Influence of Illegal Immigration on the United States - Thesis Example

Introduction
Ronald Reagan, who was the president of the United States in 1986, was a big believer in business. He believed that individuals and businesses could be empowered to do for themselves what they might have expected the government to do for them. Reagan saw in ordinary Americans the promise of greatness in that, from just the kernel of an idea, many Americans could develop lasting institutions and businesses. But the government sometimes got in the way. As a member of the Republican Party, Reagan was not unaware that a big part of his constituency comprised the business sector of society. In other words, doing what pleases businesses could be good for the continued prosperity and fortunes of the Republican Party, a party that incidentally, was also strong on law and order. The increasing influx of illegal immigrants into America, which of course, had been going on long before Reagan became President called for doing something practical to solve the problem of having too many illegal immigrants in a nation of laws while at the same time fulfilling the need that businesses had to a ready supply of labor. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which President Reagan signed into law in 1987 was believed at the time to be a good solution to both issues.

Chapter One
It was not envisaged that a whole new raft of illegal immigrants would see in Reagan’s amnesty provision as an invitation to also come north of the border to try their luck at making the American dream. It has become clear, over time, that “Granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants doesn't solve illegal immigration, and employer sanctions are meaningless unless they are strictly enforced. The 1986 amnesty legislation also showed that even strictly monitoring worksites and the border is doomed to failure without addressing the U.S. economy's strong demand for immigrant labor” (Gonzalez 2006). The millions of undocumented workers in America need to be given a quick opportunity to become citizens through an amnesty. Americans should not see amnesty as a sign of weakness; they should reframe it as an act of love for their fellow human beings. This might help burnish America’s fast deteriorating reputation abroad.

As far back as the middle part of the 1970s Americans had been growing in their concern over illegal immigration. Each year, millions of people were arrested at the border. For many Americans the threat was simple: their jobs were at stake. The cheap immigrant labor threatened to steal away jobs from American-born people and not a few were angry at the prospect of having to take lower wages than they were used to or at worst not being able to get a job at all. A large number of immigrants, some of whom did not speak English well, also appeared to drive down standards in general. There were those who felt that America had lost control of its border while others saw a more sinister motive, that the Mexican government, fearful of reprisals from its citizens for a non-performing economy, was encouraging people to come to America, a safety-valve of sorts before the anger blew over and toppled the government. The simple reason for which immigration to America continued to mount was that America had a healthy economy and that it was easy for immigrants to gain access to jobs. In fact, in the 1960s, there had been a legal channel by which Mexicans could come and work in the United States but this program, the Bracero program, was ended in 1964 and those who had tasted of the pleasures of America did not see any reason why they should not walk across the border to get employment that paid far more than what they could get back in Mexico. Many people from Latin America and other parts of the world that might not have felt welcome to America in the past saw an opportunity to come to America following the Immigration Act of 1965, which “ended national-origin quotas that favored European countries and opened the door to more immigrants from poor, non-White countries” (Gonzalez 2006).