Drew Flanagin
Natalie Elliott
English Lang
26 November 2018
Title
Immigration is something that America has been seeing for a very long time. During times like the industrial revolution, immigrants would be coming from around the world to America. Chinese immigrants are a good example of people coming and taking the harder jobs with a lot less benefit. The Chinese came to America for opportunity so that they can provide for their families or as a last resort but what they got were Americans looking down on them and bad working conditions. Along with poor working
conditions, their living conditions were a major hardship that they had because they lived in small rooms crammed with a lot of people. Another example of people immigrating to America is Irish people who left their homeland to escape famine. These immigrants were welcomed when the economy was doing good, but when it wasn’t then they would have a harder time finding jobs especially since there were signs put up saying, “No Irish need apply.” There are many reasons for people moving to America back
then which included escaping famine to escaping massacre and we let refugees come in. They would take the harder jobs and they were useful during war times but we didn’t treat them with the respect that they deserved, in fact, we tried to push them away when things got tough for the American people. There was a lot of social tension between the Americans and immigrants during this time period and there were people who really disliked the immigrants. They went as far as making a political party known
as the Know-Nothings who were against immigrants and Catholicism.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was one of the first immigration laws that were put in place to prevent a group of people coming to America. What the law did was prevent the immigration of Chinese people to America. They did this because the American people were afraid that there wouldn’t be any jobs left for them along with wanting to keep people purely white. World War I was something that affected public opinion on immigrants negatively by causing there to be some suspicion towards immigrants. This
eventually led to more immigration laws which put a quota on how many people could come to America from anywhere. The first World War had made refugees but because of the quota that was in place, some of the people who were seeking refugee were denied. The Great Depression was another period of time that affected public opinion on immigrants and it showed because a lot of those immigrants were sent back to their home country and it only got worse for them when World War II began. Italian and German
immigrants were arrested because people were afraid that they were spies but the Japanese had the worst of it because not only the Japanese immigrants arrested but the Japanese-Americans were also arrested. They did this because people didn’t trust anyone (again) who were descendants of their enemy, but Congress did eventually apologize for what they did in 1988. In 1988 the Displaced Persons Act was passed and we allowed some people to come it but not everyone. The Immigration and Naturalization
Act was passed in 1965 and we had a lot of refugees come into the United States. In the ’90s people started to develop a bad view towards immigrants and has become a big topic in politics. We now have people coming in from everywhere thanks to things like airplanes and people can come in illegally. America's history with immigration and the issue can be solved easily, and it’s not stricter immigration laws.
Immigrants face many challenges when they move to America especially if they are undocumented immigrants. One of these challenges that Jose Antonio Vargas, who has written for the new york times, faced was learning English. Something that he wanted to do was not only learn English but he also wanted to pronounce words better. While he was growing up he was able to get an education, but there was a risk, he was living in a time when there was talk about not letting undocumented immigrants get an education.
Despite all of that he was able to succeed in school and was able to develop a good relationship with his mentors. Another issue that he faced was getting a driver’s license because the papers that he had were fake. This is something that a lot of undocumented immigrants deal with when they are trying to get a license or even a job, they can’t because without the legal documents they won’t be able to obtain either of those things so what they resort to is the fake documents. Being caught is something
that haunts illegal immigrants everywhere which makes them feel like they can’t trust anyone. Vargas dealt with this problem when he won a prize for something that he helped write and his grandmother called his asking, “What will happen if people find out?”(Vargas) What she was referring to was the fact that he wasn’t a citizen and attracting attention to himself was dangerous. The phone call affected him greatly because he wrote that once he got off the phone he, “rushed to the bathroom…sat down
on the toilet and cried.” This is a reality that immigrants go through, living in fear and trying to make a living so that they can provide for themselves and for their family. All they want to do is live the “American dream.”A point was made in the passage and it was that anyone can be an immigrant and they play an important role in society.
Farming and being able to produce things are very important for places like Guatemala because not only do people rely on those crops for resources but their economy relies on it. One of the issues that Guatemala is facing is crop failure, and climate change is the one to blame for that. Gena Steffens writes about how the bad climate has put people out of business and has created a country of refugees. Because of the rising global temperatures there have been droughts affecting the crops and has been
causing erratic weather patterns. People are becoming desperate and are risking it all for the ability to make it to America so that they can get a better life with more success. One of the points in the article is that people are just trying to survive; if we could see how bad things are for the people of Guatemala then there would be change. Climate change isn’t a reason for someone to be considered a refugee so people are resorting to smuggling themselves into America just so that they can have
asylum but it isn’t a guarantee that they’ll make it. The economy is really being affected by this problem because farmers don’t have crops to sell which means the Guatemalan people don’t have food or money. This also means that buses and cabs have stopped visiting them because “People have run out of money to pay the fare.” (Steffens) It’s a problem that we are causing and are refusing to address. In another article, Lauren Markham says that Guatemala is “the source of one of the largest migrations
of unauthorized immigrants,”(Markham) to the U.S. She tells us some of the many reasons that people are leaving which are things like violence and racism but she says that “drought and rising temperatures…are making it harder for people to make a living.” This points out how climate change is overlooked on why people are migrating to America. Aside from immigrants trying to leave their country because of climate change, there is another thing that is making people want to leave their country;
there are various dangers like gang violence and political unrest in these countries. Sandra Cuffe writes a story about a Woman who has her husband's death certificate so that she can seek asylum in America. She is one of the many people that deal with violence in Honduras and they just want a better life for themselves. They aren’t coming here so that they can commit crimes but are trying to escape it. Another thing that is going on in Honduras is political corruption. There were some “fraud allegations
in [Honduras’] recent elections,” (Nicole Acevedo) and because of that people were angry and started to protest. These reasons are the reasons why my members of my family and other families come to America.
The reasons that people immigrate to America today are very similar to the reasons back in the 19th and 20th century. Some of them are trying to escape famine and get a better life. I said earlier that Chinese people back in the industrial times wanted to come here for opportunity and it’s the same now for the people of Guatemala and Honduras. Another thing that is similar between the two time periods is how people are accusing immigrants of stealing jobs and bringing crime. One of the differences
that we have is it’s harder for immigrants to come into the States legally which is a reason why there are a lot of illegal immigrants. Knowing this the question arises, if it was easier for immigrants to get into America would there be less illegal immigration?
Letting immigrants come in will definitely have some pros and cons and will probably affect some aspects of life. If we do end up giving a pathway citizenship to undocumented immigrants then it’ll be a humane way for them to obtain citizenship and according to the AJC (American Jewish Committee ), it would “strengthen our national security… [and] stimulate the economy.” Though there is a fear that this pathway would be an unethical solution because illegal immigrants would get a pathway while other
immigrants have to go through the tedious process. Then why not make the process fair? That's what Barack Obama was suggesting when he said, “[there should be] a process that includes passing a background check, paying taxes, paying a penalty, learning English, and then going to the back of the line, behind the folks who are trying to come here legally.” This would be a fair compromise but Attorney Allan J. Favish says that the undocumented immigrants “have jumped ahead” and that the only way
that they’ll “go to the back of the line… [is] immigrants must leave the United States.” There is a lot of debate on this topic and coming to a consensus that’ll be effective is seeming harder and harder as more factors come into play.
The process for obtaining a citizenship is a tedious process that can be handled differently. First, you must meet some requirements like being able to speak and understand English along with living in the States for a minimum of five years (with all the legal documents). I interviewed a lawyer named Leah Rodríguez asking her about the requirements and she told me that things like Green cards and temporary visas are some of the legal documents required. Once all the requirements are met then you
have to spend some time outside of the country and after that, there is a test. Something that is essential for this process is an attorney who specializes in immigration. If you don’t have a good cause for coming to the States then you wouldn’t be as high as a priority as someone who is “being persecuted” (Rodríguez). The process for deportation is something that is very complicated and is hard to explain, but the gist of it is there are two kinds of removal that deport people who have the documents
and don’t have it. For the people with the legal documents, they get deported because they might’ve done something bad like break the law, and for undocumented immigrants then it’s because they've been caught.
Immigrants have their lives set up here in America and it's unethical to make them lose everything that they’ve worked for if they don’t have certain papers. America’s policy on immigration and how they deal with illegal immigrants are broken and have been that way for a very long time. There needs to be changed. America's history consists of anti-immigration along with fear for no reason and those qualities are still prominent in today's government. These immigrants are being helped by immigration
lawyers who fight for them, but not everyone is gonna be able to become a lawyer, so how can we help? The best thing that we can do for these immigrants that are going through the fears of being caught or those who are struggling to land a job because they don't have papers is to listen to their stories and be there for them.
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