I want to know if they shape the in the best way, or a bad way?

 

  • Katie 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    Most immigrants come here because they are desperate for work. In America, it’s very difficult to get a good job (or what we would consider to be a "good" job) without an education and fluency in English, which most immigrants don’t have. Therefore, they willingly take jobs that are very low in desirability for us, such as trash collection, construction, restaurant kitchen work, or cleaning services. They are willing to take minimum wage, or if they are here illegally, they often take less than minimum wage (employers know they won’t be reported for underpaying because the last thing that illegal immigrants want is any sort of trouble with the government). In short, it costs much less when immigrants take these jobs, because in order to entice Americans to take that kind of work, they would have to be paid much more. If you could work for minimum wage, and either make coffee at Starbucks or haul gravel by hand, which would you do? Probably the gravel-hauling would have to pay a lot more for you to be interested. Me too. Immigrants don’t "take our jobs." They take the jobs that nobody else wants.

    Because the cost of labor is lower (nearly all companies employ people do this kind of work), companies make more profits, which means they turn over more in taxes to the government. Again, because immigrants, especially those who are here undocumented, try to avoid trouble of any kind, they typically pay taxes as well and tend to avoid making use of the public services that their taxes are supposed to provide for them, essentially giving money to the government.

    I would definitely say they shape the economy in a good way.

  • Joey2times 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    Surely not what "zzsleepur" posted. His source has been debunked many times on here LOL

    http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/cost-of-illegal-immigrants/
    Browse > Home / Ask FactCheck / Cost of Illegal Immigrants
    Cost of Illegal Immigrants

    Q: Do illegal immigrants cost $338.3 billion dollars a year? More than the Iraq war?

    A: A chain e-mail that makes this claim is loaded with errors and misleading assertions. Published studies vary widely but put the cost to government at a small fraction of that total.

    FULL ANSWER

    This chain e-mail has been forwarded to us by readers many times over the past year. The most recent version adds a new angle, claiming that the amount of money taxpayers spend on illegal immigrants would be enough to "stimulate the economy." But no matter the spin, the e-mail is rife with errors.

    It also contains several red flags that should tip off readers that this is more bogus than believable. For one thing, the figures given don’t add up to a "whopping $338.3 billion dollars a year" spent on illegal immigrants in the U.S., as the e-mail claims.

    The e-mail lists 14 claims about illegal immigrants, all of which were included in a longer list penned by anti-immigration activist Frosty Wooldridge and published on the conservative Web site NewswithViews.com on Jan. 22, 2007. Another NewswithViews columnist, Lynn Stuter, included Wooldridge’s list, with some updated links, in an article posted on April 15, 2008.

    The source cited for at least nine of the items is either the conservative Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) or the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), both of which call for more restrictive immigration laws. CIS spokesman Bryan Griffith told us that he had never seen the e-mail but that he suspected something was out there because of occasional surges in traffic that forced him to rewrite Web pages. When told about the e-mail’s contents and conclusion of a $338.3 billion yearly cost, he responded that CIS "never said anything of the like and is not going to comment on a chain e-mail that is in no way scientific."

    The e-mail also continually blurs the important distinction between legal and illegal immigrants – a sign of sloppy and untrustworthy work.

  • GreasyTony 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    Here’s a few of many way they contribute to the economy:

    1. They are the backbone of our labor workforce. Many companies, especially farms have come to rely on them. We are already in a "Farm Labor Crisis" because of the new immigration laws, and Citizens not wanting the jobs they are leaving behind. Without workers, more and more farms are either shutting down, or moving to Mexico where the workers are without immigration issues.

    U.S. Farm Labor Crisis.
    http://www.saveusfarms.org/

    U.S. farmers go where workers are: Mexico
    http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/04/america/export.php

    2. They are tax payers and consumers of America. They pay BILLIONS in taxes every year, and make BILLIONS in purchases every year to! They buy houses, cars, food, cloths, music, electronics and the list goes on and on. They don’t claim taxes, and all that stays in the US system. Those taxes help Social Security and Medicare stay around, they help legal Citizens get a retirement check every month, and taxes they pay in rent also helps local schools and maintenance of our roads. Most pay more taxes then the little bit of services they use and are eligible for.

    Illegal Immigrants pay BILLIONS in taxes
    http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2008/04/10/20080410biz-TaxingImmigrants-10.html

    Report Says Illegals Contribute
    http://www.whsv.com/virginiaap/headlines/15645097.html

    3. Hispanic Illegal Immigrants are part of the Hispanic Buying Power in the U.S. that’s expected to reach $1TRILLION by 2011. Get rid of them all, and we’ll never see that projection.

    Hispanic entrepreneurship, buying power on the rise
    http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/01/hispanics.economy/index.html?eref=ib_topstories

  • Buck 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    they working for less of the minimum wage as know as slavery wage

  • Game Over03 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    they contribute by producing and consuming products in America , if it wasn’t for them there would be less production and therefor America would have less to sell to other countries and at the same time less stuff would be bought inside the USA . cars , houses , food and clothes are all stuff which the undocumented both consume and produce , their presence in the USA is better than having to buy stuff made in other countries since the people from those other countries are less likely to consume the same they produce , plus if they did then they would pay taxes to their governments not to the USA .

    there its studies like the one made by the Texas comptroller which indicate a net loss of as much as 18 billion dollars , such studies include the services they use and the Taxes they pay into the system and conclude than that with out them Texas would lose 18 billions as i already indicated .

  • Forest 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    I wonder how much withholding those guys hanging out at home depot get taken from the cash they get. And I wonder if they even know what FICA is.

  • zzsleepur 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal
    aliens each year by state governments.

    2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance
    programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school
    lunches for illegal aliens.

    Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

    3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal
    aliens.

    Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

    4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!

    5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the
    American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.

    Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

    6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.

    Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/ TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

    7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.

    Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

    8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and Social Services by the American taxpayers.

    Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

    9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.

    Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC RI PTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

    10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate
    that’s two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.

    Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

    11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S. from the Southern border.

    Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht <http://tinyurl.com/t9sht>

    12. The National Policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.’

    13. In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittance to their countries of origin.

    14. ‘The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States ..’

    The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR AND IF YOU’RE HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY; IT IS $338,300,000,000.00 WHICH WOULD BE ENOUGH TO STIMULATE THE ECONOMY FOR THE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY……….
    Are we that stupid? YES, FOR LETTING THOSE IN THE U.S. CONGRESS GET AWAY WITH LETTING THIS HAPPEN YEAR
    AFTER YEAR!!!!!

  • Bobbi 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    By devaluing wages, making goods and services cheaper for Americans.

  • Paula 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    Usually paid off the books, rarely have auto insurance or valid drivers’ licenses, use a lot of social services, send billions of dollars in money earned in the U.S. out of the country where the money is used to purchase non-US goods/services, high criminality rates, they are basically a multi-billion dollar a year drain on the U.S. economy.

  • Reality has a Liberal Bias 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    They pay taxes through withholding and FICA, and they’re afraid to use government services, so net, they contribute to the economy.

  • helloworldtomorrow 8:33 am on December 20, 2009 Permalink |

    Depends which economy you’re talking about. When I was in Bahrain for a few years I witnessed how the monarchy exploited incredibly cheap foreign labour with no health insurance or any insurance or any freakin’ benefits. Most (not all) lived in tiny cramped quarters, not much larger than a prison cell with 4 or 5 other room mates and were worked to the bone every day (sometimes day and night with just 6 hours for sleep). Of course this is just one country and others are way different. But in this example the Bahrain government profits greatly from immigrants (who btw, are kicked out of the country if they fall ill or lose their job).