Exaggerating Illegal Immigration

There are perhaps twelve million people in the United States today who are working here without the legal right to do so. This figure represents less than four percent of the US population of about 305,000. Yet, if you look around at the news media and online sources, you will find that most of our nation’s problems are being blamed on this group of people.

Every mention of a poor economy, of overcrowding in our cities, of the poor unemployment rate, of our lack or resources for health care, and so on, are blamed on these 12 million people. They supposedly use all of our resources, cause all of our crime, and are major users of our public services. If you are to believe the folks who make these claims, the solution to all of our nation’s problems would be to exclude the undocumented aliens from US jobs.

There are problems with that notion, though. For example, a recent National Public Radio report related the story of a town in Iowa where it has had to reduce operations drastically because of an immigration raid took away 10% of the town’s population, including half the workers at the plant. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the jobs being done by these undocumented workers are those jobs that were unfilled by US citizens. The US has traditionally increased it’s labor force through immigration. The current administration has artificially reduced immigration targets. this leaves employers with few choices for filling their needs.

I am not in favor of illegal immigration. We will have to accept immigration as a given, though. as long as policies for how many may enter the US legally are not realistic. In other words, the solution to our “problemâ€