...Illegal immigration has turned into one of the most disputed topics in the United States. Over the years, there has been a marked increase in bias and hate crimes regionally and nationwide against illegal immigrants. Our country’s population is made up of approximately 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants. Over the past and current years, evidence has overwhelmingly shown that immigrants play a vital role in our country’s economic, social, and cultural prosperity. Therefore, responsible social, political, and church groups should try to change Americans’ hearts and minds about immigration and about persistent bias against people who are already members of our society. Illegal immigration is not an issue that can be simply solved through mass...
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...The United States is often celebrated as the nation of immigrants, with approximately 13 percent, nearly 41 million, foreign-born population. (“U.S. Foreign-Born Population Trends”) But despite U.S. citizenship, immigrants today are seen as less than equal to natural born Americans. Their cultural belonging, allegiance, language, as well as other qualifications, are questioned. Discrimination against immigrants is prevalent and on the rise. It is also a key obstacle to the full integration of immigrants in the society. Mistrust, denigration and discrimination against immigrants is nothing new, with many policies formulated in the past, such as-Alien and Sedition Acts, Immigration Act of 1924, Chinese Exclusion Act, Executive Order 9066 and many others, it has been inherent in American history for decades. Most of this discrimination stems from xenophobia, an irrational dislike or fear of...
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...concern with immigration and an increase in crime or is this just a way for the media, politicians, and anti-immigration groups to spread their opinions and fears on immigration? If there is a correlation between crime and immigration how will this play a role in today’s prison system? An overwhelming amount of native born Americans believe that the influx of immigrants, especially illegal immigrants, will have a negative effect on the crime rate in the United States. Of course, in an absolute sense, it probably does. Immigration brings more people into the country, and unless this process is counterbalanced by emigration, the absolute volume of crime will very likely increase. In addition, immigrants are often disproportionately male and at early ages of labor market entry and advancement. Because young males are disproportionately likely to be involved in crime in all parts of the world that we know about (Hirschi and Gottfredson, 1983), this may also contribute to increases in crime. In this sense we will probably want to know whether immigrants who enter the country contribute to crime beyond what we could otherwise expect of citizens of similar numbers, ages, gender, and so on. Recent research suggests that the claims that immigration cuases crime are false, and that in reality immigrants may have dramatically lower crime rates thatn Unites States born citizens. A 2007 study by Dr. ruben rumbaut and Dr. Walter Ewing connected higher rates of immigration in the 1990s...
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...in seeing the good that Latinos bring to the U.S. Nonetheless, in spite of these attacks Latinos face, they continue to immigrate to this country both legally and illegally. Like many other different ethnic groups before them, they just want to be given their chance at achieving the American dream. Like the word “American”, which would identify a person born in the U.S, the words “Latino” and “Hispanic” are used to identify Spanish-speaking immigrants, more specifically to groups coming from Latin America. The only difference is the preference in which the Latin American immigrant wants to be known as. Being a Latino or Hispanic immigrant is challenging due to some of the barriers you will encounter, like language and stereotypes labels. Hispanics are...
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...2012 Leading Views of Immigration Immigration is an old problem for the United States but is far from an insignificant one. Many Americans worry about the cultural and economic effects of immigration. This is a topic that divides Americans on how to negotiate a solution on this situation. For those who agree with deportation as a solution, approximately half of those people are in favor of a temporary work program. Debates still continue over the positive and negative effects of immigration along with a variety of solutions. The United States has a long history with immigration. Between 1881 and 1924, the First Great Migration occurred with 25.8 million persons entering the country. In response, Congress enacted the National-Origins Quota System, establishing set parameters for individual regions of the globe, such as restricting immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere to one hundred fifty thousand individuals. As a result, only half a million individuals immigrated to the United States during the 1930s. Since then, the number of legal immigrants has increased at the rate of approximately one million people per decade. The 1965 Amendments to the Immigration and National Act repealed the natural-origin restrictions, increased the number of available visas, and made family ties to United States residents a determining factor for applicants entering the country. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) granted amnesty to three million illegal aliens and introduced a...
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...need illegal workers to support our economy? It is a huge issue in America today, illegal immigration and what it means for our economy. The problem is divisive and a political hot potato. It has been discussed for the last thirty plus years and no solutions are in sight. We have some eleven million illegal, undocumented workers in America today and some argue we should round them up and send them home, regardless of the human suffering and others argue that our economy would collapse or at least be seriously harmed if we send them home. According to Colin Powell, we need them because they are the lifeblood that is keeping this country going forward. Without immigrants we would be like Japan or Europe with an aging population and no young people coming in. According to the secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the price of food in the United States would cost three, four or five times more than it does now without the labor of illegal immigrants. Former Presidential candidate Ron Paul advocated physically securing our borders, enforcing visa rules, offer no amnesty for illegal aliens currently in this country, and end birthright citizenship. So which is it? Do we really need these workers or should we send them home? I looked at a number of sources and have chosen to start with an article taken from Business Time.com published on 1/30/2013. I liked this article because it covered several big questions concerning the economics of immigration. 1. Does Immigration reduce...
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...In contemporary times, illegal immigration has been one of the most controversial issues talked about in news outlets. Since the late 1800’s, it has influenced our political, social, and economic beliefs and laws. Our country’s biggest challenge regarding illegal immigration is there are approximately “12 to 14 million undocumented aliens” (Kavanaugh 1) living in the United States, but the government has not decided whether we should deport or give amnesty to these individuals. For a variety of reasons, some people believe that we should send them back to their native country, and then come back legally to go through the process of becoming a naturalized citizen. However, others think illegal immigrants should be given amnesty and become citizens...
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...POLSCI 200 Why Can’t the Government Pass the New Immigration Reform? Our nation is currently faced with many problems and the one that still seems to stand out is an immigration reform. Many of those who reside in the U.S may not see it as a big issue, but in reality it really is. Even though many presidents including Obama tried to adopt the immigration reform, the policy has been murky since Naturalization Act of 1790. The federal government developed a cohesive procedure for naturalization. Immigrants at that time were granted citizenship after living in the U.S. for at least 2 years without criminal records. Every President since Dwight D. Eisenhower has taken executive action at some point regarding to immigration reform. With the last immigration reform act passed in 1986, the time to fix a broken immigration system is long overdue. Since the United States has been highly populated with diverse population including documented or undocumented immigrants, the government could have considered adopting the immigration reform specifically and permanently. Apparently, there are some reasons that take many years to process an immigration reform in Congress such as polarization in Congress, Federalism, courts’ decision, media impaction, and interest groups. It is hard to believe that why the government is not fully paying enough attention to immigration reform bill that is one of the most important not only for country itself but also for its economy. Now, we have estimated...
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...there are oversimplified images and an idea toward a particular type of race. (Ruiz, 2015, NP) Those stereotypes are instilled in our mindsets because the media reports biased information and often writes articles according to their knowledge and how they want people to know. This makes reporters write articles that are biased which make a negative impression of a certain group. Many people will be led to think that accepting illegal immigrants is wrong if the society perceives news which writes about negative information about the immigrants. Nowadays, although media serves as a convenient and important place for people to gain knowledge and spread information, citizens are overly relying on media, changing this convenience to a disadvantage.These stereotypes are easily created in our mindsets, because we can be influenced by the media unconsciously. According to Latinos decisions national telephone poll for NHMC, a graph that shows how Latinos are perceived in televisions and in the films, 36 percent of people from Latin America are often perceived as criminals while only 5 percent recognized as lawyers or judges. (Latino Decision, 2012, NP) This indicates that the US citizens have negative impressions toward Latinos and portrayed as perpetrators of...
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...In Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello, the title character is 16th century Moorish general of the Venetian army who, because of the cultural and historical background of the play’s setting, the playwright, and the original audience, is portrayed as both well-respected for his military prowess and disparaged for his race. Similarly, there are views on hispanics that are both positive and negative that are common with a lot of people. Like Othello, there are features about hispanics that make them get stereotyped or looked down upon by others. Also similar to Othello, there are attributes about hispanics that get made into positive stereotypes. In today’s American society, there are both stereotypes that view hispanics positively, as loyal and hardworking,...
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...they do not pay taxes; they add to the costs of taxpayers and use up funds in resources meant for assisting citizens and legal immigrants (the legal citizens). Therefore, they are perceived as a threat to the US economy. The true impacts of illegal immigrants on the US economy are discussed by debating over the economic benefits as well as economic costs of these immigrants. The negative impacts, discussed first, presented the decreases in low skilled jobs’ wage rates for legal immigrants and citizens instigated by illegal immigrants, the social services such as educations and healthcare that they utilize and add to taxpayers. Then contrary to the negative impacts, the positive impacts reveal benefits of low production costs, increases in the local market sales, undocumented tax generation, impact on growth and employment brought forth by illegal immigrants. These impacts, both negative and positive, are independently analyzed and weighed against each other. The discussion does show a slight net positive impact on the US economy in contrast to the normal belief about illegal immigrants. There was a time when people came freely and settled within the land, but as societies became more civilized and community laws established, immigration became a point of concern for the advanced societies. They did not just want any person to enter the country and get settled. For this, a certain designed protocol through which immigrants can be filtered, and those considered as safe, healthy...
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...Running head: IMMIGRATION, ASSIMILATION, AND MULTICULTURALISM Exiled in America Vanessa Armendariz SOC/315 09-27-2012 Tadizia Dennis-Jackson Exiled in America A woman who was hurt and was taken her largest possession in just seconds was a heartbroken experience, not only that but a life changing one for Sergia Santibañez. She was separated from her five children and sent to her homeland Mexico. The video clip I chose to express myself with is “Exiled in America” by Angela Torres Camarena. This video clip is about a mother who lived in America for 25 years and soon was deported to Mexico, leaving 5 kids of hers in America. “Exiled in America” explores immigration United States, focusing on detention and deportation from the point of view of those who are affected most, their children. The problem here to me is that these good families are being torn apart, families that come with a purpose to find a dream and to pursue it. Not everyone is the same, not everyone kills, and not everyone does illegal acts by using the government help. Me as a perfect example I can tell you that my mother as an illegal single mother, living here for over 25 years. She never asked for food stamps or welfare. And where am I today, working with a successful company and being able to have the opportunity to sit here in class and graduate. I am not being a bad reputation of a Hispanic I am proud one. The problem here is that in 2007 they presented The Child Citizen Protection Act. This...
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...In endorsing this Bill, Brewer sighted the killing of an Arizona rancher weeks earlier as one of the many crimes that the Bill is to prevent. Patricia Smith in her article “The Great Immigration Debate”, tells the story of Erin Goheen and Andres Gamboa, two students of the University of Arizona. Gamboa whose parents are Mexican immigrants, claims that the law was highly discriminatory and that locals of Arizona fears are unfounded as immigrants are not prone to commit crimes. While, Goheen, whose parents are American-born, is delighted with the new law acclaiming “I am more than thrilled about this law…I’ve read it more than 20 times. I have it printed out and take it with me almost everywhere”. This highlights the sharp divide Americans have on the view of immigration. Statistics support Gamboa while the political rhetoric as seen echoed by Jan Brewer continues to influence the view of...
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..."You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that no human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat and skinny, and they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human be illegal?" (Wiesel). So called immigrants leave everything behind in search for a better future. Working on low wage jobs with no social security needed to stay away from taxes and getting caught while being scared to get sick because of the jaw dropping bills. They are stuck on the division of leadership between its own people with no voice. Ever since the American Revolution came to an end, a verbal war broke out to see what political party would own America's power. Even though there may...
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...Government Immigration 2011. Individual Assignment Questions. Joseph A. Worch SOC 315 APRIL 12, 2011 Shelley Howell University of Phoenix Running head: MEDIA REACTION Introduction The media reaction to immigration problem in the United Sates is as diverse ad the cultures and peoples it impacts. While there does exist some common public and political views there is also facts information which could alter those positions. The media piece, discussed here, found on YouTube under the title AP Gov. Immigration 2011, posted by dmcb324, a variety of media clips providing information from numerous news sources both local and international are given. This paper will use this media format to address the questions on the media reaction toward immigration. What is the historical framework of this issue? The framework presented in this media presentation covers a current and present time frame beginning with the elections of 2010 through the months of 2011. So the information seen and heard is very up-to-date and thereby relevant in today’s societal issues. What is the political context of this issue? The piece presents all sides of the political spectrum. It utilizes news clips and media information from both liberals and conservatives and well as members of the Democratic and Republican parties. This unique combining of views and information provides for a very thought-provoking and unbiased look at some of the issues around immigration today...
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