Policies to the Maintenance of the National Sovereignty - Case Study Example

 «Policies to the maintenance of the National Sovereignty» The United States of America always had a history of friendliness towards immigrants. The work power and the human resource of the nation depend highly on the migrants. However a number of issues have been observed in the immigration policy formulation. The objective of the essay is to identify the lacuna in the immigration policy of the country and to suggest alternatives. Background For any immigration policy to have sustainable success, the key element to be taken care is assimilation. However no country in the world has been successful as the United States, in ensuring the acculturation of the immigrants. It has been ensured to turn the immigrants into Americans at the soonest as a result of the strategic immigration policy. This successful immigration policy has earned the United States of America the fame as world’s first universal nation. (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 b) This assimilation has had extensive acceleration in the early twentieth century due to the active involvement of public schools, churches and other social organizations in promoting the Americanization process. Interestingly even larger corporate firms took up the onus of carrying out the deliverables of the governmental immigration policy. (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 b) However a policy change more assertive on multiculturalism than on Americanization changed the scenario to a large extend. The policies changed its concerns more towards cultural equity and respect than on Americanization. Even the education system and the governance system asserting on bilingual strategies stand as a proof for this development. Unfortunately, these policy changes led to the segregation of the immigrants from the American born citizens (Lippman, Lorna, 1983). The matter of higher concern is that this segregation never melted through generations. The newer generations of the immigrants were also encouraged to stick on to their own cultural values though to a varied extent. Resultantly The United States of America turned out to be a nation where varied cultures and people of nationalities coexisted in peace but was never united as a single community having similar values and goals (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 b). To be more precise, the immigration policies never encouraged this binding process. An increase in the number of illegal migrants has posed greater concerns on the scenario. The cultural, economic and linguistic divide within the country has increased due to the number of illegal immigrants in America. Resultantly none of the policies pertaining to immigration could ever have the expected impact. In reality, the expected results of the policies were affected to a higher quantum by the unaccountability of the illegal migrants. The imbalance in the ratio of different cultural, national, economic, linguistic, educational and skill groups were marked in the history. In the 1920s the largest group of immigrants consisted of the Germans and Italians who formed twenty four percent of the total immigrants. But the recent statistics showed a serious imbalance. It revealed that the thirty percent of the immigrant community constituted migrants from a single nation, Mexico. (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 b) The impact of this imbalance is clearly visible in the American day to today life as one could substantially see the influence of Spanish in the governing system. The extremity of this influence is visible even in the international sporting events. There are incidents where the home team had to play in front of a hostile crowd which supported the team from the country which they originally hailed from. (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 b) The history has marked the American culture getting influenced to the culture of the immigrants. Rather than letting this to happen, a sustainable immigration policy would have involved strategies to get the immigrants adapted to the American culture. More furious is the fact that there had been active competition among native and immigrant cultures which is a contrary to the principle of assimilation. Key Concerns Border Security The Commission report on the 9/11 has stated that the visas given to terrorists are as harmful as the most detrimental weapons. The report has revealed interesting statistics on the illegal immigration. It has been stated that almost 500 million people cross the US borders of which 330 million are non citizens. The major concern is over the other 500,000 people who enter the American soil illegally or who overstay in the country despite the visa expiry. (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 a) This population may cause irreparable damage to the country and would spread antinational. A factor of increasing concern is that the production of fraud travel documents has more or less become a business. The investigations on the 9/11 attack has revealed a number of forgeries relating to driving licenses, Social security cards, vehicle registration ,insurance documents and many other nationally sensitive documents (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 a). In general, illegal immigrations, sham marriages to attain permanent residency and forgery of documents to extend the stay, all has been observed in association with terrorist activities. Policies like Visa Waiver Program which promotes citizens of twenty seven friendly countries to travel into the country without going through stringent rules also adds to the concern. This should be read together with the fact that the London Subway and train bombers also belonged to this elite category (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 a). It has been found that there are lacunas in securing the borders of the nation from such illegal migrants. Such challenges in the border security have been highly observed in Arizona-Mexico border. There had been ample evidences on terrorists trying to sneak in through the southern border. In 2004, the border patrol agents have arrested 650 suspected terrorists from different countries while trying to get into infiltrate through this border. (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 a). This very fact points towards the possibility of other illegal migrants getting into terrorism and antinationalistic activities. The terrains and the water ways in the America- Canada border is also of increasing security concern. Formulating an ideal immigration policy in relation to the border security becomes very important in the context of the modern world terrorism and other antinational activities. The immigration policy has to take care of the problem of antinational elements getting into the country. Though the intake policy involves much quality checks, the backup measures are lacking to confirm the possibility of the immigrant involving in antinational movements thereafter. Lack of Diversity in admission Unscientific balance in the quantum and quality of immigrants is one major concern in the immigration policy. The Mexicans are dominating the immigrant community as per the latest scenario. This affects the cultural, linguistic and economic balance within the nation (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 b). This would further lead to financial and social insecurity among the immigrants. The chances of social disturbances caused by such insecure communities also cannot be avoided. In totality allowing one nationality to dominate the immigrant community would be a breach of the basic principles of the intake policy. The policy formulation pertaining to immigration should involve effective strategies to maintain diversity in admission. A lack of this would cause antinational spirits when it comes to the international issues and affairs between the host nation and the immigrant community’s nation. The Cultural Assimilation The immigrants from different nationalities and different cultures merely associating within themselves and forming isolated cultural groups are a major concern. The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) has predicted in one of their documentaries aired on 30th May 2005, the conversion of California into a predominantly Spanish speaking population within next few years from then (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe, 2006 b). This prediction was well backed by the indications in the American society towards centralization of cultures as a result of non Americanization of the immigrants. The multicultural approach of the immigration policy has within it the danger of forming cultures within the culture. A backup strategy to ensure the assimilation of different cultures into the American society should be included. However more dangerous is the fact that the immigrants are getting assimilated into cultures of minority belonging to their country, religion or other classifications. This in general is detrimental to the integrity of the nation. National Sovereignty and values A major factor of concern is that the national and cultural policies of many nations deny and discourage their citizens to get assimilated in American values and culture. This accelerates the possibility of the immigrants to develop values of their own which supersede the values of the host nation. This would for sure question the Sovereignty of the nation. While ensuring appropriate freedom to follow one’s own principles, the democratic process in immigration has within it a serious cultural threat. The values of the immigrants may overwhelm the values of the host country. This scenario becomes more dangerous when the values of the immigrants are contradictory to the American values. Literature Review The problem of illegal migration and other problems relating to the immigration have been critically reviewed by a number of available literatures. A review on the commission report of the 9/11 attack has been provided by Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe (2006a). The article has provided a statistical review on the quantum of illegal migration occurring in America. Data on the average number of illegal migrants has been reviewed in the article. It includes statistics on people coming in through lateral entries and people who overstay. This article further provides the details on the lacunas in the border security of the United States. The article by Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe (2006b) has several references to the areas of concern in the immigration policy of The United States of America. The importance of assimilation as an integral factor in the effective adoption of immigrants has been asserted by this work. It has been stated that if assimilation of the immigrants does not happen, it would lead to critical differences within the society. Joppke Christian (1998) has confirmed the possibility of immigration activities affecting the national feelings and the sovereignty of the state. Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe (2006b) has provided specific evidences for such happenings where the immigrant community has acted against the interest of the national feeling. A football match between America & Mexico in which the Mexican immigrants turned hostile against the home team has been explained in the article. (Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe ,2006b). The use of sham marriages by people to attain permanent resident status has been pointed out as a weak link in the immigration policy (Kunek, Srebrenka, 1993). Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe (2006a) have confirmed that twenty three terrorists who were involved in the 9/11 attack acquired legal permanent resident status through sham marriages. This study further indicated that forged documents helped many of the terrorists to illegally enter the country and to overstay after their legal stay period expired. An imbalance in the diversity of the immigrants has also been confirmed by referring to a number of articles. Lippman Lorna (1983) reported a general breakdown of the immigrants to America with reference to their nationalities, gender and age groups in different periods of time. This document when compared with the statistics provided in the article by Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe (2006b) indicates the gradual loss of diversity in the immigrant intake. Proofs on the weaker areas in the American border security have been provided by Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe (2006a). This insecurity factor has been backed in the article by substantial statistical data pointing out the number of incidents of illegal entry which has been recorded in the immigration history. Some strategies on improving the effectiveness of immigration policy have been indicated in Martin Philip.L (1994). It has been reported that stringent policies on illegal immigration, stricter entry mode and blacklisting unfriendly nationalities have been used by different nations as effective strategies in regulating quality of immigration. Alternatives A more strategically formulated approach in defining the immigration policies has to be followed to ensure safe immigration practices. While formulating the policy the prime concerns including Border Security, Sovereignty of National values, Cultural Assimilation and Diversity in the immigrants have to be considered. A redefinition of the list of friendly countries with regard to immigration would be ideal to recheck the quality of the immigrants. The policy on free entry without visa has to be updated from time to time according to the international security scenarios. Networking with the international intelligence agencies would help the immigration department to have proper identification of the prospective immigrants. As forgery has been found as a potential problem, proper measures have to be taken nationally and internationally through the embassies to ensure the originality of the documents. The illegal agencies working within the nation involved in the forgery has to identified and sued. A stricter approach on the illegal migrants would be an ideal warning helping to stop further illegal immigration. The laws will have to be made stronger to deport and punish illegal immigrants. This would for sure discourage the immigrants to overstay and to use forged documents for entry into the country. Fake activities like sham marriages have to be properly checked and stopped. So as to stop the illegal entry through the weaker borders of the nation, the border security force has to be equipped properly. The policy on immigration has to concentrate more on assimilation rather than on multicultural aspect. A backup plan on the immigration including the training of the immigrants to help them assimilate into American conditions has to be ensured. The danger of multicultural approach towards immigration has to be properly checked .It should be taken care that the culture of the immigrants do not completely affect the American culture. Recommendations Updating international linkages as per the latest international security issues Networking with international intelligence agencies to check the genuineness of the immigrants and their travel documents. Proper control over the forgery of travel documents and rechecking other issues pertaining to immigration. Capacity building of the border security forces Stricter policies and rules to deal with illegal immigrants. Backup trainings for immigrants to ensure their assimilation into the local system. Policies pertaining to the maintenance of the National Sovereignty and other values Works cited Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe. "Assimilation: Out of many...?" in Whatever It Takes : Illegal Immigration, Border Security, and the War on Terror , Hayworth, John D & Eule Joe , 2006b , 49-60 . Hayworth, John D; Eule, Joe. "Extract" in Whatever It Takes : Illegal Immigration, Border Security, and the War on Terror , Hayworth, John D & Eule, Joe , 2006 a, 5-15 . Joppke, Christian. "Immigration challenges the nation-state (part 2)" in Challenge to the Nation-State: Immigration in Western Europe and the united States , Joppke, Christian , 1998 , 5-46 . Kunek, Srebrenka. "Brides, wives, and single women : gender and immigration" Lilith , 8 (1993): 82-113 . Lippman, Lorna. "History of Immigration" in A Nation Apart: Essays in Honour of Andrew Fabinyi: Personal Views of Australia in the Eighties , McLaren, John , 1983 , 114-126, 246-248 Martin, Philip.L. "Germany: reluctant land of immigration" in Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective (extracts), Cornelius, Wayne E. Martin, Philip L. Hollifield, J L , 1994 , 189-217, 221-223 . Read More