background information

Immigration I believe is something you can not control. Immigration in the U.S. has existed for a very long time, and it is still occurring to this present day. People will always be coming to America, because they see better opportunities here. In my blog I will talk about the history of immigration, the government, and some of the ways they have tried to control immigration.

Immigration started a few decades after Christopher Columbus discovery in 1492. Before the 1800s the United States didn’t worry about illegal immigration, instead they encouraged immigrants to come to the U.S. Can you believe that? Now in days they make a big deal of immigrants, coming to the United States, when it was them, who encouraged them in the first place. Anyways, the United States lacked people to farm, hunt, mine, and do other things, that’s why immigrants were encouraged to come. The first states migrated to, were the thirteen colonies (1600s-1700s). English, French, Swedes, Finns, Germans, Irish Scottish, and Dutch settled in the 13 colonies. People migrated to the United States to escape death, poverty, religious or political persecution, and were seeking freedom, in hopes to have a better life. When settlers settled into United States, they had to work hard. Some immigrants came into contact with employers, who specified the time in conditions of labor, in exchanged for a passage to the new world . As a result of their labor, they acquired owner ship of small pieces of land. Not every one was lucky though, most immigrants got ripped of and had to work their asses of for nothing (mostly slaves though).

Before the 1800s immigration was slow, in 1808 congress banned the importation of slaves, and then in 1812-1814 war with Britain prevented any immigration to the United States. In 1819 the first federal legislation on immigration required notation of the passengers list, because immigration started increasing. First limitations on immigration started in 1875. The United States kept passing laws to make it harder for people to come to the U.S. But guess what? People still kept migrating to the United States. Within 1891 the Bureau of immigration was established, and the congress adds health qualifications to immigration restrictions. During 1910, Mexican revolution sends thousands of Mexicans to the United States seeking employment. Antebellum WWI began the mass of migration to the United States slowed down. Congressed also passed a literacy act in 1917 to restrain the arrival of low skilled immigrants from entering the country. After War World I ended the numbers of immigrants started to increase. To deal with this, the U.S. congress introduced new immigration policies. During 1921 the government introduced the National Origins Quota Act, limiting the number of illegal immigrants. Quotas were allocated to various ethnic groups to reduce immigration. In 1924 the border patrol was established. Within 1940 the Alien Registration Act calls for registration and finger printing of all aliens. During 1952 the Immigration and Naturalization Act brings into the comprehensive statute the multiple laws that govern immigration and naturalization to date. In 1965 The Immigration and Nationality Act Amendment removed all quotas.

But it didn’t matter what the United States of America was doing, because people still migrated and are still immigrating to the United States. Attempting to come to the United States has continuously increased in every era of U.S. history. Immigration made the U.S., newcomers helped transform American society and culture. I believe you can’t control immigration because, through history it has been proven. The government has made political acumen, trying to stop immigration by setting new laws and stuff. But people are still coming and will keep coming to the United States of America from all over the world, Mexico, Austria, Bohemia, Canada, China, Cuba, ,France ,Germany Italy, Hungary, India, Ireland Korea Philippines ,Poland, Russia, Vietnam ,and all the other countrys I didn’t mention.　

Citation added:

"Histroy of immigration to the United States." wikipedia.com. Ed. .. 25 Sept. 2009. Wikipedia. 26 Sept. 2009 .

Diner, Hasia. "Immigration and U.S. History." America.gov. 13 Feb. 2008. Hasia Diner. 26 Sept. 2009 .

Immigration to the United States,1851-1900." Memory.loc.gov. 2 Mar. 2004. Library of congress. 26 Sept. 2009 .

　

　

　

Current State of Illegal Immigration

Different people have different political acumen on immigration. For example, Ira Mehlman, the spokeperson for the Federation for American Immigration says, “Most people seem to think that immigration has affected most of the issues we have today in the U.S. On the other hand, the conservativerepublican.us says, “America is being raped and pillaged by the illegal intruders.” Still other people seem to think that immigrants should have rights, while others just don’t care, or worry about the topic.

In this blog, I will talk about the current issues of immigration, what are problems, views, and solutions for illegal immigration. I will focus on one main group of immigrants, Mexicans. I focus on Mexicans because it seems to be a big issue in the U.S. today. The government doesn’t want any more Mexicans coming into the United States illegally, or being here illegally.

One way the U.S. has tried to stop illegal immigration is when they built the border fences along the Mexican borders. Some people think the fence is working and others that it doesn’t. Nestor Rodriguez, co-director of the Center for Immigration said, “The fence doesn’t stop migration along the border, it simply displaces migration.” Rosemary Jenks, director of government affairs said, “It sends a message we are finally getting serious about our borders.” Bill Odle is a retired marine that has lived on the border since 1997, he says, “It’s ugly. It doesn’t work. It cost too much money.” My opinion on the fences is that it is a waste of time and money. Immigrants are auspicious; they're always crossing the fence to the United States.

What I found interesting was that in 2006 more than 90 percent of 1.2 million illegal immigrants, were apprehended by border patrol along the border with Mexico. Eighty-eight percent were Mexicans, and nearly 150,000 from 197 other countries were caught there too. I also found out that the federal government improperly seized land for the fence, and also that the fence has affected wildlife, and it threatens the habitat for many birds. (CQ Press)

Another issue is that illegal immigrants protest for amnesty. An amnesty would benefit 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants. It forgives the act of illegal immigrants, and forgives other related acts, such as driving and working with false documents. The result of an amnesty is that illegal immigrants are rewarded with green cards. People don’t think that’s fair. Immigrants also work, and that seems to be a big issue in the United States. Factories and plants were raided by Immigration enforcement arresting hundreds of illegal workers. ICE also notified 652 businesses that it would inspect their hiring records to make sure they verified their workers legal status. I think that’s unfair. Immigrants are working, they're hired because employers need people to work for them. Do you see a problem with immigrants trying to work? I don’t. I don’t think people really care about the legal statues of immigrants. Like I said, employers need workers; immigrants are the ones that end up getting those jobs. They're not the best jobs, they're hard and it's pretty much labor work. Many people wouldn’t consider that a dream job, but for an immigrant, as long as they're getting paid it's all good.

It’s also important that we fix the illegal immigration system. It’s discriminatory against hard working families. Fees start to add up. Immigrants have to hire lawyers and pay thousands of dollar fees to be represented, if they have a good enough lawyer and they qualify, they can become residents.

One of Obama's priorites in office this year is including a plan to make legal status possible for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants who already live here. Republicans say, “They will seek to mobilize popular outrage against any effort to legalize unauthorized immigrant workers while so many Americans are out of jobs.” Democratic legislative aides said that “opening a full-fledged debate this year on immigration, particularly with health care as a looming priority, could weigh down the president’s domestic agenda.” No serious legislative talks on the issue are expected until after some of Mr. Obama’s other priorities have been debated. Obama says,“I know this is an emotional issue; I know it’s a controversial issue.” He told an audience at a town meeting on March 18 in Costa Mesa, California, “I know that the people get real riled up politically about this.” He also said that immigrants that are long time residents but lack legal statues “have to have some mechanism over time to get out of the shadow.” The White House believes the public support for fixing the immigration system will outweigh opposition from voters who argue that immigrants take jobs from Americans.

The last big issue today is about health care. Obama's administration assures that illegal immigrants will not receive health insurance benefits. Legal residency will be required for anyone enrolling in an exchange under health care reform. Although the House version of the bill specifically excludes illegal immigrants from receiving federally-funded health benefits under the “Affordable Health Choices Act,” several Republicans, including Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) have complained that the bill lacks a mechanism to verify an applicant's immigration status before being included in the program. The House bill also does not explicitly prevent undocumented workers from spending their own money to enroll in a health care exchange (Preston). I don’t have any thing to argue about this issue because it’s recent, and I still don’t know all the facts about it.

I conclude that immigration is a very complicated topic with different views and ideas, and the ideas are either good or bad. The government has tried and will keep trying to decrease the numbers of immigrants coming and being in the U.S.

　

　

Sources:

Pretson, Julia. ".Obama to Push Immigration Bill as One Priority." New York Times 8 Apr. 2009.

This article just talked about some of Obams immigration bill.

"American Border Fence." Press release. www.cqresearcher.com. 19 Sept. 2008. CQ Press. 1 Oct. 2009

http://www.cqresearcher.com

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This source gave me border information.

　

"The Conservative Republican." www.cinservativerepubliacan.us. 2005-2009. 3 Oct. 2009 .

This source talked a lot of negative things about illegal immigration, it gave me a different view of immigrants.

introduction

Illegal immigration has been happening since a long long time ago. People have been coming to America since Christopher Columbus discovered it. People have been coming to the USA, because of the promises, a better life, and because of freedom. I chose this topic because i thought it would be interesting to know how, and why, people really came to America. Also because everyone is a immigrant and i want to know what they went trough to get here. Why did people come to America? Why didn't they stay in there home land? What time did the first immigrants come to America? those are questions i want to know and figure out at the end of all my research paper.