Do illegal aliens in America help or damage the economy?

This question has as many answers as people you ask. Not surprisingly the politicians haven´t found “the answer” to the topic. But how should they, if even statistics covering the exact same theme are singing different songs.

You may ask yourself: Why is it so hard to get some data about the pros and cons of illegal aliens for the economy?

First, obviously because they are illegal immigrants they have no papers and are not registered in any institution. All the numbers about how many illegal aliens are in the U.S. are based on assumptions.

Secondly the situation is very complex: Some statistics may take the taxes the illegal aliens don´t pay and say: “see we lose money”. But they forget about the workforce brought into America by illegal aliens. If there weren’t illegal immigrants, some companies may go bankrupt or make little to no profit. They do with illegal aliens . And they pay taxes on those profits of which America profits.

You might also think on that: illegal aliens take lower wages for their work than Americans would. If all street cleaners were “real” Americans, the state would have to pay a lot more for street cleaning.

Next the illegal immigrants have a very good work ethic because getting into the U.S. is hard and only possible if you invest a lot of time personal effort and money into it. Those people that do so are willing to work very hard for their better future.

Another aspect: If the companies mainly employing illegal aliens make huge profits ,other companies will soon do the same so it might grew harder for an American to get a job in the lower wages section, cause he can´t compete with the illegal aliens.

Not to be forgotten is the fact that, if illegal immigrants can live a simple and nice life in the U.S., even though they broke the law. By entering the country illegally, they mock all those who want to legally immigrate into America.

Punishing them harshly however might not be the best idea, because some sectors of economy, like farming (e.g Potatoes), are built upon the concept of cheap labor by immigrants. If laws get harder and the illegal aliens stop working there, because they get punished, the whole sector of economy breaks down.

As you can see this topic is extremely complex and so, every law concerning illegal aliens has its side effects which might be greater than the wanted effect. That’s why I can’t blame the politicians for not finding the right solution.