Immigration Reform Article

This paper will cover a topic that at times consumes the national (and international) conversation: Immigration. This topic in my opinion is the most talked about with the most run around than many other issues in the US. The government has made immigration more worse then better. Although through the years our government has tried to bring about reform they have failed to come to a solution that would in time be beneficial for both immigrants and the United States nation as a whole.

Immigration, specifically in the context of our nation’s southern border, is a conversation that is not only timely but also one that really is a matter of life and death for some. Through the years, the US Government has had to strike a delicate balance between the contradicting views of immigration and how they are to be approached. As a nation of immigrants, it goes against our history to be anti-immigration. But the government is responsible for the security of our nation, so it must determine if there are threats to our way of life and how to balance the positives and negatives of immigration. However, our way of life has always been richer with multiple cultural influences. Throughout the years and constant evolvement of views on this issue the list of dilemmas in immigration is ongoing and on-growing. Through the years the government has taken steps to try and bring about reform on both large and small scales.

Many times, politics and critical rhetoric’s get in the way, but that is the way of politics, especially in a politically and culturally charged society. We’ll look at a few highlights of the last fifty years in regards to immigration. While we do not attribute to the motives of those trying bring change, we also understand that this isn’t necessarily a greatest hit listing. In the long run our government has made immigration worse for both immigrants and our nation. Our government has been unable to contribute in coming to some sort of agreement on an immigration reform for years and all they’ve been doing is fueling the problems surrounding it.

One of the attempts at bringing reform brought from the Civil Rights movement that focused on equal treatment regardless of race was the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This act abolished the quota system put in place in 1924. It ended race and ethnicity-based quotas and race and national origin no longer determined whether or not someone could enter the United States. This helped reunite immigrant families and helped skilled immigrants to seek better opportunities. And in which dramatically changed the population of immigrants in the US.

Another was the Immigration Reform and control Act of 1986 that was signed by Ronald Reagan. This form in sense was supposed to help both immigrants that had lived in the US for various years to be able to start a path to citizenship and was also supposed to help control the number of illegal immigrants coming into the US by enforcing a better border control. And restriction as to the employment of immigrants. But with the number of immigrants already in the US it didn’t quite work. ‘Congress didn’t foresee at the time that employers would want more immigrants in the years ahead,’ Meissner says. As a result, the law never set up a good process to provide as many legal immigrants as the labor markets would demand in the years ahead.” (The Washington Post).

Fast forwarding President Donald J. Trump was elected with the hope for a better, greater America. One of the actions for that being Immigration, citizens rely on him and our government as a whole to take action in immigration and prevention of terrorism. More then bettering immigration the rise of Trump correlates to rise of anti-immigrant sentiment among conservatives and white Americans who are scared of changes to their way of life. When change is usually a good thing. When you want to better something you are not going to keep doing the same things because you will get the same results. Instead you are going to find new ways to reach your goal. But the change making in Immigration is a day to day argument. With many unreasonable decisions leading to outrage. In September of 2017 Trump announced that he would be taking actions to shut down DACA, a renewable 2-year period policy that protects immigrants that were brought to the US as children from deportation as long as they keep a well behavior. Taking an action like that would destroy many lives in many ways as many of these people are people with dreams and ambition for the better of this nation. People that have only ever known themselves as Americans and in the long run could contribute to the highly wanted great America. But instead of rebuilding and working on a policy like such to make it more fit in benefiting the nation as well as the immigrant the main concern of the government it to simply end things like it that could in conclusion end up even worse for the nation.

One of the main concerns of immigration is immigrants are not safe for our nation as they are viewed as a threat for stealing Americans jobs or being a load for taxpayers. And overall destroying the Nations economy when really rather then doing so immigrants have played their part in helping the economy. “United States, immigrants have been founders of companies such as Google, Intel, PayPal, eBay, and Yahoo!” (World Economic Forum) companies which of course don’t make up all of US economy but surely play a role in it. Not every immigrant has been a founder of a great company or contributed to a big role in Americas economy, and some have been a burden to the economy but that is just simple human role that is as well played by Americans.

Overall the Government has been unable to come to a reasonable and beneficial reform for Immigration. There’s been more time spent on arguing about it, as known that the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches are in a three-way fight on how to handle it. Instead of making immigration a constant argument it should be more so a discussion and a in progress plan to come to a solution keeping an open mind and all the factors of it instead of having one set opinion.

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