America, a country so new in its existence yet so advanced in its worldliness, was born on immigration. Millions flocked to our “new world” not too many years ago in search of freedom and opportunity. Since then, every year that goes by has seen an influx of aliens, all in search of those same goals our ancestors once had years ago. Immigration is simply defined as the settling in a non-native country or region. However, immigration is not that simple. It is a highly debated issue by various social groups and individuals, both of which provide feverish arguments about their respective sides of the problem.
In order to fully understand immigration it is necessary to divide it up into two counterparts: legal and illegal. Legal immigrants are those who have applied for citizenship on grounds of employment, family etc. They receive a green card as proof of proper residence after a routine background check and being granted the privilege by the U.S government. On the other hand, illegal immigrants lack any proper documentation and likely gained entrance into the country by sneaky, unconventional means (i.e border hopping); they also may have previously received a visa but neglected to leave the country after it’s expiration. While some people only discriminate against illegal immigrants, there are a great number who resent the idea of immigration as a whole: legal or illegal. There are two sides to this controversial issue.
Illegal immigration often feels the most animosity. Many American citizens resent illegal immigrants who get to live freely in the United States without paying income taxes as well as social security to the federal and state governments. These illegal aliens also receive many unwarranted health care benefits paid for by the law-abiding
citizens of the United States. It has been documented that U.S citizens pay approximately 8 billion dollars to educate illegal immigrants, 1.5 billion dollars to imprison them for crimes, 6 billion dollars on...