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America has been known as a home for immigrants from nearly everywhere since our founding and even before. Many immigrants have become famous Americans including authors Isabel Allende and Frank McCourt, founder of Intel Andrew Grove, former Secretary's of State Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger, and Nobel Prize winners Hans Bethe and Elie Wiesel. These few names demonstrate the intelligence and talent that some immigrants can bring to the US. These immigrants, however, came to America through a certain channel that is designed to separate out those immigrants that do not bring such intelligence or talent or those with undesirable records such as rapists or other violent criminals. As a reward for moving through the proper channels and following the proper process, we extend nearly all benefits that Americans enjoy to these immigrants.

A failing occurs, however, when we begin to extend these same benefits to illegal immigrants. The US determines how many immigrants to accept based on several factors, including our ability as a nation to provide assistance to immigrants while they are trying to start out. When benefits are extended to illegal immigrants, it costs money that is not available in the budget. This leads to a rise in taxes to cover the deficit. To put this in perspective, in 2006 there were an estimated ten million illegal immigrants in the US. These illegal immigrants cost the nation approximately $70 billion. That is a cost of roughly $372 per working American in one year.

While it also costs the American economy to allow legal immigration, we can control legal immigration and accept immigrants that demonstrate an ability to have an overall positive impact on the American economy and on American society. This allows us to reduce the financial impact of immigration in the short term as well as creating a benefit for the US economy in the long term. In this case, everybody wins: immigrants are given a chance to create a better life for themselves and the US gains productive workers and talented individuals.

Another consideration that should be made is that immigration laws are designed to help keep violent or repeat criminals out of the US. When immigrants come to America illegally, we do not have an opportunity to screen for criminals. This not only creates costs for the US in the way of law enforcement, judicial procedures and incarceration, it allows violent criminals an opportunity to walk the streets of our hometowns. Sex offenders prosecuted in the US are required to register their current address, but there is no way for us to extend this requirement to illegal immigrants. Should we, then, reward these criminals for their illegal entry into America and their disrespect for our laws with the same benefits that we extend to residents? In my opinion, we should not extend any benefits to them. The cost of illegal immigration cannot be considered only in dollars. We must also consider the cost to our safety and security.

I support equal rights for all Americans and I fully support legal immigration into our country, however, I cannot support illegal immigrants. The cost of providing government benefits to illegal aliens is simply to great. The cost is not only too great in dollars and cents, but also in the safety and security of our family. In the US, we do not reward our citizens for breaking the law. Why should we reward non-citizens for breaking it?

Learn more about this author, Matthew Waters.
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