Hello! As a college student who has been researching the issue,
I am here to shed some light on immigration. Americans across the country, like
most of you here today, believe the focus of the immigration issue should be
placed on further securing the United States borders. Others believe the
government should focus on the illegal immigrants currently residing in the US.
Ideally, both of these aspects would be addressed and resolved at the same
time, but this has proven to be difficult. The issue of illegal immigrants
coming to America is a long standing issue that has never been solved. More recently,
however, we have seen improvements.
Border
Patrol has been increased dramatically in the past few years. Precautionary
measures including surveillance cameras, flood lights facing the border, and additional
watch towers are in place to help the effectiveness of Border Patrol. The
number of agents patrolling the border in addition to the improved and added
miles of fence along the border has not ceased, but slowed the flow of
immigrants from coming over to America. According to an LA Times article titled
“Is the border secure?” the intent of these improvements was not to completely
close off the US-Mexico border, but to make it easy for Border Patrol agents to
respond to those still attempting to cross.
Border Patrol Driving Along US-Mexico Border
There
have also been attempts to help deal with the undocumented immigrants currently
living in the United States. This outrages Americans because they are able to
reap benefits of being in America without contributing by paying taxes. For example,
these people are able to get educated, work, and receive state and federal
assistance which comes from taxpayer dollars. This needs to be the primary
focus of the immigration issue. Border security has decreased the numbers of
new entries but the government needs to work on legalizing or deporting the
current immigrants. If they were to be legalized, they, too, would be paying
taxes and more rightfully receiving assistance. It would be “fair” for their
children to be educated in the same school system that taxpayer dollars fund.
Although
the government has been focusing more on this aspect, the American people need
to realize that this is where the difference will be made. It is not enough to
just shut out the immigrants coming to America. The United States has a
reputation for welcoming immigrants and we need to keep that. In addition,
simply deporting all the people who have established lives in our country is
not the answer. Children who were brought here by their parents have grown up
illegal immigrants in America but have not been treated differently. These kids
were not brought here by choice and don’t deserve to lose everything they know.
If we can get them and their families to be documented, they would be able to
continue their education and have career opportunities. By deporting, we could
potentially be losing people who can make a difference in our country. If all
illegal immigrants were deported, we would be losing many important players to
our workforce. Although it is ethically questionable, these people do jobs
Americans typically won’t at a price that Americans wouldn’t be willing to work
for. If there were no more immigrants, the price of many common items would go
up. Labor costs would drastically increase causing the same increase in what
the company must charge for their products. If the focus of this immigration
topic were placed on documenting current immigrants residing in the United States,
we could keep the same way of living while having more documented contributors
to the money supply. This will not be solved over night, nor should it be the
ONLY focus of the American people. It should, however, be the primary focus at
this time.
Works Cited
Marosi,
Richard, Cindy Carcamo and Molly Hennessy-Fiske. "Is the border
secure?" 10 March 2013. Los Angeles Times. 11 March 2013
<http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ff-secure-border-20130310-dto,0,7065262.htmlstory>.
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