A Review of Immigration Policy - Research Paper Example

? A Review of Immigration Policy Task Introduction Immigration policy is a guideline that guides and term process of human movement at the borders of a country. They mostly come to the country to start a business, learn or work for a period in the country. The policies can be exceptionally strict and deny some people the opportunity to stay in a foreign country. The policies range from racial to ethnic biases; for example a country may only allow citizen coming from common wealth countries. Immigration policies are associated to asset, trade, overpopulation and agricultural strategy. America is affected by immigration and is the state with the largest number of immigrants. The government is working in outlining guiding principles that will control the immigration in the country. Immigration has both negatively and positively affected the country. America’s immigration policies are created to control the number of individuals coming in and out of the country. Immigration Preemption, Federal Plenary Power, Employer sanctions on Immigration and E-Verify are four subjects that highlight immigration policy in America. Immigration Preemption The problems regarding America’s immigration policy engage in criminalizing of immigration laws to dispirit the illegal passage of the boundary without the states permission. Immigrants in America that are unlawfully staying will face judgment for unlawfully existing in the country. The creation of the acts and laws are to discourage the individuals who are not documented and to stay in the country. It is predicted that few states and local immigration policies will be preempted by INA. The state governments are allowed to determine whether a person is lawfully or unlawfully allowed in the country by the second provision of SB 1070. Exclusionary immigration laws were difficult to find the unlawful settler in America. Arizona laws use state and local officials such as local police administrator to search and hunt down the illegal immigrants. The state laws are using discriminatory way of making laws aim at the immigrants crossing the border. The conflict between the federal and state law is because of the effectiveness it has in regulating the undocumented settler. The state and localities are given the ability to suspend and arrest employers that employ the immigrant workers. The increasing problem that exists between the federal and state laws is because of nationalization clause and states. Laws that interfere and conflict with the federal immigration regulations and policies are under preemption doctrine. Hence, the challenges facing the two authoritative groups are caused on the effectiveness it has in controlling the illegal immigration. The constitution does not go into detail in distinguishing the federal and state laws in defining the laws. Immigration in America has raised many debates that concern the security and populace of the country (McKanders, 2011). State law that interferes with the constitution is not imposed in regulating illegal migration in the country. Federal law is capable to preempt the state law when it is necessary by the following steps; through obscuring clash preemption, articulating preemption, and obscuring turf preemption. Federal immigration and state laws find it difficult in defining the immigrant’s employment. The state of law has the responsibility in ruling the housing and service for the aliens. The government and the constitution explain and try to solve the conflicts between the federal and state laws. There are policies that are formed to guide immigration of people across the border in America. The problems faced by the state, and the immigrants are watched out and solved by the federal. State laws are faced with the threat of being preempt. Immigration emphasizes also in overturning the state and federal laws. The congress was not allowed to replace and remove the state law from issuing out guidelines for immigrants in the city. Federal Plenary Power Federal law has matured from a foreign policy into a national legislative and regulatory scheme. The immigration law varied from one country to another and was perceived as a domestic affair will significantly improve the judicial system. The state and local laws are because of the connection of immigration law and the domestic laws that define the operations of the immigrants. The judges and legislature way of ruling has been exceptionally influenced by domesticating immigration of a country. The local regulations become difficult to implement when sub national laws become intricate to be used by the judges in judiciary. The criminalizing of the immigrants laws is discussed and addressed by the state and local laws. Immigration law has changed the migration law to something the federal law can control and manage in the society. The dissimilarity existing between civil and criminal law is clearly defined by the state law. Earlier on, laws of exclusion had originated and reformed from the civil laws of America. Historically, the foreign affairs was not involved with state immigration and early colonial, but aimed at controlling individuals who settled the place from other various parts globally. The laws were meant to affect the populace after being formed according to the society’s way of health and well-being. The early laws were also similar to the current state laws that were formed in a manner of defining member to be allowed to live and work in the community. They were discriminative and judged a person according to gender, race, skin color and region. The federal domestication federal laws are aimed at regulating the states in preempting through controlling the populace of the America (Venbrux, 2006). Federal immigration laws have caused debate in determining whether they can be fully used to determine the movement of individuals in the country. For effective protection of the population from the terrorism threat, the laws assist in regulating the individuals to enter and settle the country. Therefore, challenges facing the laws are threats from terrorist that majorly operate in the country as illegal immigrants to secure themselves. Immigration faces such challenges, holding people having willful intention for either the country or her citizens. The federal immigration regulations and state laws should be effective to ensure that the borders are well protected to illegal and unlawful immigrants. Most of the immigrants have detrimental intention and aim at involving in negative activities in the society. The state laws are being constitutionalized to be effective to become successful in implementing and controlling the movement of people across the borders. The issue was solved in the court, which decided to limit the powers of the state laws, in its aim of maintaining order at the border (Stumpf, 2008). Employer Sanctions Immigration The UK and United States of America have faced a predicament of illegal immigration. The unlawful immigration has developed radically since the year 2000. The “pulling” factors for the immigrants are different for each country. In USA, they are; higher pay, job opportunities working environment and elevated standards of living. In the UK, they are; high labor demand at all levels of skills and gradual border control elimination. Immigration has brought troubles to these countries. National security is in jeopardy through terrorism, which goes hand-in-hand with immigration. In addition, the inhabitants of these countries see immigration as a root for job displacement and crime. Displacement happens due to availability of cheap labor that discourages employers by making working environment uncomfortable. These countries have reacted to this issue by transforming immigration restructuring legislation. The objective of employer sanctions is to deter immigration influx in both countries. Its angle of tackling this issue is by following employers who provide work for unlawful immigrants. IRCA forbids employers from hiring illegal immigrants knowingly through imposing fines. Employer is supposed to authenticate employee eligibility through presentation on valid documents. This has drawn discourse from the public (critics and supporters). The issued regulations required employers to complete a 1-9 form, which, listed documents that prove eligibility of the employment. In addition, employer is required to point out the documents presented by the employee and bear witness that they were legitimate. The employee is not fined for employing an illegal immigrant knowingly if documents produced looked legitimate. However, if they looked obviously counterfeit s/he is fined. Sanctions brought some shortcomings to businesses. First, employers were discouraged to employ minorities (Steele, 2004). INS agents had the right to conduct exploration in enterprises without the owner’s permission, as long as they obtained a general search guarantee. These searches targeted establishments that had a high West Indian and Hispanic employees. To avoid these disruptive and time-consuming raids, they decided not to employ any “foreign-looking” people. INS raid threats teaming with IRCA’s rigid sanctions are incentives that are strong enough for an employer to single out “foreign-looking” people or those that may draw INS attention to them. This is done despite having legitimate documents. Since employers face cruel consequences for illegal aliens’ employment, and face a slight chance of penalization from prejudice, they will continue to make a distinction against a foreign-looking populace despite some having legitimate papers. Employer sanctions try to reduce the power of “pull factors” that attract people to the USA. Nonetheless, “push factors,” agricultural seasonal worker programs, registry, drastic growth of black market, and IRCA legalization encourage immigration. Adding insult to injury, the probability that the INS can effectively monitor each employer in the USA has complicated things and unable to stop immigration. Besides, in a country working hard to eliminate discrimination, employer sanction is costly. Viewing from the cost lens, congress is forced to repeal this condition. E-Verify As a response to population growth of undocumented immigrants, national government came up with an electronic authentication system, to confirm eligibility of a new employee. The program involved employer entering a worker’s societal security digit, status of citizenship, date of birth into the website (E-Verify). This system would then verify the given information against the one SSA and U.S. Citizenship and immigration had. Critics have viewed it as undependable, excessively taxing because it relies on a database that is inaccurate, it is a financial load on employer without reducing impending liability, and it invites unpleasant discrimination. Implementation of the E-Verify looks down on policy objectives of economy and efficiency. It is clear that E-Verify have its share of shortcomings. First, it is the lack of precise and dependable database. E-Verify rely on faulty SSA database. In a country with approximately 190 million working individuals (between ages of 18years and 65 years), there is an error margin that is troublesome, secondly, they are difficult and disproportionate expenses for employers. The final rule of eligibility authentication rule estimated a total compliance start-up cost of $ 188 million in a financial year. The employer must enter into E-Verify MOU with SSA and DHS, to obey the rule. This MOU allows SSA and DHS review the 1-9 forms, review records of employment, and interview both employee and employer on the employer use of E-Verify. Employers who follow the verification process meticulously face the likelihood of raid or audit by the DHS. These “visits” and unregulated access to records, increase employer’s fines, and penalties exposure and they vary from $375 to $16000 for illegal employee hired and $119 to $1100 for emissions and errors in 1-9 forms. Failure of the employer to abide by the MOU can result to suspension or termination of the contract. Third, it has a distinct impact on employees. An employer is forced to walk on a tight rope, due to these enforcement actions (Patel, 2011). As a retaliation mechanism, it promotes defensive employment practices. Which, result to denial of hiring immigrants (documented or not) because of the fear of being subjected to sanctions. These laws of E-Very deny immigrants’ citizenship benefits that facilitate a sense of belonging, which results to disruption of the economy and endorsement of exceptionalism. Conclusion The four main topics that are discussed in the paper are Immigration Preemption, Federal Plenary Power, Employer sanctions on Immigration and E-Verify. This education explains the problems regarding the United States State and Federal Immigration guidelines. The objective of E-Verify is to endorse efficiency and economy. Workers are left vulnerable at the state and federal levels to prejudiced determinations on the legal status, which endorse exceptionalism instead. To be able to align E-Verify objectives with procurement act goals, federal immigration system has to be repaired by putting boundaries between immigration regulations of state and federal. On employees sanctions, turning a blind eye employment that is unlawful has become the rule. This is because of the lack of feasible ways to give competent guidance and consistent immigration law enforcement. The conflict that exists between the state and federal immigration laws in controlling allows access of unlawfully immigrates in the country. The constitution, government and the courts also define and give conditions needed to be followed by all immigrants that come to stay in America. References McKanders, M. (2011). Unforgiving Of Those Who Trespass Against U.S.: State Laws Criminalizing Immigration Status. University of New Orleans School of Law Loyola Journal of Public Interest Law. 12 Loy. J. Pub. Int. L. 331 Patel, S. (2011). E-Verify: An exceptional system embedded in the immigration reform battle between federal and state governments. Boston Third World Law Journal Boston College Third World Law Journal. 30 B.C. Third World L.J. 453. Steele, S. (2004). Deterrence to Hiring Illegal Immigrant Workers: Will the New Employer Sanction Provisions Work? The Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, Inc.Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law. 36 Ga. J. Int'l & Comp. L. 475. Stumpf, J. (2008). States of Confusion: The Rise of State and Local Power over Immigration. North Carolina Law Review Association North Carolina Law Review. 86 N.C.L. Rev. 1557. Venbrux, G. (2006). Devolution or Evolution? The Increasing Role of the State in Immigration Law Enforcement. Regents of the University of California UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs. 11 UCLA J. 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