Renee Burns

West Milford Twp. High School

67 Highlander Drive

West Milford, NJ 07480

November 3, 2016

Future President at the White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Future President:

Hello, my name is Renee Burns and I am glad to be writing this letter to you! By the time you receive this, you are going to be the President of the United States, congratulations! The reason I am contacting you is because I have some serious concerns for our great country. This issue is the ridiculously high population of illegal or undocumented immigrants that are currently living in the United States. This situation is a problem and in my opinion needs to be addressed immediately.

Illegal immigration has become a growing issue in our country over the past one hundred plus years. Many people from other countries all over the world have decided they would like to live in the United States and that is great! Immigration is a great thing. It brings diversity, cultural traditions and excitement to our country. But immigration becomes a problem when the people wishing to live in America, enter our country with the plan of living here without the correct documentation to be considered a citizen of the United States. A recent article from the Pew Research Center on September 20, 2016, states that there are 11.1 million illegal immigrants living in the US as of 2014, and of those 11.1 million illegal immigrants, 59% of them live in the states of Texas, California, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois. These undocumented immigrants are living in high numbers among the citizens of our country. Although the illegal immigration numbers have risen to account for 3.5% of the United States’ population, I have faith that you will work hard to find a fair and humane way to lower these numbers.

One of the biggest reasons for illegal immigration is that the “lines” to immigrate to America are extremely backlogged. The American Immigration Council stated in an article on August 12, 2016 that many individuals and families would love to come to live in the US, but unfortunately they do not have the necessary employment and family relationships or humanitarian protection to receive an immigration pass of any sort. Another cause of illegal immigration may be the necessity of taking and passing the naturalization test. This takes a lot of time, energy and dedication from the person/people that are taking this test. Along with the high standards of knowing the information on the naturalization test, there is a fee of $680. $595 for applying for US citizenship and $85 for a background check, according to the American Immigration Center on November 17, 2015. This may be a very steep price for a hopeful immigrant to pay. These might be some causes of why a hopeful immigrant might decide to ignore the rules that the United States has created.

The effects of illegal immigration are massive and affect certain parts of the country more than others in many ways. According the NY Times on February 12, 2013, the economy as well as the American people are greatly impacted by the undocumented immigrants that are living in our country. American citizens are losing low-wage jobs to these immigrants that in turn use the local social programs such as hospitals and schools. These programs put yet another expense on taxpayers and add to the great debt of the United States bringing the economy down little by little. Do to the actions like the ones explained above, by illegal immigrants, Fair US, predicts that by the year 2020 it will be necessary to collect $812 million in taxes from the people of Pennsylvania. This would prove to be a great hardship for the citizens of the United States as it is expected that taxes in the other states would also rise, just as predicted for the years to come if the illegal immigration levels are not dealt with.

While this is a big issue in the United States, many people seem to think that the importance of this issue is insignificant. An article from LA Times on January 26, 2015, seems to imply that illegal immigrants are greatly helping the economy of California. This may very well be true in that particular part of this country but in others the presence of illegal immigrants is a great burden to the economy. Half of the people who have left a comment on Debate.org about the subject of illegal immigration say that the undocumented immigrants should be able to stay and live in the United States. A poll taken from the Pew Research Center shows that 71% of the public believes that there should be a way for illegal immigrants to stay in the United States legally. I agree with the majority of the people that took this poll, the effects caused by the undocumented immigrants living in America can be lessoned by a large margin by seeking out these immigrants and helping them become citizen so they can help pay taxes and hopefully boost the economy of the Unites States. This could help resolve any burden they have inflicted on your country and make it an even better place.

Now that you have heard even more opinions on this sensitive topic, I hope that you take this request of mine into mind. I am asking that you, the President of the United States of America, create a system that will find most of, if not all of the illegal immigrants currently living in the US. Then legalize those who would like to continue living in the Unites States in a timely fashion. This in turn would result in less stress and responsibility that is inflicted on the citizens of the United States, by immigrants who did not properly legalizing themselves in the first place. I hope that you will consider my suggestion as an issue that needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Although I am very confident in my beliefs that are previously stated, I have questions on how the illegal immigrants in our country are treated. Since there are currently laws on immigration for our country, what do these laws state will happen to the illegal or undocumented immigrants that are found in the Unites States? Even though I would like for there to be a massive decrease in number of illegal immigrants, I also believe that everyone should be treated fairly and as humane as possible. Even if this person/people have broken our country’s laws and policies. Please take my requests to heart and take some sort of action on this greatly debated topic in our country.