How Illegal Immigration Harms the Economy

How Illegal Immigration Harms the Economy

March 10, 2012
By Walter Coffey

In these very tough economic times, it’s important to examine how illegal immigration adversely affects the national economy.


People routinely look the other way while employers pay illegal aliens low wages to work grueling hours in unsafe conditions. Some argue that illegals do work that Americans won’t do, but the fact is that illegals do work that American’s can’t do because Americans must adhere to minimum wage and labor laws. Illegals don’t have to. This is the 21st century equivalent to slavery.


When cheap labor dominates the market, overall wages naturally go down. When wages go down, American workers are harmed. And when American workers are harmed, the poor are always the first hit. In a free market, helping illegal families invariably harms legal families.


Illegal aliens pay little or no taxes but are quick to collect on taxes that were never earned by them, and they send millions of dollars out of the U.S. to their home country. Illegals are also more likely to use taxpayer-funded social services than citizens. They are entitled to free health care, education and food stamps. Nearly $5 billion per year is spent on illegal aliens.


The Roman Empire based its economy on slave labor, which was one of the key main reasons why it fell. This is also one of the main reasons why the South lost the Civil War; relying solely on slave labor, the South could not match northern industrial and military might.

Slave labor weakens nations by reducing exports, hindering technological innovation and turning employers lazy since they are virtually guaranteed profit at very low cost.


History shows that a national economy based on slave labor, in which a non-taxpaying workforce is supported by a taxpaying workforce, cannot prosper.

If left unchecked, the economic consequences of illegal immigration can prove highly disastrous to America’s future.

How Illegal Immigration Harms the Economy