GALE Opposing Viewpoints In Context

The database, GALE Opposing Viewpoints in Context, is a peer reviewed database providing an overview of illegal immigration, the act of entering and residing in a country without the proper legal visas or documents. Currently, the United States of America (USA) has the highest population of undocumented workers in the world, estimated at 10 million residents (GALE database). Illegal aliens enter the USA in several ways, including but not limited to sneaking across the border without any documents, stowing away on ships, entering the United States (US) with fraudulent documents, or staying after the permitted time on a temporary legal visa. Nearly half of the illegal immigrants in America arrived legally with temporary visas and then overstayed
It states the [Barack] Obama administration has “deported 1.5 million additional immigrants, including a total of 409,849 in fiscal year 2012—the highest number of immigrants ever removed from the United States in a single year.” The article argues that is partly due to the dysfunctional immigration and police system that allows “low-level arrests as a basis for initiating deportation” which causes the detention and deportation of hundreds of thousands of long-settled and hard-working immigrants in addition to distrust and fear of local police. Furthermore, the two agencies in charge of immigration enforcement spent $17.1 billion in fiscal year 2012, which amounts to billions of dollars spent of deporting people who have not committed crimes and are contributing to America’s prospering economy. The article’s proposition is that America benefits from illegal immigrants and deportation of law-abiding immigrants is
Simply building a wall will not prevent illegal immigrants from entering the US because almost half of the undocumented residents entered with a legal visa. Once they were established in their new homes, they overstayed the visa and joined the 11 million undocumented residents in the United States. In order to deport all illegal immigrants, the government would need to allocate $420 billion to $620 billion and around twenty years to the endeavor (Borderline Insanity). Additionally, building and maintaining the 1,933 mile wall to deter illegal immigrants from entering or reentering the US would cost around $150 billion (Borderline Insanity). This money would be far better spent on internal affairs or reforms on the Immigration Policies instead of building an ineffective and expensive wall around the US-Mexico