Illegal Immigration's Destructive Impact on the Economy of the United States of America - Research Paper Example

?Criminal Immigrants and the Prison System: A Drain on the Nation’s Coffers, A Burden on the System Much debate has raged over immigration policies in the United States. In the past, the United States had reached out with open arms to immigrants coming from distant shores who want to make this country their home. As a result of this, we have seen America become a melting pot of cultures, offering its embrace to the poor and downtrodden. In many instances, however, the picture was far from pretty. The famous book “The Jungle”, written by Upton Sinclair (1906), was seen by many as a shocking expose into the sordid world of the meatpacking industry and the abysmal working conditions of the meatpackers, who were composed mainly of immigrants desperate for livelihood opportunities in what for them was a completely new frontier. Few saw it for what it was meant to be: a compelling saga of the poverty hopelessness, and crime that attended the lives of the working class immigrants of America from the period spanning the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the First World War. Unfortunately, that story takes place even today, as illegal immigrants find themselves caught in a life of poverty, dependence and crime. There are plenty of illegal immigrants in the United States, many of whom are from nearby Hispanic countries, most notably Mexico. It has been found that when the purchasing power of the dollar increases in Mexico, illegal immigration increases, suggesting that illegal immigration is brought on by economic reasons. (Hanson and Spilimbergo, 1996: 1). Research question: To what extent does illegal immigration affect the economy of the United States of America? Scope and statement of hypothesis: Given the breadth of the issue of illegal immigration, my focus will be the criminalization of illegal immigration, e.g., illegal immigrants who are sent to jail rather than be deported. My main argument is that illegal immigration affects the economy of the United States in adverse ways when illegal immigrants are sent to jail rather than be deported. While all of them can technically be called “criminals” because being in the country illegally is a crime, there are many who participate in criminal activity over and above the fact of their illegal immigrant status. We refer to those who engage in drug trafficking, in human trafficking, in illegal possession of firearms, in petty crimes. The big debate therefore is what to do with these illegal immigrants. Do we send them to our jails and thus spend taxpayer’s money for their care and upkeep, or do we institute deportation proceedings and send them back to their home countries? This paper will argue that illegal immigrants who have been arrested, charged criminally and found guilty by our criminal justice system should be subjected to deportation proceedings rather than be imprisoned in domestic jails. I will argue first on the resources aspect, and will discuss how keeping them in our jails drains this country of much-needed resources especially during a time of recession. Second, I will argue on the social-economic aspect, and look into how keeping them in domestic jails can possibly worsen the crime problem, because it will still allow them to operate criminal cells here in the country. In turn, this is a problem for the economy because it encourages the black market and the criminal enterprises and syndicates that render markets imperfect. Then, I will also argue how the immigration problem is unduly clogging the dockets of the courts, making it difficult for judges and prosecutors to focus on crimes such as robbery and murder, and thus leaving communities unsafe and vulnerable and affecting local economic activity. Finally, I will argue that on the political- economic aspect, it is only deportation that can send a strong, zero-tolerance message against illegal immigration – of particular importance at a time when illegal immigration is siphoning off much-needed jobs from the local population, and is draining the nation’s coffers by using up welfare and not paying taxes. Discussion Economic aspect The US Government Accountability Office (GAO), as early as 2005, had already pinpointed the growing number of illegal aliens in prison as an economic problem that demands to be quickly addressed. "When the United States incarcerates criminal aliens--noncitizens convicted of crimes while in this country legally or illegally--in federal and state prisons and local jails, the federal government bears much of the costs. It pays to incarcerate criminal aliens in federal prisons and reimburses state and local governments for a portion of their costs of incarcerating some, but not all, criminal aliens illegally in the country through the Department of Justice's State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) managed by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). Some state and local governments have expressed concerns about the impact that criminal aliens have on already overcrowded prisons and jails and that the federal government reimburses them for only a portion of their costs of incarcerating criminal aliens. [...] At the federal level, the number of criminal aliens incarcerated increased from about 42,000 at the end of calendar year 2001 to about 49,000 at the end of calendar year 2004--a 15 percent increase. The percentage of all federal prisoners who are criminal aliens has remained the same over the last 3 years--about 27 percent. The majority of criminal aliens incarcerated at the end of calendar year 2004 were identified as citizens of Mexico. We estimate the federal cost of incarcerating criminal aliens--Bureau of Prisons (BOP)'s cost to incarcerate criminals and reimbursements to state and local governments under SCAAP--totaled approximately $5.8 billion for calendar years 2001 through 2004." (GAO: 2005) Because the United States follows the Bill of Rights of the Constitution which was established by its founding fathers, and therefore treats its prisoners under humane conditions, it is obliged to provide a certain minimum standard of living for its prisoners. If it has to feed a ballooning number of illegal immigrants, these can cause a severe dent on the finances of the government – finances which should be better spent on education, on social services, on solving problems of unemployment and community security. It is my opinion that at this trying point at our country’s history, it cannot be wasteful with money. It must scrimp and save when it can, and cut corners when it is possible. There is an inherent unfairness that at a time of recession, where more money should go to social services and education for Americans, those who have a legal right to be in the country and who follow its laws and pay its taxes, state resources are being used to provide shelter and food to those who flout American law and who feel that they are unreachable by American policies. But an invisible problem that this poses is the fact that rich companies are becoming richer as a result of this phenomenon. In an article entitled “Immigration Enforcement Benefits Prison Firms” that came out at the New York Times, Kolodner (2006) wrote: "As the Bush administration gets tougher on illegal immigration and increases its spending on enforcement, some of the biggest beneficiaries may be the companies that have been building and running private prisons around the country. By the fall of 2007, the administration expects that about 27,500 immigrants will be in detention each night, an increase of 6,700 over the current number in custody. At the average cost these days of $95 a night, that adds up to an estimated total annual cost of nearly $1 billion. The Corrections Corporation of America and the Geo Group (formerly the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation) - the two biggest prison operators - now house a total of fewer than 20 percent of the immigrants in detention. But along with several smaller companies, they are jockeying for a bigger piece of the growing business. Corrections Corp. and Geo are already running 8 of the 16 federal detention centers. With all the federal centers now filled and the federal government not planning to build more, most of the new money is expected to go to private companies or to county governments. Even some of the money paid to counties, which currently hold 57 percent of the immigrants in detention, will end up in the pockets of the private companies, since they manage a number of the county jails." This is truly despicable, because what it demonstrates is how private firms take advantage of the illegal immigration problem in our country. Instead of helping with interventions to come up with preventive measures against illegal immigration, they benefit from having illegal immigrants come to our shores because they would profit from their incarceration. As it is, multi-million dollar enterprises are already becoming richer and richer as a result of illegal immigrants. We see how despite the lack of jobs for American citizens, illegal immigrants are still being hired by companies that want to obtain extra profit by not having to pay the appropriate wages and not having to confer employee benefits. That is why the main reason why illegal immigration is sought to be blocked is because of the unwarranted entry of illegal immigrants into the job market. (Chiswick, 1988: 101) Despite the recession and the high unemployment rate, illegal immigrant hiring is still prevalent. Hence, problems abound for all parties: these illegal immigrants are exposed to dangers and hazards, the American citizens are kept out of jobs, the country finds itself with a big debt problem. Little did we realize that there was another form of corporate opportunism: that which thrives on illegal immigrants who are sent to jails that have been privatized and whose services had been outsourced to the private sector. Another point on the economic aspect is that the economic burden is inequitably distributed. The states are close to the border between the United States and Mexico are the ones that feel the economic impact the most. In an article by the Minnesota Department of Administration entitled “The Impact of Illegal Immigration on Minnesota, costs and population trends” (2005), it was stated: "On the state level, the Minnesota Department of Corrections estimates that it cost approximately $14 million in FY 2005 to incarcerate illegal immigrants in Minnesota. Accounting for federal SCAAP payments that reimburse the state for some of these costs, the net total state cost was approximately $12.8 million in FY 2005. The costs have increased 22.3% over the FY01-FY05 period. During this period, the number of incarcerated illegal immigrants increased from 380 in FY 2001 to 501 in FY 2005. The 501 offenders constituted 5.9% of the FY 2005 overall average prison population in the state. In addition, Minnesota received less in federal SCAAP payments in FY 2005 than it did in FY 2001." In an impassioned August 30, 2006 speech by the Governor of Colorado in front of the US Senate Committee on Budget, a graphic depiction of the impact on the budget was outlined by Governor Bill Owens – "As we have learned here in Colorado in recent months, some of the costs can be elusive. But efforts such as this hearing will help all of us identify and understand the fiscal impacts. In many cases, the states and local governments incur significant costs related to illegal immigration, often due to federal mandates... We are able to identify the impact to our state correctional system for housing illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes. In Colorado prisons, we are housing over 950 illegal immigrants who, upon release, will be detained by the federal office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for likely deportation. At a cost of nearly $27,000 per prisoner, the annual cost to taxpayers to house these offenders is over $25 million." This $25 million could be used for other things. It is indeed unfortunate that it goes towards paying for humane treatment of individuals who should not have been here in the first place. Social-economic impact There are two-fold issues that accompany the social impact. The first one is that it does not solve the problem of crimes committed by illegal aliens at the root. If we want all the crimes that attend the phenomenon of illegal immigration – for example, human trafficking and drug trafficking – to be addressed with dispatch, the best thing to do is to send the ringleaders back to their home countries. Keeping them in our jails means keeping them in our territory, and still enables them to communicate with people. Srug cells, for example, are run from inside prison sometimes. An “operation” is occasionally masterminded by a person in detention with the good fortune of having a cellular phone. For example, we always here in the news of drug syndicates being run by a drug lord who is in an American prison. It is likely that he is not an American citizen, but he is incarcerated in American soil and he continues drug operates from the confines of his cell. Also, in some cases it is in the jails where the criminals become more hard-core, instead of becoming rehabilitated. In the jails of Texas, for example, the Texas Chicano Brotherhood is doing active recruitment among young men who find themselves in jail for petty crimes. When they come out, they become active members who graduate from petty theft and vandalism, to murder and drugs and human trafficking. Are these the people we want back in our streets? Would we really feel safe having them in our midst? If we think that for as long as they are in jail, they are no longer a burden to society, we have to think again. A recent article by the Telegraph (2011) has reported that the Mafia resorts to creative ways to get in touch with jailed Mafia bosses, even using the text ticker function of a football show on television to send coded messages that sound innocent to Mafia bosses who are behind bars. There is no truth therefore to the naive belief that just because someone is in jail, he cannot do damage to society and he no longer poses a threat. It is a very important point to make that crime slows down legitimate economic activity. As stated by Becsi (1999), “crime exacts tremendous costs not factored into official measures of well-being and… responds to economic conditions and incentives.” That the upswing in illegal immigration has taken a toll on law and order, and consequently on the economy, is confirmed by the Western Governor’s Association in a 2006 policy resolution with the title “US- Mexico Border Security and Illegal Immigration”: "As a result of the shared border and proximity to Mexico, Western states of the continental United States suffer a disproportionate financial burden on... criminal justice systems because of unauthorized migration from Mexico. Illegal immigration, however, is not solely a Western issue. It impacts the economy of the entire nation... Because border control measures have increased in recent years, so has the use of human trafficking networks, resulting in more violent crimes along the border, a dramatic uptick in assaults on law enforcement, and overwhelmed state and local criminal justice and correctional systems." Thus, if we really want criminal activity to abate – particularly criminal activity that are in our country as a result of the inflow of shady immigrants – the solution is not to keep them in our jails and provide them not only with opportunities to wreak more havoc, but also opportunities to recruit new membership into their unholy criminal fold. It is even possible that they recruit young Americans and turn them to a life of crime. Indeed, for our country’s security it is easier to just send them back to their country of origin and permanently stamp on their passports that they can no longer return to the United States of America. Another issue that arises is the congestion of our courts. Our dockets are already congested as it is and adding the cases of illegal immigrants is an overburden to the system. Burke and Myers (2011), writing for Huffington Post, sum up the situation nicely: Sentences for felony immigration crimes, which include illegal crossing as well as other crimes such as alien smuggling, accounted for about 87 percent of the increase in the number of Hispanics sent to prison over the past decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Sentencing Commission data. The trend has divided lawmakers and officials in the courts and along the border. Some politicians believe the en masse hearings should be expanded to deter illegal immigration. Others question whether the system actually affects people seeking to cross the border, while some contend the programs distract prosecutors from pursuing more serious crimes. The latter position appears to be more sound. The system does not seem to affect the decision of Hispanics to come to the United States, as more and more of them enter our borders every year. They are seemingly impervious to the very real possibility of being caught, apprehended and detained. What the system does effect is the criminal justice system itself, which is made up of a finite number of personnel and have a finite number of hours to complete their jobs. If their daily schedules are filled only to attending illegal immigration cases, what is to become of the other serious cases that they must handle as well? A poignant excerpt from the same article (ibid) is as follows – The programs have raised concerns about defendants' constitutional rights and the sheer volume of work flooding the courts. Critics say the programs overburden the court system and distract authorities from prosecuting major crimes. The debate surfaced tragically on Jan. 8, the day of the Tucson shooting rampage that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Arizona's Chief Judge John Roll, who died in the gunfire at the Safeway parking lot, had been pleading with Congress to hire more judges in Arizona, the busiest corridor for illegal immigration and drug smuggling. There were not enough judges to handle cases because of the sheer volume of illegal immigration cases that needed to be resolved. This underscores a serious flaw in the criminal justice system that needs to be properly, urgently and definitively addressed: how do we beef up the system so that it can still use an iron fist against illegal immigrants and the phenomenon of illegal immigration but can still have the operational capacity to address problems of crime? The most equitable solution therefore would be to just deport all illegal immigrants under deportation proceedings so as not to burden our jails and the judicial system. Political economic Aspect Another reason why it is better to just deport illegal immigrants is that it sends a very strong message against illegal immigration that jailing them simply cannot do. Jailing them on American soil will not deter their countrymen in their country of origin who may not be privy to the fact that the illegal immigrant had been detained in America. They might think that these immigrants are still enjoying the good life and reaping the benefits of the American way of life, and therefore try to illegally cross the border from Mexico to the United States. Unlike deportation, when those remaining in the coutry of origin can see with their own eyes that illegally crossing the border does not pay and will have consequences, the deterrent factor is big. Also, jailing them in American jails sends a contradictory message to the local American population, already reeling from and feeling the harsh economic effects of the U.S. recession. The main objection to illegal immigration does not really stem from xenophobic sentiments or racism – indeed, America has been known as the land of the free and will continue to remain the land of the free for as long as its democratic principles are preserved and cherished – it stems from simple principles of fairness. These illegal immigrants do not contribute anything to the national coffers because they do not pay any taxes. And yet, with their multiple dependents they siphon welfare from the American people – welfare which should be used for American children, children of those who pay correct taxes – and they take jobs from the American people. It is particularly disturbing that there is a great rise in the number of detainees in our prisons who are illegal immigrants. Says the Federation for American Immigration Reform (2007): "The criminal alien problem is growing. Criminal aliens--non-citizens who commit crimes--are a growing threat to public safety and national security, as well as a drain on our scarce criminal justice resources. In 1980, our federal and state prisons housed fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. By the end of 1999, these same prisons housed over 68,000 criminal aliens. Today, criminal aliens account for over 29 percent of prisoners in Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities and a higher share of all federal prison inmates. These prisoners represent the fastest growing segment of the federal prison population. Why then should the American people be made to pay the cost of feeding and maintaining these individuals when its own government does not even have enough resources at present to provide for the needs of its citizens? It is high time that the American government send a strong and reassuring message to its citizens. It is high time that the government take a political stand in favor of its own people and against those who perform criminal activity. The message must be sent that the American government will not condone those people who choose to live a life of crime and yet live off the resources of the country where they perform their criminal activity. CONCLUSION This paper has argued three main reasons as to why illegal immigrants must not be detained in American jails, but rather, must be deported back to their countries of origin. These three main reasons are: the economic aspect, or the dent in the resources of the government because of the need to fund these prisoners in prison; the social aspect, or how it will encourage more criminality; and the political aspect, or the need to send a strong message against illegal immigration, especially in these trying times for the American economy. Illegal immigration remains to be a challenge that our country is facing. It gives rise to multiple and complex problems that should be addressed with decisive, long-term and well-thought out strategies. Jailing them might solve the problem in the short-term, but it does not offer any long term or sustainable solutions. Our jails are limited, and the flow of illegal immigrants in the border has not slowed down. What happens when the time comes that our jails can no longer hold these immigrants? REFERENCES Becsi, Z. (1999). “Economics and Crime in the States”, Economic Review, Q1, p. 38-56. Burke, G. and Myers, A. (2011). “Arizona’s Illegal Immigrants Stressing Prisons, Legal System.” Huffington Post Denver. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/06/arizona-immigrant-population_n_871990.html\ Chiswick, B. (1988). “Illegal Immigration and Border Control.” Journal of Economic Perspectives. Vol. 2, Number 3. Page 101-115. Federation for American Immigration Reform. (2007). Criminal Aliens. Retrieved from http://www.fairus.org/site/PageNavigator/issues/illegal_immigration.html Hanson, G. and Spilimbergo, A. (1996). “Illegal Immigration, Border Enforcement and Relative Wages: Border Apprehensions at the U.S. Mexico Border.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 5592. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w5592. Kolodner, M. (2006) Immigration Enforcement Benefits Prison Firms. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2398137. Minnesota Department of Administration. (2005) The Impact of Illegal Immigration on Minesotta, Costs and Population Trends. Retrieved from http://immigration.procon.org/sourcefiles/TheImpactofIllegalImmigrationonMinnesotaCostsandPopulationTrends.pdf Owens, Bill. (2006) What are the solutions to illegal immigration in America? Retrieved from http://immigration.procon.org/view.source.php?sourceID=003036 Sinclair, Upton. (1906). The Jungle. United States: Doubleday, Jabber and Company. Squires, N. (2010). “Mafia Using Football Show to Send Messages to Jailed Bosses.” The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/7958800/Mafia-using-football-show-to-send-messages-to-jailed-bosses.html United States Government Accountability Office. (2005) Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails. Retrieved from http://immigration.procon.org/sourcefiles/InformationonCriminalAliensIncarceratedinFederalandStatePrisonsandLocalJails.pdf Read More