Essay Example: Immigrants Drain US Economy

The debate whether immigrants drain US resources has taken place for some time. Among the debtors, some believe that immigrants drain US resources while others strongly oppose. Those who say that illegal immigrants use government resources while they are in the US by visiting health facilities and using other public resources that are funded using taxpayers money. Using state resources without contributing to taxes would for sure amount to draining the US economy. The supporters of the debate call for deportation of the immigrants because they lead to overcrowding in the government's facilities such as public schools.

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On the other hand, those who oppose argue that the claims that immigrants drain public resources are baseless and lack supporting evidence. First, the immigrants are known to carry out manual work. According to Adam Smith, a nation economy grows when there are specialization and division of labor (Davidson, Adam). When one group of people in a country carries out a certain task, they give others an opportunity to concentrate on their work. The manual work performed by the immigrants offers skilled personnel working on a site that requires routine manual work in the US time to focus on their job, for example, the carpenters and electricians. The assistance they receive from the immigrants helps them to produce more and improve the quality of their work.

The immigrants whether legal or illegal pay taxes to the federal government and contribute to Social Security from their salaries. Their tax contribution amounts to around $ 15 billion, but they receive little benefits from the government amounting to approximately $ 1 billion because they do not qualify to receive them (Davidson, Adam). Their contribution helps in building the economy and contribution towards the budget of the US. Rarely do immigrants get involved into crime activities, and this means that most of their time is spend working and improving the economy and less in the prisons is spend on them.

Most immigrants are young people who work for low-income jobs. The highest percentage of people who visit health facilities in the US is accounted for by the aged group. The young immigrants rarely visit health centers, and they spend most of the money earned from their wages in the country. A small proportion of their earning is sent back home. The spending of their money in the country and spending most of their time working leads to economic growth and they improve the economy rather than being a liability (Reston, Laura). Most immigrants also do not move to the US with their families and therefore, they do not contribute to the overcrowding of public school. The primary aim they have when moving to the US is to look at income for their families. The legal migrants who move with their relatives in the country work hard and send their children to school. The second generation of the immigrants is composed of well educated and skilled group that provide skilled labor. The contribution of the second generation to the economy is above the average contribution of the Native Americans (Liu, Eric). At the age of retirement, when it is expected that they would become a burden to the economy because of high medical attention required, most immigrants move back to their countries of origin.

In conclusion, there is substantial evidence that immigrants do not drain the US economy rather they contribute to its growth. They help by enabling job specialization and division, a factor that allows most Native Americans earn more. They also pay taxes and contribute to the Social Security enabling the government to fulfill its duties to citizens.

Works Cited

Davidson, Adam. "Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt The U.S. Economy?". The New York Times, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magazine/do-illegal-immigrants-actually-hurt-the-us-economy.html.

Liu, Eric. "Do Immigrants Drain Society?". Times, 2013, http://ideas.time.com/2013/02/12/do-immigrants-drain-society/.Reston, Laura. "Immigrants Don't Drain Welfare. They Fund It.". New Republic, 2015, https://newrepublic.com/article/122714/immigrants-dont-drain-welfare-they-fund-it.