Immigration and the American Equality

As a country of immigrant roots, the question of rights to those new to our country as undocumented immigrants, presents the conundrum of how to treat these "visitors". The fear is being realized by politicians, U.S. Government and States officials, the law enforcement community, and the legal citizenry of the United States. I believe the answer lies within the annals of the history of our country; more specifically how the United States has implemented and enforced Immigration law in the 20th and now 21st century.

Immigration laws exist as the will of the people, as they were established by elected representatives of the people of the United States. The enforcement of the laws seems to be where the issue becomes blurred and in recent years very controversial. States such as Arizona have brought the issue to the forefront of the political arena by passing its own law virtually expanding U.S. Government enforcement responsibility to the state and local government level due to incidences of border violence and the additional cost burden to the Arizona taxpayer for social programs and medical care for "undocumented aliens.

"Undocumented immigrants" refers to people who reside in the U.S. without legal status or proper documents. If a person crosses the U.S. border illegally (e.g., without a visa), then the immigrant is considered undocumented. Undocumented immigrants might enter using false documents, such as a relative's U.S. birth certificate or a fake U.S. passport. Undocumented immigrants come from many countries and include children, adults and senior citizens. Immigration lawyers are advising immigrants to keep in mind that immigrants, documented or undocumented, have protected rights under the United States Constitution.

http://www.epim.info/docs/documents/Undocumented%20Migrants%20Have%20Rights!.pdf

International human rights law is a set of international rules, established by treaty or custom, on the basis of which individuals and groups can expect and/or claim certain entitlements or benefits from governments. Non-discrimination, together with equality before the law and equal protection of the law without discrimination, constitute a basic and general principle relating to the protection of human rights. Almost all of the treaties have a clear reference to this principle.

All immigrants coming to the United States from any developing country, where the American corporations have or have had established business, certainly try to have a claim on the American wealth which was accumulated as a result of defeat of that country's labor force where the workers received minimal survival wages, with no sick leave, no meaningful retirement benefits or health care, and working long hours under agonizing work environments. They feel they are entitled to attain legal status, social benefits such as health care and education for themselves and their children for which their present and previous generations of workers in their native country were entitled but were denied by their American employers.

Building a protective wall for the National Guard to watch, or other protective measures will not stop immigration as long as the people of countries from which we have benefited from their labor and resources, are conscious of their well documented suppression by the American economic entities. They think they have a valid claim on American wealth which allows them a right to share in its prosperity which they have contributed to be materialized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_for_Humane_Immigrant_Rights_of_Los_Angeles

Immigration from developing countries to America will not last for long since the U.S. economy has started its downfall as a result of globalization and free trade. Increasingly, the U.S. production of goods and services will be outsourced to countries with low costs of production and marketing, causing substantial decrease in domestic production, increasing unemployment, decreasing wages and other benefits. As this predictable downhill trend continues, Americans may have no choice but accept low wage jobs now taken by the immigrants.