We found ourselves interested in the fact that United States companies are hiring illegal immigrants, and don't seem to be facing any repercussions. We decided to look into the laws surrounding employment, and also research the impact that hiring of illegal immigrants is having on employment opportunities for legal United Stated citizens.

When we started our research, we were overwhelmed by the amount of information relating to immigration and business. As we continued to narrow our field of interest, we were very interested in the information we found.

It appears that not only is the government not enforcing laws against employing illegal immigrants, but it is also working at making it easier to do so. How is this affecting the U.S. economy?

Well, although there are some who would say that "Immigrants have practically no negative effect in the labor market on any person except other immigrants," the majority of the research we did led us to a very different conclusion:
When U.S. companies hire illegal immigrants, it means there are fewer jobs for American citizens. Not only that, but it also affects the wages in that field of work.

Our current administration is pushing to ease laws regarding immigration and citizenship, which appears to be an effort to get the support of both the voting immigrants, and big businesses. The economic consequences are pretty clear, and have been summarized neatly here: "The negative effect will occur regardless of whether the immigrant workers are legal or illegal, temporary or permanent. Any sizable increase in the number of immigrants will inevitably lower wages for some American workers." Granted, any influx of workers, no matter their legal status, will affect the work available and wages offered. However, companies should be held responsible and hire only legal U.S. citizens, and should be held accountable when they fail to check well enough.

It is estimated that there are currently approximately 10.5 million illegal immigrants entering the U.S. annually. It is also estimated (being that the immigrants have entered the country illegally, they are undocumented, and therefore it is difficult to track and gather statistics about them) that illegal immigrants make up about 10% of the U.S. workforce.