Illegal Immigration from Mexico
David
Per. 2
If you were in Mexico and getting paid pennies an hour for hard labor, wouldn’t you want to come to the United States? Illegal immigration affects you because they are helping with the jobs that an average American citizen wouldn’t want to do. By doing this, illegal immigrants help the economy grow and in the end help you. Open borders in the United States should be allowed so that immigrants from Mexico can escape the loss of human rights in their own country and find economic employment opportunities in the United States. In this research paper there are three main points that I am going to tell you about. The first is why immigrants come, the second is the economic impacts of illegal immigrants, and the third is what the United States has done to slow the flow of illegal immigrants.
My first point is about why the Mexican illegal immigrants come. They come for three reasons: economic opportunities, family reunion, and political freedom. They come for economic opportunities because when they were in Mexico they were being paid pennies every hour, but here they are illegally being paid about three dollars an hour. And even though they are being paid such low wages, they don’t want to say anything about it because they don’t want to go to court and have the chance of being sent back. When they come they usually think everything will be great and they will have a great life in America but it isn’t really true. Another reason why they come is to reunite their families and be able to live together in a little bit better place. What they usually end up doing though is having a few different families come together in one small apartment. Being paid below minimum wage and living illegally it would be very hard to try to live in a house and be able to pay the rent. The third reason that they come is for political freedom. They have come for political freedom because at one point during the 1970s and early 80s there was something going on called the Dirty War. The government was kidnapping and torturing hundreds of leftists, or liberals, and since they were in charge nothing really happened to stop the torturing. The people couldn’t do anything because at that time there was a one party system, the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI. Someone named Vicante Fox came around and stopped the continuous one party system, and started to crack down on what the government had been doing during that time. If my own government was torturing hundreds of people that would probably make me want to escape political persecution and look for economic opportunities.
My next point is about the impact of illegal immigrants on the United States. Three of the economic impacts that I am going to talk about are that illegal immigrants are a cheap source of labor, they pay some taxes, and they use some social services. My first point is about illegal immigrants as a cheap source of labor. Illegal immigrants are a cheap source of labor because employers can illegally hire them for small amounts of money and therefore keep the cost of their produced goods low so that more people will buy them. The problem is that illegal immigrants won’t say anything or try to sue their employers because they have such a big fear of being sent back to Mexico. My second point is that they pay some taxes and that helps the economy even though they really don’t have that much money to use for taxes. They do pay taxes when they buy things and pay a tax on the items like everyone else does. There is some debate about the ratio of how much social services they use to how much they are paying for taxes that leads me into my third point about their use of social services like education, health care, and the criminal system. Education they can get for free but since most Mexicans don’t know very much English, their teachers have to spend more time trying to teach them and help them learn certain things that are normally easy for most people to understand. The second social service that they use is health care. It is a law that if they have some sort of serious injury they must be treated for it. But if they have something like cancer and can’t pay for it the government doesn’t pay for it because it is not serious enough at that time. Then by the time it does get serious it is hard to actually treat it in time for them to survive. The third thing that they get is the right to have a fair trial, but most of the time the court is really backed up so they just give the person that is going to be put on trial a work permit. Then by the time that the court case does come around they don’t appear for it, and the government doesn’t have enough time to go and try to track them down. If a person is arrested and put in jail they have to be cared for with things like food and security. In the end it turns out that taxpayers have to pay for all of these things that illegal immigrants are doing for free. Because of this the United States has developed policies and services to try to slow the flow of illegal immigrants, which leads me to my next point.
The U.S has done many things to slow the flow of illegal immigrants. Three examples are the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), the IRCA (the Immigration Reform and Control Act), and the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform.
The INS is a branch of the government that enforces immigration laws. They are the part that is the U.S. border patrol. They were formed in the late 19th century when the federal government started making immigration rules. The early goals of the INS were to regulate contract labor, monitor ships that carried illegal immigrants, and to deport illegal immigrants. The main goal of the INS now is to keep Mexicans from crossing the border illegally by doing things like putting up fences, getting more agents, making more roads, motion detectors, stadium lights, night vision scopes, and identification systems. Operations like Operation Gatekeeper in 1993 resulted in people trying to get through mountains or walk through deserts and too many people died. Another program was Operation Lifesaver, which tried to help people get to the U.S. without a lot of distress and dying.
The next important law that happened was the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). This act was made because illegal immigration at this time was becoming a major issue. They wanted to stop or lessen it before it could get to be a bigger problem. There were two main parts to this law. The first granted amnesty to the immigrants that were already here in the U.S., which was about three million people [INS]. The second part of the law said that employers couldn’t hire illegal immigrants and they had to check to see if they were illegal immigrants. The idea behind the law was that illegal immigrants would be discouraged from coming here because it would be hard to find a job. This worked for the first few years but later people found out that they could actually get a job. They could get a job since employers didn’t really look very hard at documents, illegal immigrants could just get fake documents, nobody was there to enforce it, and if the employers did get caught the fines weren’t very much.
The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform was formed in 1990. It was formed to look at immigration laws and policies and how to make them better. Their first report focused on illegal immigration and they made suggestions about how to decrease violence at the border, and help people that were being abused. They also suggested a computerized system that would keep track of whether people could work or not. They issued several reports but in their final report they brought together all of the recommendations, which included: Improving controls over illegal immigration, reducing legal immigration, and revising laws on refugees and people seeking asylum.
In conclusion, although there may be some negative aspects to having illegal immigrants in the U.S., there are still ways in which they help our country. Due to the enormous number of illegal immigrants, they help contribute to the United States’ economy. They work at jobs that most people don’t want, and they contribute what they can to taxes. If we didn’t have them our economy wouldn’t be what it is today.
David
Per. 2
If you were in Mexico and getting paid pennies an hour for hard labor, wouldn’t you want to come to the United States? Illegal immigration affects you because they are helping with the jobs that an average American citizen wouldn’t want to do. By doing this, illegal immigrants help the economy grow and in the end help you. Open borders in the United States should be allowed so that immigrants from Mexico can escape the loss of human rights in their own country and find economic employment opportunities in the United States. In this research paper there are three main points that I am going to tell you about. The first is why immigrants come, the second is the economic impacts of illegal immigrants, and the third is what the United States has done to slow the flow of illegal immigrants.
My first point is about why the Mexican illegal immigrants come. They come for three reasons: economic opportunities, family reunion, and political freedom. They come for economic opportunities because when they were in Mexico they were being paid pennies every hour, but here they are illegally being paid about three dollars an hour. And even though they are being paid such low wages, they don’t want to say anything about it because they don’t want to go to court and have the chance of being sent back. When they come they usually think everything will be great and they will have a great life in America but it isn’t really true. Another reason why they come is to reunite their families and be able to live together in a little bit better place. What they usually end up doing though is having a few different families come together in one small apartment. Being paid below minimum wage and living illegally it would be very hard to try to live in a house and be able to pay the rent. The third reason that they come is for political freedom. They have come for political freedom because at one point during the 1970s and early 80s there was something going on called the Dirty War. The government was kidnapping and torturing hundreds of leftists, or liberals, and since they were in charge nothing really happened to stop the torturing. The people couldn’t do anything because at that time there was a one party system, the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI. Someone named Vicante Fox came around and stopped the continuous one party system, and started to crack down on what the government had been doing during that time. If my own government was torturing hundreds of people that would probably make me want to escape political persecution and look for economic opportunities.
My next point is about the impact of illegal immigrants on the United States. Three of the economic impacts that I am going to talk about are that illegal immigrants are a cheap source of labor, they pay some taxes, and they use some social services. My first point is about illegal immigrants as a cheap source of labor. Illegal immigrants are a cheap source of labor because employers can illegally hire them for small amounts of money and therefore keep the cost of their produced goods low so that more people will buy them. The problem is that illegal immigrants won’t say anything or try to sue their employers because they have such a big fear of being sent back to Mexico. My second point is that they pay some taxes and that helps the economy even though they really don’t have that much money to use for taxes. They do pay taxes when they buy things and pay a tax on the items like everyone else does. There is some debate about the ratio of how much social services they use to how much they are paying for taxes that leads me into my third point about their use of social services like education, health care, and the criminal system. Education they can get for free but since most Mexicans don’t know very much English, their teachers have to spend more time trying to teach them and help them learn certain things that are normally easy for most people to understand. The second social service that they use is health care. It is a law that if they have some sort of serious injury they must be treated for it. But if they have something like cancer and can’t pay for it the government doesn’t pay for it because it is not serious enough at that time. Then by the time it does get serious it is hard to actually treat it in time for them to survive. The third thing that they get is the right to have a fair trial, but most of the time the court is really backed up so they just give the person that is going to be put on trial a work permit. Then by the time that the court case does come around they don’t appear for it, and the government doesn’t have enough time to go and try to track them down. If a person is arrested and put in jail they have to be cared for with things like food and security. In the end it turns out that taxpayers have to pay for all of these things that illegal immigrants are doing for free. Because of this the United States has developed policies and services to try to slow the flow of illegal immigrants, which leads me to my next point.
The U.S has done many things to slow the flow of illegal immigrants. Three examples are the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), the IRCA (the Immigration Reform and Control Act), and the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform.
The INS is a branch of the government that enforces immigration laws. They are the part that is the U.S. border patrol. They were formed in the late 19th century when the federal government started making immigration rules. The early goals of the INS were to regulate contract labor, monitor ships that carried illegal immigrants, and to deport illegal immigrants. The main goal of the INS now is to keep Mexicans from crossing the border illegally by doing things like putting up fences, getting more agents, making more roads, motion detectors, stadium lights, night vision scopes, and identification systems. Operations like Operation Gatekeeper in 1993 resulted in people trying to get through mountains or walk through deserts and too many people died. Another program was Operation Lifesaver, which tried to help people get to the U.S. without a lot of distress and dying.
The next important law that happened was the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). This act was made because illegal immigration at this time was becoming a major issue. They wanted to stop or lessen it before it could get to be a bigger problem. There were two main parts to this law. The first granted amnesty to the immigrants that were already here in the U.S., which was about three million people [INS]. The second part of the law said that employers couldn’t hire illegal immigrants and they had to check to see if they were illegal immigrants. The idea behind the law was that illegal immigrants would be discouraged from coming here because it would be hard to find a job. This worked for the first few years but later people found out that they could actually get a job. They could get a job since employers didn’t really look very hard at documents, illegal immigrants could just get fake documents, nobody was there to enforce it, and if the employers did get caught the fines weren’t very much.
The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform was formed in 1990. It was formed to look at immigration laws and policies and how to make them better. Their first report focused on illegal immigration and they made suggestions about how to decrease violence at the border, and help people that were being abused. They also suggested a computerized system that would keep track of whether people could work or not. They issued several reports but in their final report they brought together all of the recommendations, which included: Improving controls over illegal immigration, reducing legal immigration, and revising laws on refugees and people seeking asylum.
In conclusion, although there may be some negative aspects to having illegal immigrants in the U.S., there are still ways in which they help our country. Due to the enormous number of illegal immigrants, they help contribute to the United States’ economy. They work at jobs that most people don’t want, and they contribute what they can to taxes. If we didn’t have them our economy wouldn’t be what it is today.
posted by Alan at 1:49 PM
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