Aren't illegal immigrants keeping our economy in tact?

I read that without them,our economy could potentially collapse.It makes sense if you think about it.Their labor in this country is the reason we have lower prices.If they weren't here, wouldn't the companies have to outsource the labor (since not many Americans will do the jobs illegal aliens do) which would inevitably raise prices for us? If the companies have to spend more money to send the work elsewhere, they would raise their prices to make profit.Illegal aliens might place a burden on social sercives, this may be true, but don't they make up for it in providing long hours of work a day for almost nothing?Aren't we living luxuriously (compared to most of them) because of their work?Would you rather pay .50 for an apple or 2.50?Anti-illegal immigration advocates always point out how illegal aliens take away from the economy (which does have some truth to it),but ALWAYS seem to fail to mention how they ALSO contribute to it.We must weigh both the pros and cons.

you have hit the nail on the head, Undocumented are our keeping economy intact, The payroll deductions are bailing out the Social security system.
I will not address all of the answerer's but the one who stated the most question without one bit of documentation to buttress his opinions.
#1 The US economy is not doing well the National debt has doubled in the last 7 Bush years, from $5 trillion to the present
$9,170,889,212,332.05 or $30,190.40 for each resident of the US.

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

In Sinking Currency, Sinking Country
Pat Buchanan , Conservative : States;

"The dollar is plunging because America has been living beyond her means, borrowing $2 billion a day from foreign nations to maintain her standard of living and to sustain the American Imperium."
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?i...

The US Department of Labor,Office of the Secretary.

Study; Summary of Findings:
"despite pervasive poverty among farm workers, few used social insurance or social service programs."

Only US citizens and a few legal residents are eligible for section 8 housing. Undocumented are not eligible for US federal funded services, by The Welfare Reform Act 0f 1998.

http://www.dol.gov/asp/programs/agworker...

Threats to national sovereignty, Back in the 1970s, Dr Jose Angel Gutierrez, Administrative law Judge for the City of Dallas Texas, Uttered those words in his younger Chicano day, Which Anglos use as if it was said yesterday, Dr Gutierrez, has accomplishments, that the most people pray for.
http://.www.libraries.uta.edu/tejanovo...

Last year Colorado passed some of the toughest anti-immigration laws in the country, Now they are paying for that decision. With no one to pick them , crops are rotting in the fields, the desperate growers raised the pickers wage to $9.60 an hour ,well above the $5.15 minimum wage to attract American pickers with few takers for those jobs.

These are jobs Americans Simply will not do.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-e...

We have weighed the pro's and cons... the costs far outweigh the benefits. Having open borders in a welfare state is slow suicide.

The fact is our economy is in tact in SPITE of the net loss caused by illegal immigration. It will be doing even better once we get rid of them.

Overpopulation
Suppression of wages
Increased crime rates
Threats to national sovereignty (check out La Raza)
Overcrowded schools
Bankrupt Hospitals
Flooding the Section 8 housing rolls

I'm not worried about the price of apples.
-If labor becomes too expensive, we'll automate.
-If some jobs get sent overseas, at least we won't be subsidizing those workers with tax dollars anymore.
-Illegals are mostly in service industries and construction, neither of which can be sent overseas in the first place.

All of the money saved by exploiting cheap third world labor goes into the pockets of CEO's and employers. 70% of our produce comes from other countries. I'd pay a hundred dollars for an apple if it would rid my country of this scourge.

They tried this argument in the 1950's when they were rounded up - it just spurred automation.

If a countries' economy is dependent upon slave labor it is already in deep trouble.

They use billions in social services a year.

You must not have a job yet to be such a champion of low pay.

Yes the immigrants are working hard for less but they are also taking jobs from many Americans and are increasing the crime rate. They are making life better for us in a sense but is that really how our country wants to work? Living off of the hard labour of people not as lucky as us and paying them less? Even if they do think that it benefits them. AMERICANS are what make up America.

No..... when you factor in the 70 billion cost of social services and increase in crime, illegals cause damage to the economy. Only 12% work in argriculture and most fruit is imported into the US any way.

In many ways you are correct, but what you fail to take into account is that the jobs that Americans won't do, for the most part are agricultural, because of the cheep supply of illegal labor, the agricultural industry has had the least amount of technological improvements in how the jobs are done, than just about any sector in the United States Market.

By eliminating the source of cheep labor research and development would actually be done in the agriculture business and you could see a new renaissance in agriculture.

In most other industries the cheep labor is just a tool so that the business behind them can make even more money. Just look at the housing Market in the last 10 year, in my neighbor hood, the homes when first put on sale where in the high 300K in the last phase of construction the homes sold for 850K and higher. The cost for construction of these homes did not increase, the land was bought over 30 years ago. So why can't we pay construction workers a living wage?

On top of that, what illegals cost us far exceeds what they contribute. Think about it, they use the roads, they put their kids in schooll, they use the emergency rooms as their own private dr's office.

Because of this schooling is being hindered by overcrowding, the freeways are all but unusable, and god forbid you have to go to the emergency room.

By the most recent estimates, illegal immigration is costing us Billions a year, whereas what they contribute is only a fraction of that.

So you are right we must weight the pro's and Cons, and as far as I am concerned the Cons have it.

No illegals are hurting the economy. It is not a racist statement, it is a fact.
The burden that illegals have on our social services is FAR GREATER than any benefit that they provide.
Illegals don't pay state or federal taxes.
Illegals don't pay into Social Security.
Americans pay for health care for these illegals.
Our education systems and police departments have to spend money on teaching their staff Spanish, because illegals don't even bother to learn English. This money could go to other school activities, or better police programs.
Etc, etc, etc.

Prices for food would go up slightly yes, not by a huge percentage as some say.

I'd say the nays have the greater majority here and I'd have to agree with them completely!

Do you find it interesting that the slave owners of the old south used the same threat of economic collapse if their slaves were freed. Now the modern day slaves, called illegal aliens, and their masters are using the same threats. Every company can't leave here. But companies like Yahoo import immigrants to work for them. They have stated in Congressional testimony that American kids are to, "stupid" to work the Internet jobs at Yahoo. Our economy will be fine.

You are quite correct in a way. If our companies start outsourcing, the consequences are much more drastic than just having to pay higher prices. Outsourcing also results in a loss of jobs for Americans. For example, if a manufacturing plant moves to China, then along with the laborers, dozens of higher-paid jobs will go along with it.

A recent study authored by Professor Philip Martin of the University of California, Davis and released by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that there is no widespread shortage of farm labor in the United States. The study also finds that because labor costs comprise only 6 percent of the cost of fresh produce, wages could still rise 40 percent and the cost to the average household would be only about $8 a year.

Professor Martin reaches his conclusions by examining two trends. First, Martin notes that data show farm productivity rising, not falling. If farmers were experiencing an actual labor shortage, Martin argues, productivity would fall and farmers would begin to plant less. Second, Martin evaluates data showing a slowing rise in farm workers' wages, especially in California and Florida where wages are rising at a slower rate than in the rest of the country. Martin also points out that growers are less frequently offering non-wage benefits such as housing that were once used to attract workers.

This and other findings in the CIS study directly challenge the claims by agribusiness that crops are dying in the field and that placing a requirement on all employers to verify work eligibility would cause the price of fruits and vegetables to skyrocket. They also demonstrate that there is no immediate need to expand the existing agricultural guest worker program (H-2A program). Martin suggests that because there is no economic or government definition of a labor shortage, growers may simply claim to have a shortage of workers if there are plenty of workers, but many of them leave for higher paying jobs.

Martin notes that government reports also suggest that there are no widespread farm labor shortages, pointing to both the September 2007 Congressional Research Service report and the 1997 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. However, even if a farm workers shortage were to occur, Martin argues that it would have little impact on the prices of fruits and vegetables. Given that the average person currently spends $1 on fresh fruits and vegetables per day, a labor shortage would only increase his or her daily expenditure by 2 cents. Over the course of a year, this would come to an additional $7.80 spent on fresh fruit and vegetables.

What the illegal immigrants are keeping us in is TAX, not tact. As long as our government forces law abiding citizens to support these illegal invaders we will have to pay increased taxes to continue to support them.

NO MORE SOUP FOR YOU ! what part of illegal seems to escape you?stop buying into the elite drivel they are killing the USA economy.

Heavens no. What they are doing is cheating the system in many, many ways with fake documents, shipping some 20+ billion to Mexico yearly, and tapping into welfare and medical care as fast as they can.

No. La Raza says that. Ask them for proof and you don't hear another word.

absolutely NOT....they cost more than they contribute....period......

You're right: get rid of them, and watch companies leave here. And the people that hate illegals would all say the government is selling us out, when intelligent companies trying to survive in the global economy are simply making the moves they need to to survive.

Studies have shown that illegals are a burden on taxpayers for the services they claim, but the fact that they keep businesses here in the US, and they pay taxes on employment amounts to a net gain at the state and federal level, at the expense of the population's tax contributions (which generally is less than 1-2% of the taxes each citizen pays).

People that dislike illegal aliens are usually racist, and only dislike them because someone else told them to. You are also correct in that any positive facts or statistics are simply brushed aside as lies by this crowd.