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.
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.
Try to think of some better conjunctions. Use spell check more often. other wise this was a good blog.
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