Lorely Cortez
Professor Sutherlin
ENGL 1302.S07
20 April 2017
Immigration A problem then, A problem Now
“illegal immigration is not a new problem. Native Americans used to call it “white people.” This quote from Facebook describes the truth in a couple simple words. “Americans” now call others illegal immigrants when in America everyone is an illegal immigrant. Illegal immigration has helped the economy but increased the number of negative factors in the country like crime rates, racism, and it affects the children of immigrants. Immigrants cross the border to work, provide education for their children, and live in a country where there is less crime. There are people that cause problems while being in the U.S. such as gang members, drug dealers, and others who commit crimes are not wanted here by citizens. Other factors of immigration are racist people, discrimination for not having a social security number, and less jobs available for undocumented workers.
Education is one of the many motives for why people sacrifice family and themselves when crossing the border. In many countries, the education provided is not advanced due to the low economy levels, no teachers, many crimes and overall no resources for the people. Children, teens, older people all cross the border hoping for a brighter future in America. Those who are poor and live in a country where they are not safe, have dreams of becoming doctors and helping people who live in poor conditions. Parents want the best education possible for their children and coming to the U.S. will give them that education only up to a community college level. During the Obama administration, there was a program created to benefit people who met certain criteria called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This program grants them a social security number to those who meet the criteria and they able to work, have an ID, go to college and get other benefits. The process for applying is not free, the application costs four hundred and ninety-five dollars, plus the other costs that come along with the process. This not only benefits the economy from all the applicants but there are more doctors, engineers, lawyers, and all kinds of careers are pursued thanks to this program.
Many people associate crime increase with an increase in immigration in the U.S. A scholarly journal explains that a study over a 40-year period from 1970-2010 was done and the results show that immigration is interestingly linked with a decrease in violent and property crime during those four decades (Adelman, et al). This is interesting since many people think that immigrants are illegals and this study shows otherwise. During president Trump’s campaign for elections one of his promises was to deport all immigrants back to Mexico and he called Hispanics illegals along with other names. Not all Hispanics are immigrants as well as not all criminals are Hispanics either. Interestingly there is a “Trump Hypothesis”: whether immigrants are responsible for higher levels of violent and drug-related crime in the United States” Trump said this at his 2015 presidential campaign announcement (Green). To prove his hypothesis, statistics were compared on foreign-born and Mexican nationals living in the United States as well as estimates of undocumented foreign and undocumented Mexican population by state. The results show no association between crime and undocumented population size. The comparison does show a small association between undocumented Mexican immigrants and drug related arrests. There may be no association between crime increase and Mexican undocumented people but sadly the drug related cases do show a small but significant correlation with the population of undocumented people.
The economy is a factor that has improved since immigration started. Every time an immigrant crosses the border a citizen is looking for a new worker to help with the labor. In the agricultural industry immigrant workers are a key factor to gain money. According to an article, it says that “The Department of Labor reports that of the 2.5 million farm workers in the U.S., over half (53 percent) are illegal immigrants” (Goodman). This statistic helps to prove that deporting farm workers would decrease the labor in the agricultural industry thus reducing the impact it makes on the economy. Construction companies, electric companies, restaurants, housekeeping companies are all dependent on hiring undocumented workers who are willing to work for a brighter future. Deporting immigrants would cause problems like labor shortage, more jobs would be available but not the kind of jobs citizens would want to work in. That is another factor that people don’t consider, although more jobs would become available citizens wouldn’t want to work those jobs. Citizens of the U.S. want higher paying careers and immigrants work the lower wage jobs available. In the same article about the economy and immigration a report from a Texas comptroller Susan Combs, “Without undocumented population, Texas’ work force would decrease by 6.3 percent and Texas’ gross state product would decrease by 2.1 percent” (Goodman). This is just the percentage decrease for one state, now imagine how much it would decrease for the entire country causing a huge decrease for work labor.
President Trump’s campaign proposals were mostly based on deporting illegals back to Mexico and thus reducing all the negative factors that come hand in hand with immigration. Illegals come with family and some have more children who are citizens of the U.S. after being born here. Many illegal immigrants have children who are citizens and when they are deported the children must stay in the U.S. with relatives. Relatives not always want to take care and be responsible for more children when in fact they can barely take care of their own. This causes problems in families and children may become friends with others who are bad influences, perhaps even increasing the rate of crime. Children are also psychologically affected by having deported parents and staying in the U.S. with relatives. An article explains how around 5.5 million children are the children of undocumented parents, only around three-quarters are U.S. born citizens. It explains how the nation is spending billions of dollars in the education, and healthcare of these children because they are the future of America. America also spends millions on deportations, arrests, and raids in homes and at work-sites and many of the arrested are parents who leave children behind. “The children of unauthorized immigrants live with the fear that their parents might be arrested, detain, or deported” (Chaudry et al). This is certainly true no children would like for their parent to be taken away from them. The behavior of children would change in a negative way due to the sudden change of mom and or dad not being at home anymore. The family would also suffer from an economic loss if for example, only the father figure would work to provide for the children and he gets arrested. In other situations, both parents work to at least pay for rent and other expenses and if both parents get deported the family would suffer economically. Some immigrants come here to work and provide for their children but they come and live where they can only afford to pay for rent. In other terms, children are the ultimate factor that is affected by sudden arrests and deportations on these illegal immigrants.
Racism increases with illegal immigration, especially when the immigration reform is mentioned and when elections take place. When Trump started running for president and after he became president, many racial slurs started to pop up in schools, public places and even in neighborhoods. In schools, Hispanic kids and teens were suffering from racial slurs such as “go back to Mexico” and other students like African Americans were being told to “get back to the crop fields”. This is very sad because in schools all the kids should look at each other equally and that has not happened yet. Children believe it or not are affected by what other children say in school and the consequences are that they no longer want to go back to school. Teens are older and they know that it is wrong to shout racist slurs to others but because they are the citizens here they believe they can say anything no matter how rude it can be. In neighborhoods Hispanics have also dealt with people painting racist slurs in their homes and that is not a good thing. Racism in America has not gotten to the point where minorities can’t go out of the house but at one point racism became a big problem in schools. That is something to be afraid of because they are just children that are doing racist things from the influence coming from home or from other peers.
Surprisingly, the negative associations people often make about illegal immigrants have been proven to be the opposite. Crime associations with immigration are often made even by the current president and studies have showed otherwise. People say that deporting immigrants will be easy and the impacts will be positive but studies have also shown the complete opposite. The workforce would decrease, crime rates could possibly increase, and the economy would be negatively impacted as well. The cost of deportations, arrests, and having the people in detention centers will cost millions of dollars making the economy suffer. This problem could be possibly solved by making an immigration reform and deporting those who have committed crimes and are negative influences in the U.S. Those who are here to give their children a brighter future should be given the chance to stay and follow all the laws. In return for staying here immigrants could help the communities, and continue to make more than 50 percent of the workforce in the immigrant dependent companies.