Illegal immigration is a hot topic in the United States of America that has stirred up plenty of debate and controversy. The Hispanics from Mexico are the culprits of this issue by crossing the U.
S. borders illegally. They are looking for jobs and a better lifestyle so they enter the country and try to stay as long as possible. Many people believe that illegal immigrants hurt the American economy and the overall standard of life as a result of their pursuits. Supporters of deporting the illegal immigrants do not think they should get amnesty because the immigrants knowingly broke the law.Besides breaking the law, illegal immigration advocates have said that it hurts all taxpayers, takes jobs away from citizens, and increases the crime rate.
Those who think that all illegal immigrants should receive amnesty also have solid arguments and raise many questions. One of their main arguments is that immigrants no matter what, will always try their hardest to cross over to America. Even today with all the border security and the dangerous antics required to cross the border, foreigners still attempt and succeed in entering the United States.Until life in Mexico and other poor countries improve, there will always be illegal immigrants in the U.
S. Is it a waste of American resources to stop immigrants from illegally crossing the border? It is easy to see why the immigration topic is such a trending issue in the states; the arguments for both sides are both logical and reasonable. Keeping illegals in the country can be costly, reduce jobs for citizens, and may undermine American values.On the other side, denying illegals to stay in the country can be a waste of potential, a waste of people to do some unpopular jobs, and a compromise to the values on which the United States was founded on.
All of the illegal immigration debate boils down to this one question: Should illegal immigrants be allowed to stay in the United States of America? Illegal aliens crossing the U. S. borders do so in order to find a better life for them and their children. They want to find happiness just like the masses of European immigrants of the older days at Ellis Island.
Do political and economic reasons outweigh America’s ability to offer foreigners a better life and the pursuit of happiness? Aristotle addressed man’s pursuit of happiness in his work The Aim of Man when he stated, “Life brings many vicissitudes and chance happenings, and it may be that one who is now prosperous will suffer great misfortunes in his old age, as is told of Pram in the Trojan legends; and a man who is thus buffeted by fortune and comes to a miserable end can scarcely be called happy” (704). Illegal immigrants suffer a harsh life in the U. S. by working many hard hours and tough jobs, but they are able to live a better life relative to their past in their former homeland.Many people concur with Aristotle that these illegals are not even living the best life after they crossed the border.
Many illegals would agree with that statement, but also adding that they are trying to improve the life of their future grandchildren and great grandchildren just like the European immigrants in the nineteenth century. One of the controversies within the illegal immigration debate is whether the government should deport American born babies of illegal immigrants.Currently there are bills trying to be passed that deport these kids. These bills are immoral and wrong because they punish the children for being born somewhere totally out of their control.
In fact, deporting people or babies born in the United States is extremely un-constitutional. The 14th Amendment cited from 14thamendment. us, states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.”Many politicians though, believe that allowing an illegal immigrant’s offspring to stay in the country rewards and encourages foreigners to cross the border. Garret Epps of the Arizona Republic says this about deporting American born children, “Others pretend these children are, well, not human.
Advocates of citizenship stripping call American-born children of immigrants ‘anchor babies. ’ The term suggests the birth of a child in America makes a migrant immune from deportation.It’s a lie but it’s also a brilliant piece of spin…Immigrant-bashers now claim human children born on American soil are mere lumps of lead. ” The fact is that these children of illegal immigrants deserve their constitutional right to be a citizen of the United States, but their parents have no such rights to stay. If both sides of the illegal immigration could agree on one thing, it should be the fact that the helpless offspring of illegal immigrants, born in America, should deserve to be a citizen according to the United States Constitution. Illegal immigrants enhance and enrich American culture, but without assimilation, do much to undermine the culture that makes America what it is.
Many illegal immigrants do not want to assimilate to the American culture and way of life. Many immigrants, such as Mexicans, still cling onto their Hispanic culture, which to some extent is not a bad thing. For example, it is a bad thing when there are many cases of third generations of Mexican families that can barely talk English. With the increasing Latino population in the United States and the problem of them not always assimilating could cause huge communication issues.
Companies and businesses waste plenty of money writing signs, documents, and papers in multiple languages because there are people in the United States that cannot speak the native language efficiently or at all. In an article from the Christian Science Monitor by Walter Rodgers, a professor at Tufts University, Lawrence Harrison, says this about the assimilation problem, “In California, fourth- and fifth-generation Mexican immigrants are still speaking only Spanish and resisting assimilation. Words like compromise and dissent, crucial concepts to American democracy, have radically different meanings in Spanish.”Dissent in Spanish translates to mean “heresy.
” The Mexican resistance to American culture makes things very difficult for the country as a whole. If the Mexicans or any other immigrants really want to live in the United States would they not want to speak the native language and engage in American culture? Resistance to the American culture is a problem that illegal immigrants can bring which can cause many more problems in the United States. Walter Rodgers of the Christian Science Monitor sums up the previous argument very well with this fact, “Committing national suicide is not without precedent.The Dutch are rapidly losing their country. Before long, its largest cities will belong to Muslim immigrants. What then becomes of the liberal tradition of Erasmus and traditional Dutch tolerance? Illegal immigration may ultimately be more threatening to the character and values of the U.
S. than any threat from radical Islamists. ” The illegal immigration debate can be argued on another front other than the moral and emotional side; the economic impact on the United States due to illegals residing in the states is reasonable dispute.The wallets of U. S.
taxpayers and citizens are strained because of the rising number of children of illegal immigrants attending public schools. Lance Izumi of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found a stunning statistic regarding education and immigration, “The Pew study found that in 2008, ‘Children of unauthorized immigrants are 6. 8 percent of students enrolled in kindergarten through grade 12,’ an increase from the 5. 4 percent in 2003.
The proportion was double in California, where 13. 5 percent of k-12 students in 2008 were the children of illegal immigrants.”Non-citizens attending public schools cause citizens to pay higher taxes to fund education. Is it fair that some citizens are paying taxes for their children to go to school while other parents are paying nothing? In some areas of the country local governments do not increase taxes for education even when it is needed. Instead children have to bear through an education that does not have enough resources, supplies, and teaching tools because not everyone in the country is paying their fair share for education.
The government cannot complain about the decreasing education funding when they are not being very proactive about finding illegal immigrants and forcing them to pay taxes or to leave the country. Numbers shows that the influx of illegals in the country strains the education system. Lance Izumi once again presents a key fact regarding the economic budget strain in California, “With roughly 923,000 students in the state with illegal-immigrant parents, these students represented a total cost of nearly $10. 8 billion out of a total 2008 k-12 education budgets of $72 billion.”Those who support illegal immigration might want to consider how the economic effects impact them.
Illegal immigrants have some negative effects on the economy but they also help some businesses and farms survive. A vast majority of the illegals work hard labor jobs such as picking fruit and vegetables in the field or doing construction work. Some farms, landscaping businesses, and other enterprises have a hard time finding loyal and consistently hard working employees. The illegal immigrants that have such a hard work ethic and help support businesses make it tough for people to want to deport them.
Kristen Collins of the News & Observer tells the story of an illegal immigrant, Kena, who worked hard for minimum wage to support his family back home in her article, “He says he wants what generations of immigrants before him wanted, the freedom to work his way up. And he is angry that this country --which he believes has benefited from his work the illegal status that kept him at the bottom of the labor pool- now talks of sending him away. ” Illegal aliens have the type of work ethic and loyalty that employers want to see.They are working to just survive and feed their family so they will give their very best. Many U.
S. workers do not tend to work farm and intensive labor jobs for long periods of time. Dairy farmers all over the Northeast and Midwest prefer to hire laborers that stay around for many years and that is why they turn to illegal immigrants. Miriam Jordan of the Wall Street Journal found an intriguing article detailing the labor on American dairy farms, “A study commissioned by the dairy industry found that immigrants account for 40% of the dairy labor force and are responsible for nearly two-thirds of the U. S. milk production.
Despite the poor economy, one-fifth of surveyed dairy farmers said they expected to face a worker shortage this year. ” A great amount of dairy farmers would be devastated and be in quite a quagmire if their illegal immigrants were forced to leave because of a new crack down on illegal immigration. Many advocates for deportation of the illegals are concerned about all the immigrants who do not contribute to society and do not pay taxes.One way to compromise the immigration situation is to give amnesty to all illegals that currently have a job and make them pay taxes while deporting all the other undocumented immigrants without a job.
Those who believe undocumented immigrants who contribute to society should be able to stay share the same intriguing values that are in A Theory of Justice by John Rawls, “Thus we are to imagine that those who engage in social cooperation choose together, in one joint act, the principles which are to assign basic rights and duties and to determine the division of social benefits” (237).The influx of undocumented aliens entering the United States has many positives and negatives. The issue also ties into other debates such as globalization. Globalization has brought foreign workers to the United States and has kept it strong, more so in previous years, because of the talent, optimism, and hard work they bring. Everyone knows that many American businesses are moving their production overseas because of the cheaper labor which thus reduces many labor and management jobs in the United States.
It seems counter-productive for the United States to deport foreigners, even though they are illegal, because they help create jobs and would create more jobs if they were granted amnesty. It is a possibility that American businesses could start moving or keeping their production plants within the states rather than overseas. Allowing the illegal immigrants to stay in the United States, as the saying goes, could kill two birds with one stone potentially: the immigrants would be contributing to society by working and paying taxes and helping businesses keep their production in the states.Ben Soriano and Tom Schlegal of the Salinas Californian teamed up to provide a very sensible view on immigration regarding globalization, “We need to realize that smart immigration policy allows us to compete globally by complementing the energies, intelligences, and ambitions of foreign workers with a tolerant citizenry that deserves a world-class and world focused education.
” A better lifestyle and economic reasons are the main attractions and reasons that immigrants illegally cross the border into the United States.Undocumented immigrants in the United States of America have stirred up great controversies on whether or not the government should deport or give amnesty to the immigrants. Those who support deportation believe that the illegal aliens hurt the economy and also dislike that they do not pay taxes for using the government resources. Those who believe that the immigrants should stay actually believe they help the economy in some way and that America, the land of opportunity, should let them pursue better lives.
In the immigration debate, the economic reasons and the moral reasons collide and make it a very evenly sided argument. It is very costly for the government to run the border patrol, support illegal immigrants and their children’s education, and to control other problems that come with them. On the other hand, is it wrong to not allow these recent illegal immigrants a chance for a better life when in the 19th century America allowed all the European immigrants to stay?A compromise needs to be reached on this subject so that immigrants who contribute to society are able to gain legal citizenship in order to help the economy and pay taxes. The process of gaining legal citizenship should be remodeled in order to perform faster and more programs to help immigrants find jobs need to be established. Amnesty and citizenship for all working illegal immigrants who have a stable job should be granted and all other undocumented immigrants should be deported.
This plan is not perfect but it is a model that politicians should consider seriously.The main goal for the government should be to help the illegal immigrants pursue their dreams while doing whatever is best for the economy and way of life in America. A quote that politicians should remember when dealing with immigration is one stated by Border Patrol Agent Elizier Vasquez in the SIRS Issues Researcher, “We’re fortunate enough to live in a country where there are lots of opportunities. And most of the people who we run into out here want to make that dream happen. Unfortunately, it’s our job to stop that dream.
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