Immigration Policies in the USA - Essay Example

? Immigration Policies In The USA Your History and Political Science Policies throughout the years are at constant change, especially when they need to adapt to ever-changing matters like demographic impact on a society, ideological shift or even immigration issues. The progress of the policy change regarding immigration in the U.S. went through three phases. The first one was ‘the laissez-faire’; the second was ‘the qualitative restriction’ and the final phase ‘the quantitative restriction’1. Policy-makers went through these varies stages to accommodate foreign immigrants, while maintaining the native-born American identity. This finally poses the question; in how far has the issue of contemporary immigration in the U.S. affected the policy making and the American society? This paper will discuss this current and arising issue of immigration. It will elaborate on how far the issue of contemporary immigration in the U.S. has affected the policymaking and the American society. Furthermore, this paper will utilize several contemporary debates in order to help elucidate on the existing matter of immigration. Moreover, it will answer the question of whether rights and liberties have been infringed upon, due to the current or altering immigration policies. This paper will also shed light on the fairness of the passed legislations to deal with the issue at hand. Additionally, it will expound whether features of American politics will hinder or expedite changes to the issue at hand. Finally, the paper will conclude on how far the contemporary immigration issue in the U.S. has affected both policymaking and society. American experience has been overspread by the culture of immigration ever since the first European settlers set foot in North America. Immigration is indeed a chain that ties many of the values that unite Americans. Not only is the vision of the U.S role in the world designed by immigration but it also trickles our view of human nature. A phenomenon that “will construct a new race, a new religion, a new state, a new literature” in the United States was seen by Ralph Waldo Emerson. The concerns about ethnic relations, the environment, social services, economy & other issues have been jostled by the sentiments evoked in the public policy arena by the idealism that surrounds the immigration. The debate over immigration has been expanded in the recent years, in order to broaden the range of foreign policy issues. The world refugee crisis, human rights, international trade, Latin America and the national security are the features of argument on U.S. It is crucial for Americans to have an understanding of the issues that concern the long term goals for immigration policy, as per Congressional representatives debate for reform for current immigration law proposes. Issues related to border control, law enforcement and undocumented workers are current the primary focus of the existing proposals. Other issues such as human rights, the economy and the environment and security are the additional concerns raises by the proposed legislative policies. The age of a large amount of non-Europeans migrating to the United States is known as contemporary immigration, it hastened in the end of 1960s to the middle of 1970s after a prolonged interruption of constrained immigration. 1.6 million formerly unauthorized aliens and 1.1 million Special Agricultural Workers1 (SAW) were granted permanent resident status with a total of 17.1 million immigrants admitted in the United States between 1971 and 1995 under the provisions of Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986( hereafter IRCA). Contemporary immigration was as high as it has been in the first quarter of the century, which has been 17.2 million between 1901 and 1925. This was the time immigration was at its peak. The annual admission trends in both the peak periods show a very different trend, despite the similarity in numbers in both the time periods. With a number of obvious ebbs and movements the figure of annual admission fluctuated between 1901 and 1925. Whereas, the inflow was fairly stable between 1971 and 1978 and it increased between 1978 and 1988. The annual admission rapidly rushed above 1 million in 1989 that lasted till 1992. It has been considerably large and has remained stable in the period afterward, where the admission rate subsided to a level higher than the pre-1989 mark. As was the case of the turn of the century immigration, contemporary immigration has also deeply affected the American society. It changes and challenges the conventional perspective of immigration integration.2 The immigration policy can be termed as the ‘Achilles heel’ of US politics as there’s a constant struggle between maintaining a sufficient amount of foreign talent in the country with the issue of illegal immigrants already residing in America, which makes the borders of USA insecure.3 In recent times there’s a constant discussion about the restructuring of a bureaucratic visa process and the issue of thousands of undocumented immigrants currently in the US, but care has to be maintained that the public trust in the immigration office is not lost.4 President Barrack Obama has strived to implement enforcement-based policies to restrain the rising level of illegal immigrations while delaying the legislations by the federal government on complete reform5. In the meantime, restraining state-level migration laws—which also include Arizona's scandalous SB 1070-- have emphasized the indistinct rift amid federal power and the state regarding the immigration policies. Though, succeeding President Obama's reappointment in 2012, the government and lawmakers of the Congress have beckoned readiness to create a bilateral effort to confront comprehensive immigration reform. Standing of the On-Going Immigration Dispute The opinion of the public is divided, regarding the subject of illegal immigration. While the people who favor this state that undocumented immigrants are a blessing for America the other side considers them a bane.6 A few argue that America is facing such a high level of unemployment because illegal immigrants take the jobs otherwise taken by legal Americans but there’s also a group that states that these illegal immigrants perform jobs that normally Americans are unwilling to do. For the meantime, many experts are of the opinion that legal immigration policy must undertake major changes and become more efficient to discourage illegal immigration and entice trained foreign workforce, but then again the debate about illegal immigration has hindered the process of more widespread reforms7. Most of the population of America is of the opinion that the immigration system of America needs to be changed. Gallup, in January 2012, took a poll and the results showed that around one-third of the population is not satisfied by the performance of the immigration policies and around 42% believed that immigration intake should be reduced. Many Americans think the U.S. immigration system is urgently in need of reform. The discussions mainly revolves around the entering of immigrants from the US-Mexico border however recent studies like the Pew Hispanic Center proved that the flow of migration has been near to zero as the economic activity of the US has decreased substantially since 2007 and there has a lack of opportunities economically. This new drift "does fundamentally change the nature of U.S.-bound immigration, likely permanently," writes CFR's Shannon O'Neil8, observing that the move "has yet to feed into U.S. political debates." In the meantime the Latino population of US has blown up in the last couple of decades, deeming it the fastest growing and biggest minority group of the country. In the month of May of 2012, the Census of USA has informed that around half of the births in USA are of ethnic minorities, a breakthrough and a testimony to the swiftly evolving demographics of the US which show the extensive affect that federal immigration is going to have on a big segment of the society.9 The Governor of Arizona Jan Brewer has signed one of the strictest bills in the history of U.S concerning illegal immigration into law this Friday. The purpose of this bill is to detect, accuse and expel undocumented immigrants. This resulted in instant opposition and rekindled the disruptive battle over reforms in immigrations, nationwide. President Obama also strongly criticized the bill that too before the Governor even signed it. Obama called for federal renovation of laws regarding immigration, members of the Congress instantly agreed to take these up soon, so as to escape negligence by others. Obama stated that the law passed by Arizona threatens to weaken the core notions of equality and fairness that is at the heart of America as they treasure the trust between the community and the police which keeps Americans safe and sound at home. The law has been deemed the most stringent and wide spread by both those who favor it as well as those who oppose it. It is the strictest law concerning immigration in centuries and would make the not carrying documents of immigration a crime and would bestow the police with the authority to detain any suspect of illegality. Those who oppose this law have stated that this provides an open invitation to harassment and unfairness and would create panic irrespective of the status of the citizenship. 10 The immigration process of the USA is closely linked with the foreign policy as well as national security. Immigration policy is usually modified according to the situation at hand however; the implicit goal is always to enhance national security. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that US national security has advanced majorly when foreign policy utilises immigrations as tool. Mass departure of the thought process from strict communist enemies was encouraged with the mission to destabilize these governments. It was not encouraged by oppressive allies of the Cold War to steer clear of any affiliation with U.S as this was the policy of that very county which forced its own citizens to migrate. Foreign policy is influenced by the actions of immigration as it has a deep impact on the view of national security and can hence, alter it. Involuntarily, the foreign policy of America can also result in migration movements: on the other hand, such movements can have an impact on the foreign policy as they can generate humanitarian problems that need a reaction or they can also cause threats to national security which stem from a huge number of individuals arriving in America in a short span of time. The subject of 11 to 12 million illicit immigrants is not the sole trait of the immigration problems faced by America it exceeds beyond the total amount of unauthorized people to a wider range of problems.11 The dearth of complete federal solutions has given birth to a slew of enforcement only schemes that resulted in America wasting billions of dollars whilst the struggle to put an end to undocumented immigration goes in vain. When the scope of the problem is understood only then would the American government be able to properly eradicate the problem.12 IPC’s most recent report deals with various important areas which include the operations of the existing system of immigration, the failure of the entire structure of the system, the problems arising from an insufficient response from the federal government and constant delaying of reforms f the immigration policy. The topic of whether the contemporary system of immigration is fair or not is touched upon in this paragraph. Since the 1882’s Chinese Exclusion Act the immigration policy allegedly tries to keep out one specific group or at times nearly all minorities away from America.13 The entire system is not racist, explicitly, but it still falls short on the type of immigration policy needed by the economy of America. During times of economic prosperity America has more jobs than workers; immigration provides this supply of workers, especially workers for low paying meager jobs.14 However, the current immigration system makes it near to impossible for a person who isn’t economically strong to legally immigrate to America. The system of immigration is now such that only skilled and privileged people can legally immigrate to America hence, the demand of unskilled labor is met only illegally as for a poor person the system is like a great big wall.15 WORKS CITED: Divine, Robert A. 1957. American immigration policy, 1924-1952. New Haven: Yale University Press. Borjas, George J. 1999. Heaven's door: immigration policy and the American economy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. 1997. Becoming an American: immigration & immigrant policy: 1997 executive summary. Washington, DC (2430 E St. NW, Washington 20037): The Commission. Haugen, David M., Susan Musser, and Kacy Lovelace. 2009. Immigration. Detroit: Greenhaven Press. Powell, John. 2005. Encyclopedia of North American immigration. New York: Facts on File. Daniels, Roger, and Otis L. Graham. 2001. Debating American immigration, 1882--present. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Zolberg, Aristide R. 2006. A nation by design: immigration policy in the fashioning of America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Bankston, Carl L. 2010. Encyclopedia of American immigration. Pasadena, Calif: Salem Press. West, Darrell M. 2010. Brain gain: rethinking U.S. immigration policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Bausum, Ann. 2009. Denied, detained, and deported: stories from the dark side of American immigration. Washington, DC: National Geographic. Renshon, Stanley Allen. 2005. The 50% American: immigration and national identity in an age of terror. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Read More