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Christiam Henriquez
Steven Hall
English 1010
05/02/13
Immigration System
I believe that one of the main reason people who come to this country and plan to stay
here legally or illegally is because the economy in the U.S.A is much better than in their
countries and to have a better life. I am from Peru and I came here legally in 2008. What really
brought me to this project is the fact that America’s immigration system is broken. Too many
employers game the system by hiring undocumented workers and there are millions of people
living in the shadows. Neither is good for the economy or the country. I think it is time to act to
fix the broken immigration system in a way that requires responsibility from everyone and
guarantees that everyone is playing by the same rules. Illegal immigrants are generally far less
educated than those who enter the country legally (Newman). So what is the right way to fix the
immigration system?
Greenley, Larry. "How to Fix Illegal Immigration." New American Vol. 24 No. 5. 03 Mar 2008:
15-18. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 01 Apr 2013.
This article How to fix illegal immigration wrote by Larry Greenly who is a writer for
New American website. This article appeared on this website on March 3, 2008. Greenly mainly
focus on how the effect of massive illegal immigration into the United States is intolerable and
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that our government must fix it. Greenly states that under our constitution, Congress is the key to
fix illegal immigration. However, Greenly mentions that “Congress has been very remiss in
fixing the illegal-immigration invasion.” (Greenly 1)
Greenly begins his article by persuading us that we must create sufficient grass-roots
pressure to force Congress to pass the necessary legislation to fix our illegal-immigration crisis
in accordance with the constitution. Greenly alleges that Congress fail to secure and maintain our
national borders and John F. McManus responds “The border remains open and the federal
government is doing nothing of substance to close it because it is Brush administration policy to
merge Mexico and Canada and actually abolish both borders.” (Greenly 3) Therefore Greenly
suggests some provisions that should be included in any legislative package to solve the illegalimmigration problem such as securing our national borders, ending the economic incentive for
illegal immigration, strictly enforcing all existing immigration laws, ending birthright citizenship
for children of illegal immigrants, and rejecting any form of amnesty for illegal immigrants. In
the last part of the article Greenly adds a second strategy where he says what we can do as a
citizen. Greenly want us to work with state legislator to get out model Anti-Illegal immigration
resolution, contact our senator and representative in Congress of anti-illegal legislation based on
the provision discussed and work with other citizens to demand that our politicians fix the
immigration problem.
I think this article is important if we want to find ways to fix the immigration system.
Fixing illegal immigration is not that easy. In the fourth article Newman proposes two different
ways to fix illegal immigration. However, Greenly focuses more on Congress, because they are
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the one that really has the power to fix it. The two strategies he uses help me answer my research
question. Nonetheless, on his second strategy where he says that we as a citizens can also help
fixing the immigration system I think it is hard because we as citizens may not know about laws
and rights.
Levin, Yuval. "Fixing Immigration." Commentary Vol. 123, No. 5. May 2007: 49-54. SIRS
Issues Researcher. Web. 16 Apr 2013.
This article fixing immigration was written by Yuval Levin , who is a fellow at the Ethics
and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and senior editor of the New Atlantis. Levin
stresses the need for immigration reform. Levin states that the problem with the immigration
system resides in our actual immigration policies, our means of selecting, processing,
welcoming, and integrating those who to our shore openly and legally.
In this article the author’s tone seems to be worried because of the amount of legal and
illegal immigrants who come to the United States. Levin says that “legal and illegal immigration
are not two sides of the same coin.” (Levin 2) In the middle of his article Levin proposes that a
few reforms of the immigration system, and of the assimilation process could begin to make a
difference fairly quickly such as new immigrants should be permitted to petition only for spouses
and for unmarried children below the age of twenty-one, ending the “visa lottery”, and
employment-based immigration needs to be expanded and reformed to meet the requirements of
the American labor market.
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I think this article is really important because it helps me answer my question. This paper
provides important information on how to fix the immigration system. However, I only agree
with the author up to a certain point. I think that family unification is a legal way to bring
immigrant to the United States besides keeping parents and their young children together is
humane and ethical. Nonetheless, Levin affirms that new immigrants should be permitted to
petition only for spouses and for unmarried children below twenty one years old. I think the visa
lottery should be eliminated because I don’t think that green cards should be given out at random
because it makes it more difficult to screen new immigrants for security risks.
Nadadur, Ramanujan. "Illegal Immigration: A Positive Economic Contribution To The United
States." Journal Of Ethnic & Migration Studies 35.6 (2009): 1037-1052. Academic
Search Premier. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.
This article Illegal immigration: A positive economic contribution to the United States
wrote by Ramanujan Nadadur who has a Master’s in Forced Migration at Oxford University.
This article has overviewed a range of issues regarding illegal immigration. However, Nadadur
states that “in term of economic consequences, illegal immigration benefits the US, especially
when considering that the US labor market is segmented between a primary and secondary
sector.” (Nadadur 5) Nadadur also suggests that future immigration policy should recognize that
illegal immigration has a significant and positive impact on the US economy.
This article is not a persuasive essay as the one Larry greenly wrote. The paper argues
that illegal immigration has a positive impact on the US economy. In the first paragraph of the
article Nadadur focuses on the effects of illegal immigration on jobs and wages in a dual labor
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and the fiscal impacts of illegal immigrants (taxes paid and costs imposed on society through use
of public services). The author mentions that illegal immigrants impose costs on government that
include enrollment in public schools and the use of emergency health cares and that they pay
payroll taxes such as social security that are automatically subtracted from their pay and excise
taxes that are incorporated into the prices of goods such as fuel.
This article does not help me answer my research question. However, Nadadur provides
good information on how illegal immigration helps the economy in the United Sates. It is seen
that illegal immigration has a positive impact on the US economy and that in spite of a fiscal cost
being imposed at the state and local levels, efficiently allocating resources between the federal
and state governments could help to solve this dilemma.
Newman, Alex. "Immigration News Update." New American Vol. 25, No. 15. 20 Jul 2009:
1016. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 01 Apr 2013.
The article Immigration News Update is written by Alex Newman who is a writer for
New American. The article was first appeared on thenewamerican.com on July, 2009. Newman
mainly focuses on how the U.S. economy continues to melt down and more American workers
become unemployed since companies hire more illegal immigrants, who do not even speak
English, all at low wages because they will work for nothing. Newman says that “illegal
immigrants in America ranging from 11 million to more than 20 million and growing
steadily.”(Newman 3) Newman points out that President Barack Obama continue to push
amnesty for illegal immigrants. Newman stated that some states such as Oklahoma passed HB
1804, a law that prevents illegal immigrants from obtaining government-issued identification and
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also allows law enforcement to verify the status of anybody who is arrested, which can lead to
deportation, and the law made hiring illegal immigrants into a felony as well.
Newman begins his article informing us that the economy in U.S keeps getting worse and
that more American becomes unemployed. Newman mainly focuses on immigration broken
system that makes the economy even worse. Newman makes his opinion about illegal
immigrants clear throughout the article by bringing two laws that fights illegal immigration:
“HB1804 and the law made hiring illegal immigrants into a felony.”
According to Newman this article provides good information of what really is happening
in the U.S now. I think the author gives two good ways to fix the immigration system, the
“HB1804 and the law made hiring illegal immigrants into a felony.” However, I think that the
first one is not good at all because if they don’t have identification then they would commit
crimes by getting fake identification, what I mean is that if an illegal immigrant committed a
felony or even something worst then they wouldn’t know who this person really was.
Nevertheless, I agree with the second law because we really need to get paid what we deserve
not working for nothing as some illegal immigrants do.
Martin, Philip, and Susan Martin. "Immigration Law & the American Dream: U.S. Immigration
Policy and..." Insights on Law & Society. Spring 2001: 4+. SIRS Issues Researcher.
Web. 01 Apr 2013.
The article immigration and law & the American Dream: U.S Immigration Policy and
Globalization wrote by Philip Martin and Susan Martin. Philip Martin is professor of agricultural
and resource economist at the University of California and chair of the University of California’s
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comparative Immigration and Integration program. Susan Martin is the Director of the Institute
for the Study of International Migration in the Walsh School of foreign Services at Georgetown
University in Washington, D.C. The authors argue that there is no need to radically alter the U.S.
immigration policies; rather it is necessary to analyze the global contexts upon which the policies
are based.
The article mainly focuses on global contexts in which decision on U.S. immigration
policy are taken. The authors give significant global trends such as Economic Trends
corporations, Post-Cold War events and transnationalism. The authors set out issues in six
principal are that need attention: Legal immigration where reformists propose limiting
immigration to nuclear family only, refugees and asylees, unauthorized migration, integrating
immigrants, administration of immigration programs and relation with source countries.
This article is great because it lets us know that the United States faces new challenges
and must begin to think more creatively about immigration. I think that immigration is an
integral part of U.S history and culture. By understanding the global contexts it helps me think
more about the immigration policies. The author propose six principal areas as I mentioned in
which I agree 90 percent and are good ways to fix the immigration system.
After reading through these articles I have concluded that fixing immigration is not easy
at all. First of all I think that immigration is an integral part of U.S history and culture. And that
it is true because if we look around I think that most Americans are multiracial. The authors
propose good ways to fix the immigration system. I agree with some of them. My research
question is hard to answer because the United States has been dealing with this issue for many
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years. In my own personal opinion I would like to pose another question, why don’t they secure
more the borders if they want to stop illegal immigration? However that is not the only way to
come to the United States illegally because a lot of illegal immigrants came here legally as a
tourist and never came back to their country. Since it is really hard to fight illegal immigration I
think that Authorities should start first on deporting criminals.