by Melanie Pinette

Created on: November 02, 2009

Illegal immigration is an ongoing battle in the United States that stirs conoversy in all Americans. Although I chose the 'arrest' side of the debate, I can't say I agree with either side. It's a very difficult and touchy subject that can start a heated debate in a matter of seconds. When weighing the odds, I found there to be more cons for sending them home verses prosecution.

The reason I find it so difficult to make a decision is because I empathize with the illegal immigrants. It is well know that the reason they are attempting to gain entry into the United States is because of the deplorable conditions in their native country that are forcing them to seek a better way of life not only for themselves, but for their families that are usually left behind. On the flip side, why should Americans be ashamed to send them back when they are taking jobs and vital resources from us, not to mention the billions it costing taxpayers every year for everything from education to healthcare. In these tough economical times, unemployed Americans should not have to compete for jobs with illegal aliens.www.fairus.org), in California alone, the annual cost of incarcerating illegal aliens amounts to approximately $1.4 billion. That doesn't even include law enforcement and judicial expenses or the monetary costs of the crimes that led to their incarceration. Since no consensus exists, it makes it difficult to come up with an exact national amount. That's only the financial aspect of choosing to incarcerate, since there's also the overpopulation of our prison systems to look at. It's estimated that 27 percent of inmates in both state and federal prison systems are illegal aliens, which brings me to the topic of sending them home.www.thelede.com. We also need to take into account that the majority of them that are deported attempt reentry at least once, which means it's not only a vicious cycle of deportation attempts, it's also more tax dollars being wasted on a never-ending battle.

Lets first look at incarceration. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (

While housing them in our prisons is costing taxpayers and astronomical amount of money each year, sending them home will inevitably cost us more. Again, since there is no exact calculation, it is estimated that the cost of trying to locate, detain and deport the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in this country would be a shocking $94 billion as stated on

I'm not sure if there is any happy-medium to this national problem, but can only hope that one day we find a resolution that will both economically and morally satisfy the majority of American citizens.

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