Immigration Laws

Immigration Laws

Keelly Harrington

Rasmussen College

Since the New World was first discovered, there has been an enormous influx of people from various parts of the world and differing cultures who have wished to resettle in what is now the United States. Of course, these immigrants have historically arrived in the United States in waves, with different portions of the globe and different ethnicities being represented in each individual wave. Yet, one characteristic that has remained constant over the history of immigration in the United States is the general apprehensiveness with which new immigrants have been welcomed by the established culture and society. Although the issue of immigration amnesty has been debated for centuries, it still remains one of the most hotly contested and influential topics in modern public debate

The current wave of immigrants is largely represented by people from Mexico, along with several other Central American nations. Since, unlike in the past, these immigrants are capable of entering the United States over land, a significant portion of them have entered this country without the legal consent of American authorities. The arrival of these illegal immigrants has generated a number of social and economic problems, along with many cross-cultural and cross-racial tensions. According to some, the only reasonable way to address these problems is to crack-down on illegal immigration and stop it at its source (Vega & Freemantle, 2005. According to others, allowing illegal immigrants amnesty is the appropriate way to handle the social problems that their illegal status has created.

Overall, many of the problems that have been introduced to the fabric of American life and the United States economy are a direct result of the necessarily covert lives illegal immigrants are forced to live. No one disputes that the existence of so many illegal immigrants in the United States creates a large workforce willing to work for wages far below what legal citizens are afforded by law. The question is, do we address this by devoting more taxpayer dollars to enforcing immigration laws--which will always be broken--or do we raise the rights of these already present immigrants to the point where legal citizens of the United States can compete with them for employment opportunities? Obviously, the second course of action would be a blow to businesses, many of which thrive upon the availability of cheap illegal labor. However, it would also aid in narrowing the ever-growing gap between the rich and the poor in the United States--a major social, economic, and humanitarian problem. Still, the fundamental problem with choosing to more strictly enforce immigration laws is that it is a course of action that will inevitably cost billions of dollars, and simultaneously offer no significant social or economic payoff to working class Americans--the very individuals who are impacted most negatively by illegal immigration (Vega & Freemantle, 2005.

One of the most pervasive problems with the notion of stopping illegal immigration is the perception that it is actually an occurrence that can actually be ceased through direct enforcement. There are an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States today (Camarota, 2004).This is a proportion of our nation approximately 50 percent greater than the size of New York City. To imagine that this many individuals can possibly be located and returned to their country of origin, at a cost that American taxpayers are capable of spending, is highly unlikely. Although the current Immigration Amnesty Bill being debated in the congress includes pathways by which current illegal immigrants can become legal immigrants, it also includes border security features, which will come at a substantial cost to current American citizens. These increases in security include: "Hire 18,000 new border patrol agents; Erect 200 miles of vehicle barriers and 370 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border; Erect 70 ground-based radar and camera towers along the southern border; Deploy four unmanned aerial vehicles and supporting systems; End the program in which illegal immigrants are released upon apprehension (commonly known as catch and release); Provide for detaining up to 27,500 aliens per day on an annual basis; Use secure and effective identification tools to prevent unauthorized work," (U. S. Immigration Support).

This estimated cost for all of this beefing-up of security is $2.6 trillion (Rector). This is more than 250 times the amount afforded by the federal government for renewable energy programs (Vega & Freemantle, 2005If this sum were to be paid directly with taxpayer money, it would translate into an average cost to each American citizen of nearly $10,000. In short, the current Immigration Amnesty Bill before congress proposes to increase border security at an amazing cost to the American taxpayer, while, at the same time, promising to make at best a small dent in the continuing influx of illegal aliens into the United States; thus, failing to actually eliminate the social and economic problem of a large labor force willing to work far below the legal restrictions placed upon legal American citizens (Newman, 2006.

Essentially, the second major problem with simply attempting to crack-down on illegal immigration is that it fails to actually generate a labor setting within which legal American citizens are capable of competing with their illegal counterparts. In recognition of the plain fact that illegal immigration is not a phenomenon that can simply be ceased through enforcement to any realistic or cost-effective degree, this continues to put American workers at a severe disadvantage. The task, assuming the goal is to give power back to the American working class, is to generate a marketplace within which Americans working at legal wages can attain working opportunities. If illegal immigrants remain illegal, then there is little incentive for employers to legally register and pay American citizens, when they can pay, off the record, immigrants to work at a fraction of the price--therefore drastically increasing their own profits. The only reasonable way in which such a marketplace can be created is by granting the illegal immigrants amnesty; thereby eliminating the covert nature of their illegal employment and granting them sufficient rights such that they can compete directly with American workers. In this way, an American laborer with have an equal chance at employment with immigrants; in fact, the American laborer will likely have an advantage over his or her immigrant counterpart due to language barriers (Newman, 2006.

The most common opposition to the notion that illegal immigration cannot