Monica Lane
ENG 102
February 13, 2011
Terri Ruckel
Should illegal immigrants be allowed to stay in the United States if they entered the country illegally and not by the laws governing the states? An individual who is residing in a country illegally is known as an “illegal immigrant.” Regardless, of how an immigrant obtained their new home country, they decided to take a risk and move to a foreign country in search of a better life. Americans are mostly against illegal immigration. But the majority of Americans do not know the situation that our country is in and the damage that illegal immigrants do to our country. Americans believe something should be done to control immigration, legal and illegal. Our president and other elected officials almost all take an opposing view. We must recognize that any program that rewards illegal aliens who have broken the laws of the United States is undeserving and unwarranted pardon, no matter what it is called. Polls show that 70% of Americans want illegal immigration stopped and serious reductions in legal immigration down to fewer that 100,000 per year. Ten percent of Mexico now lives in our country. We pay $60 billion in expenses for immigration annually. Immigrants send home $10.5 billion to Mexico, $25 billion to Latin America, $16 billion to Asia and it is draining our country. The population of illegal immigrants has hit 35 million in the United States. Taxpayer dollars are funding luxury detention centers for these immigrants that have entered our country illegally. According to a news article from WSBTV in Atlanta, GA, the government is changing the holding facilities of illegal immigrants into “country club holding centers” that reward people who are breaking the law. One method often popular with immigrants from the Caribbean is to cross the Atlantic Ocean to reach the United States. Some immigrants from South America may fly