrants has been fluctuating in the past few years. Most recently, there has been a decrease of new illegal immigrants because of the election of Donald Trump as President of the U.S.. His promise to increase border security has caused a decline in new immigrants. Even though there are less new illegal immigrants, there are still millions still in the U.S. These immigrants are consumers of goods and services, and supply for the labor market. This issue is an important one. The actions done to and by these illegal immigrants affects everyone in America. Illegal immigrants that work can takes jobs citizens could have had, and affect the wages of workers in the fields they work in. As well as in competitive and complimentary fields. Businesses can save money or be reprimanded by the government. Businesses that save money on wages by the use of illegal immigrants can lower the costs of goods and services. Millions of illegal immigrants pay taxes in some form. This increases money into federal, state, and local governments. The increase in money to the government allows for more spending on public programs such as welfare or Medicaid. There is a surplus in Social Security because illegal immigrants put in money and cannot withdraw it. Illegal immigration will continue to affect the U.S. economy for as long as there are illegal immigrants. Every person affects the economy is some way when they buy goods, use services, pay taxes, and work. Illegal immigrants are no different. Their impact is important to the entire country. This issue is an important one that is often clouded by political actions and personal prejudice. Illegal immigration can have benefits.  In their day-to-day and continuing actions, illegal immigrants impact the economy, and in turn the American people.

 Illegal immigration has a net positive effect on the U.S. economy. Illegal immigrants may cause lower wages for some workers and take jobs that Americans would have otherwise. But illegal immigrants contribute to the economy by paying taxes, being consumers, and supplying labor. The net gain is not extremely large, but it is a gain. If all illegal immigrants disappeared from the U.S., the economy would suffer a heavy blow.  In order to fill many of the low-skilled jobs, Americans would have to work jobs below their skill levels. For this to be possible, a large pay increase would be required. The resulting inflation would increase the costs of goods and services by large margins. Some Americans may refuse to take such jobs because they feel they are below them. This would cause damage to businesses as well. Businesses would have to pay more for less workers, and would have to increase prices to break even and profit. The country would lose billions in tax revenue. This would hurt funding for many programs that help citizens and immigrants. People who rely on Social Security currently and in the future, would be negatively affected because of the loss of extra inflow into Social security. In, summary, the U.S. may not benefit greatly from illegal immigrants, but it would be worse off without them. 
