New Immigration Reform - Term Paper Example

New Immigration Reform Executive Summary: This paper reflects on the "Dream Act" or ideas for new immigration reform. This paper mainlytargets the students who were brought to the US illegally at a young age and have spent all their time here and now graduate High School. This paper discusses the options they now have regarding education and citizenship wise. The paper aims to find suitable explanation and provisions that can help such students successfully immigrate in the US legally. 2. Introduction: Vialet (1980) made an interesting comment on U.S. immigration policy. He stated that the immigration law in USA has been formed not only to safe guard the interest of the USA but also for the safe keeping of the immigrants and their respective interests (Vialet, 1980). New York’s Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver recently stated that “Immigration status should never, ever be a barrier to pursuing the dream of a higher education. Here in the Assembly we have fought relentlessly for these students because we cannot stand the injustices they are facing. The fact that many of these immigrant youths end up deferring or completely forgoing their dreams of a higher education because they cannot afford it is heartbreaking and blatantly unfair," (Oleaga, 2014). Immigration debate has been occupying significant congressional time for years now and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program would be completing one year on 15th of August 2014. Though DACA does not readily lead to legal citizenship but it definitely makes way for a portion of undocumented immigrants to live in USA bereft of the fear of sending back to the country of origin if caught. Apart from this mentioned benefit it provides a package of respites such as; opportunity to make application for work permits and a greater magnitude of economic and social inclusion. The Immigration Policy Centre in 2013 has revealed that the DACA recipients have indeed registered significant improvement in terms of their economic and social condition. Betterment of scope of investment, uplift of occupational level and realizing their first account in bank as well as credit card are a few to mention. Most promising fact is that the recipients of DACA are now eager to move beyond it and looking forward to seek U.S. citizenship in search of further betterment. Moreover considering DACA’s limitations in addressing the deportation problem the recipients are also worried that they or their friends and relatives might face sudden deportation. Thus the constant haunting of the fear of deportation outweighs the benefits of DACA that it provides to the recipient immigrants (Gonzales & Terriquez, 2013). The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act were initiated on 12thJune 2014 all over the Washington once it was passed through a vote (75 to 22) in February of the same year. The concerned law authorizes Washington as the fourth state to support state financial aid for unlisted college students following California, New Mexico and Texas. Governor of Washington Jay Inslee stated following the enactment of the act that the concerned act might unleash a new future for the students of the mentioned state(Oleaga, 2014). The act is applicable to ingoing college students once they have graduated from their high schools and who are living in the concerned state for no fewer than three years. Legal immigration to USA requires a working visa that might be obtained through sponsors, family members already living in USA or employers. Those immigrants who are bereft of obtaining working visa in those aforementioned ways might approach USA as asylum seekers or refugees leaving their country of origin to survive the oppression. Many wants to come to USA and settle their but a handful of people manages the same in legal way. Often the country of origin plays a big role in determining whether the concerned person would get a legal immigration to USA or not and in this regard a Mexican is with little chance to qualify for the same (Maryland, n.d). 3. Immigration in the USA: U.S. immigration law is multifarious and oftenpuzzling. The Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) determines the present level of immigrants that are allowed or would be allowed within the USA. The number stands at 675,000 per year with possible exception for near and dear relatives. The Congress and the President both considerrefugeeadmissions; however the number is different for each of them. Reunification with family, inclusion of skillful immigrants to boost up the U.S. economy, safeguarding the immigrants and promoting diversity constitute the platform of the U.S. immigration law.The following fact sheet provides information on the design of the U.S. lawful immigration. (American Immigration Council, 2014). Family-Based Immigration Family unification is an imperative rule overseeing migration approach. The family-based movement class allows U.S. citizens and LPRs (lawful permanent residents) to bring certain relatives to the United States. 0.48 Million family based visas are available each year. Familybased immigrants are allowed to immigrate to USA as relatives of the already USA citizens or owing to the family inclination systems. There is no number cap for visas to close relatives; however there are certain demographic (age) and financial pre-conditions that have to be met by the applicants. Close relatives are: Spouses of U.S. citizens: Yet to be married minor children of U.S. citizens (under 21 years old). (American Immigration Council, 2014) Parents of U.S. citizens (applicant must be no less than 21 years old to request for a guardian). (American Immigration Council, 2014) There are a set number of visas accessible consistently under the family inclination system, and requesters must meet notable age and financial requirements. The inclination system includes: grown-up kids (wedded and not-wedded) and siblings of U.S. citizens (applicant must be no less than 21 years old to appeal to for a brother or sister), spouses and not-wedded kids (minor and grown-up) of lawful permanent residents (American Immigration Council, 2014). To adjust the general number of immigrants arriving based on family relationships, Congress has set up a complex system for ascertaining the accessible number of family inclination visas for any given year (American Immigration Council, 2014). The determination of the number of family visa in a particular year is done following a formula; (480000 – IRVP – APP + EPIP) where IRVP, APP and EPIP stands for “immediate relative visas issued during the previous year and number of aliens “paroled” into the U.S. during the previous year…Any unused employment preference immigrant numbers from the preceding year” (American Immigration Council, 2014) respectively. Though this formula is generally accepted, yet under no circumstances visa offered through family preference system may be less than 0.226 million a year and this is guaranteed by the USA legal system. Owing to this lower limit family preference visa often exceeds 0.48 million yearly (American Immigration Council, 2014). He table below depicts the family based immigration system as determined by the U.S. Family-Based Immigration System  Category U.S. Sponsor Relationship Numerical Limit   Immediate Relatives (IRs)   U.S. Citizen adults Spouses, unmarried minor children, and parents   Unlimited Preference allocation 1 U.S. citizen Unmarried adult children 23,400* 2A LPR Spouses and minor children 87,900 2B LPR Unmarried adult children 26,300 3 U.S. citizen Married adult children 23,400** 4 U.S. citizen Brothers and Sisters 65,000*** * Plus any unused visas from the 4th preference. ** Plus any unused visas from 1st and 2nd preference. ***Plus any unused visas from the all other family-based preferences. Worldwide level of family preference allocation: 480,000 minus visas issued to IRs and parolees, plus unused employment-visas from previous fiscal year. Floor for preference categories: 226,000. American Immigration Council, 2014 4. Results/Effects of Immigration: USA always undergoes changes of some form or the other subject to immigration that is constant and high. Public schools of the country might be considered as the institution that is standing directly in front of that firing line. Again the public schools are far more critical than any other institutions of the country regarding the future success of immigrant integration program of the government. However, many previous studies on the same issue have revealed that the immigrants often perform better than the local people in terms of educational achievements. Though, the performance of most of the Latinos living in America is much beyond the average level. The studies taken on these issues have highlighted that the inherently weak in English immigrants need special care and the schools in which they study need added and different attention as well. Following these suggestions Andrew W. Mellon Foundation started a program on worker optional training and that partially cured these problems. A team of such projects under a single roof later emerged as the Program in Immigrant Education (PRIME) (Ruiz-de-Velasco & Fix, 2000). 5. Education opportunity for Immigrants in the USA: Governmental support through legal aid and public funded educational system is aptly available in USA to the yet to be documented youths and that helps in having higher secondary education. But once they reach the college level they start to face financial troubles to keep themselves enrolled.The financial, legal and social hindrances prevent them from attaining any higher success within and through the usual educational system (Abrego, 2006). Owing to an intertwined educational and home environment generations after generations these youths face the same problem and undergo the same social incorporation process. The legal constraints that they become subject to once they have completed their schooling; prevents them from moving any higher and that creates a vicious circle. Once they realize that their educational future after the high school is bleak then they become demotivated regarding pursuing education any higher and get entrapped under an existing system that by no means can be refereed as optimum. This is very common among Latino students living in USA (Abrego, 2006). In sharp contrast; the media persons and academicians alike are highly appreciative of the educational accomplishment of the children of Asian migrants (Zhou & Kim, 2006). The 2000 U.S. Statistics indicates that something like 33% of Asian Americans are originally heralding from U.S.and half of them have a bachelor degree. In this regard they have outclassed the non-Hispanic Whites by a great margin. Likewise striking is that junior Asian Americans — not just the children of doctors, researchers, and designers, but additionally those of uneducated, low-gifted, and poor settlers and refugees — have enrolled in reputed schools and colleges at a great number and are becoming champion of their traits (Zhou & Kim, 2006). This becomes clear following a simple statistical example; Asian Americans occupy only 12 percent of entire Californian population yet they account for almost 33 percent of the students of University of California (Zhou & Kim, 2006). In the other leading educational institutes of the country like Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Harvard and Yale; 28%, 25%, 19% and 17% of the total students are of Asian American origin respectively (Zhou & Kim, 2006). Though these are impressive statistical figures yet they does not reveal the actual scenario. The achievements of the Asian Americans in education are a mixed one subject to ethnic differences. As an example among the Asian Americans the Chinese and the Koreans are doing much better than their Cambodian and Hmong counterparts (Zhou & Kim, 2006). 6. Immigrants and Citizenship: While considering the impact of immigration reform, it would be wise to consider the direct effect of the same on immigration itself; instead of considering its impact on the U.S. economy at first. The Budget Office of the Congress has assessed that the Senate bill would add 10.4 million people to the U.S. population over one decade from now and another 5.8 million individuals would be included thereafter. The Census Bureau officially anticipated that net global movement will expand by about 20 million in the following two decades (Plumer, 2013). The 16.2 million additional individuals that CBO assumes that immigration reform will pull in would remain right on top of that(Plumer, 2013).Considering the fact that the Senate bill passed, the concerned country would be welcoming almost 36 million new migrants through the following two decades; that is similar to the number of inhabitants in Canada (Plumer, 2013). Not only the number of the immigrants but their current legal and illegal status wold change as well. The following table highlights the aforementioned fact (Plumer, 2013). It considers the impact of the bill through a comparison with the state if no bill would pass and tries to reach a conclusion that whether immigrants would be a boon or curse for the entire country in coming years (Plumer, 2013). Adapted from: (Plumer, 2013) Immigration is an argumentative issue in the developed countries.This is not only true for the countries like USA, Canada and Australia; countries that have experienced immigration from historical time; but also justified for Europe in recent time that has been traditionally a net emigrant region.Support favouring anti-immigration policies and sentiment is on a rise in Europe and monetary loss to the locals and burden to the government have been some key issues against immigration (Hunt, 1995). Immigrants are believed to be potential competitors in local job market and often force the wage down for the local employees. It is also believed that sometimes they drive away local talents and replace them with their own specialization. Ironically the benefits of immigration have received little or no heed (Hunt, 1995). Immigrants instead of becoming competitors might become complementary to local talents and resources and that might eventually benefit the economy and help in absorbing previously unemployed population as well as unused resources (Hunt, 1995). Again the impact of immigration on per capita income also has remained less discussed. The development and expansion of internal American market in late 19th and early 20th century and its connection to immigration is an interesting issue to consider in this regard; so as the case of Germany after Second Great War and also the current day Israel, which is subject to immigration at an unprecedented level(Hunt, 1995).However, it is easily understood that the impact of immigration on the economy depends on two issues first the condition of the destination and host country’s economy and the skill of the immigrants (Hunt, 1995). Approach to immigrants and immigration differs from one country to another. As an example USA provides green signal to large number of immigrants and prefers immigrants with pre-existing family ties in USA. In sharp contrast in Canada and Australia immigration is allowed based on capabilities(Hunt, 1995). Again in USA all people born in the country even by illegal immigrant parents are considered as U.S. citizens but in countries like Germany and Switzerland; long term legal immigrants might not be regarded as natives of the same (Hunt, 1995). Hunt (1995) has highlighted the growing inflow of immigrants and increase in their number of children in USA population as he comments “The United States has had one of the largest increases in the fraction foreign-born, rising from 4.7 percent in 1970 to 7.9 percent in 1990. Immigration peaked in the beginning of this century, with massive flows from southern and eastern Europe. In absolute numbers, immigration is once again returning to those historic levels.”(Hunt, 1995, p. 25) Hunt’s claims and findings is almost echoed in a later study by Passel and Suro (2005) who have highlighted a growing inflow of immigrants into the USA over the second half of the 90s. 7. Future of the immigration in the USA; Some recommendations: It would not be an exaggeration that from 1980s the immigrant children as well as the children from immigrant parents constitute the lion’s share of the children population of United States of America. Ironically immigration studies have never gave them their due importance as potential influential factor in terms of strategic determinants. Little or absolutely no knowledge regarding their socio-economic condition thus remained as a burning factor that kept lacunas in policy formation alive Zhou (1997). As Zhou (1997) observes that the immigrant children and children of the immigrants are eager to be absorbed into the American society and that in similar way to a Native American. However, this is always not the case that is bound to happen and leaves them in despair. It is also true that opportunities to different group of immigrants do vary a lot among groups and that might also give rise to dilemma. But under any circumstances it is better if realized that there is something if not everything for everyone. The United States is standing at a critical juncture of demographic transformation. The baby boomers have already started to enter the retirement phase and that would create an immense need for labourers in no time. Provided the country does not enter any prolonged phase of economic slum; added supply of labourers would always be beneficial for the country in the long run. Considering this situation the immigrants have a larger role to play to boost up and sustain the economic growth of the country in coming time.A regenerated social security and Medicare system focusing more and more on the inclusion of larger extent of the U.S. population thus becomes the utmost need of the time. This step would bring a sense of comfort, security and similarity among all the Americans, local and immigrants alike and would be beneficial for the sustenance of American supremacy in the long run in all aspects(Immigration Policy Center, 2012). How can they get citizenship? How the young immigrants can continue higher studies? What are the steps that government can take? According to National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC) some recommendations for a better Immigration policy are: (i) “Reverse the Criminalization of Immigration Enforcement”(Quereshi, 2007). (ii) “Restore Due Process Rights”(Quereshi, 2007). (iii) “Limit Local Enforcement of Federal Immigration Law”(Quereshi, 2007). (iv) “Limit Reliance on Federal Databases Until Their Accuracy is Verified”(Quereshi, 2007). Simplified immigration law with fixed number of immigrants allowed each year would help the immigrants issue and policy making largely. A special outlet should be there for the people coming for or seeking asylum from oppressed countries. All these would put a check on immigration and would help in monitoring as well as lessening the torcher on the immigrants. Conclusion What have been discussed so far reveals the fact that immigration is an important topic for UA that requires sincere attention from the academicians and politicians alike. Till now there are several misconception regarding immigration law and that often due to the complex and confusing nature of the law itself as far as USA is concerned. Taking advantage of that complexity; profit seekers from different spheres of the society are oppressing the immigrants. Often the immigrants do not know their rights and that is adding to the agony. Historically America has been preferred as the destination country by the immigrants and now legal or illegal many of them have children who are born in this country. Again there is child immigration as well. For some strange reason these new generation immigrants who often are USA citizens by now fails to come at per with the native Americans. It is often a psychological bottleneck and often a product of the biased financial, social and legal conditions. Considering the American Asians are the most successful immigrants in America; the other ethnic groups might consider finding a common platform with them to share their experience to enrich themselves. The government might take initiative for the initiation of the same. The recent policy changes by the government would have interesting bearing to the immigrants in America. They would be able to breathe a shy of relief, though these policies do not ensure protection against extradition and government might consider addressing this problem. Simplified immigration laws, adequate initiatives both on behalf of the immigrants and the government to assimilate the immigrants into the society, uniformity in financial, social and legal system that would eventually bring uniformity in education would be beneficial for the entire country; considering the demographic and economic condition of USA. Provided all these conditions get fulfilled a win-win situation would prevail in no time both for the immigrants in USA and the country itself. References Abrego, L. J. (2006). ‘‘ I CAN’T GO TO COLLEGE BECAUSE I DON’T HAVE PAPERS’’ : INCORPORATION PATTERNS OF LATINO UNDOCUMENTED YOUTH. Latino Studies , 4, 212–231. American Immigration Council, (2014), How the United States Immigration System Works: A Fact Sheet, Retrieved June 17, 2014, from http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/how-united-states-immigration-system-works-fact-sheet Gonzales & Terriquez. (2013, Aug 15). How DACA is Impacting the Lives of Those Who are Now DACAmented. Retrieved June 18, 2014, from Immigration Policy Centre: http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/issues/DREAM-Act Hunt, F. & Friedberg, M R. (1995). The Impact of Immigrants on Host Country Wages, Employment and Growth. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9 (2), 23-44. Immigration Policy Center. (2012). The Future of a Generation: How New Americans Will Help Support Retiring Baby Boomers; American immigration Council. Retrieved June 17, 2014, from http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/future-generation-how-new-americans-will-help-support-retiring-baby-boomers Maryland. (n.d). The Legal Immigration Process. Maryland Catholic Conference . Oleaga. (2014, June 13). DREAM Act in Effect in Washington State: What It Means for New York, Gov. Cuomo Not Overly Optimistic About NY Senate. Retrieved June 18, 2014, from Latin Post: http://www.latinpost.com/articles/14789/20140613/dream-act-effect-washington-state-what-means-new-york-gov.htm Passel & Suro. (2005). RISE, PEAK AND DECLINE: TRENDS IN U.S. IMMIGRATION 1992-2004. Pew Hispanic Center . Plumer, B. (2013, June 20). Here’s how the U.S. population would change under immigration reform. Retrieved June 17, 2014, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/20/immigration-projections/ Quereshi, A. (2007). Hope for Change in Immigration Policy: Recommendations for the Obama Administration. American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland . Ruiz-de-Velasco & Fix. (2000). MichaelOverlooked & Underserved: Immigrant Students in U.S.Secondary Schools. Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC.; Andrew W.Mellon Foundation, New York, NY. Vialet, J. (1980, Dec.). A BRIEF HISTORY OF U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY. The Congressional Research Service . Zhou & Kim. (2006). Community Forces, Social Capital, and Educational Achievement: The Case of Supplementary Education in the Chinese and Korean Immigrant Communities. Harvard Educational Review . Zhou. (1997). GROWING UP AMERICAN: The Challenge Confronting Immigrant Children and Children of Immigrants. Annu. Rev. Sociol. , 63–95. Read More