Is Illegal Immigration Destroying America?

Trumped Up? When one searches the phrase "illegal immigrants" on YouTube they are assaulted with negative videos entitled "The Illegal Invasion of America," "Is Illegal Immigration Destroying America?," “American Patriots Shout Down Illegal Immigration Pushing Traitor Rep. Luis Gutierrez,” and many more. This is merely one way to see what most people in America think about illegal immigration these days. The popular opinion is that illegal immigration is a terrible thing that hurts our economy because immigrants steal American jobs. Though this topic has been largely ignored for years, it’s been brought back into the public eye by the upcoming 2016 presidential elections. One presidential candidate, Donald Trump, is using immigration as a

Trump’s immigration plan proposes reforms that “[put] the needs of working people first,” and brings us in line with the rest of the world in putting the needs of our own nation above the needs of other nations (Trump). However, the popular opinion on immigration isn’t always factually correct in its assertions. Since Trump’s immigration reform is based on and shaped towards public opinion, his reform is then, by extension, not always correct. Since Trump is currently a front-runner in the presidential elections, voters need to be aware of the truth of the matter to make an informed decision. Though the economic aspect of Donald Trump’s proposed immigration reform has some merit, many of his statements are unfounded, based on false assumptions, and economically

Tim Fernholz, in his article “The Numbers Show Why Donald Trump Is Totally Wrong About Immigrants,” cites two studies on the effects of immigration on native workers’s wages. Both studies, the first covering 1994-2007 and the second covering 1990-2006, found that natives from every education bracket (less than high school, high school, some college, and college) saw their wages rise by 0.40% according to the first study and 0.60% according to the second study during “the 1990s tech bubble and the 2000s housing bubble, when many immigrants came to the US in search of jobs” (Fernholz).While Trump claims that illegal immigrants “hold down salaries,” studies find that “almost everyone has seen wages rise thanks to immigrants in the economy, even though they are pretty marginal effects” (Fernholz). In an article entitled “Higher Immigration, Lower Crime,” Daniel Griswold, Director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, states that “even though the number of legal and illegal immigrants in the United States has risen sharply since the early 1990s, the size and condition of the economic underclass has not. In fact, by several measures the number of people in America living on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder has been in a long-term decline” (43). So, though Trump believes immigrants make it harder for natives to earn a middle class wage, the