Illegal immigration reforms - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Over the years it has been witnessed that the problem of illegal immigration has increased in the developed countries. Illegal immigration is the unlawful migration of individuals from one country to the other without notice to the authorities. The problem of illegal immigration is usually seen to be limited to the developed nations. United States of America is also suffering from the same problem from many years. Many argue that illegal immigration has proved to be a blessing in disguise whereas the opponents state that the country is plunging deep into problems. Reforms have been introduced in the country since the late twentieth century but so far it has been argued that these reforms are not successful. Some argue with different reforms and provide different opinions on solving this problem (Duignan 2004). Problem of Immigration At first the United States itself was in the stage of developing and it was seen that no such immigration reforms were introduced in the country. The requirement of workers in America allowed easy immigration of individuals from other countries in the early twentieth century. It was in 1986 that the immigrants in the country had increased to alarming numbers and a reform was introduced by President Ronald Reagan. The immigrants living in United States were allowed amnesty through this reform which was known as IRCA. It was here only that another policy against the employers was implemented through which they could not hire illegal workers residing in the country for low wages. But this policy could not be maintained for a longer time and the immigrants in the country kept on increasing. It was in 2000 that the number of illegal immigrants increased by around eight million (Couch et al 2004). Moreover the situation was analyzed in 2009 and it was found that the number of illegal immigrants was around 10.8 million in January 2009 (Reuters 2010). Most of the immigrants coming into the country belong to Latin America, Central America and Mexico. Solving Immigration Problems Over the years it is seen that many bills have been passed in the legislation to curb the problem of illegal immigration. So far it has been seen that these efforts have not been successful enough and people put forward different views regarding these reforms. According to some people illegal immigration can be stopped through amnesty programs. The program implemented by Ronald Reagan promoted these amnesty programs through which the illegal immigrants were kept under surveillance by the authorities. However it is believed that these amnesty programs are providing a way through which the numbers of illegal immigrants are increasing in the state. The opponents of Amnesty reform propose that the illegal immigrants are being rewarded for their cause rather than being punished. After these illegal immigrants become legal they bring about their family members which are strictly opposed by the opponents. They believe that by increasing the number of illegal immigrants these amnesty programs are diluting the American society. The ruling class of the American society wants to promote these amnesty programs only because they are getting enough workers to work on low wages (Couch et al 2004). Barack Obama in his current government has proposed plans to increase the raids upon the employers who are hiring these workers. In 2007 raids were carried out on the chain of McDonalds to wind up around 56 workers on the suspicion of illegal work. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) planned out 1000 new audits on the workers. Moreover the Department of Homeland Security proposes the E-verify software program for the employers which can help them to detect as to which employee enjoys legal immigration in the country and who does not. However many argue on these reforms that these employee check reforms still do not completely eradicate the illegal workers from the American society. Moreover the conservatives argue that these workers are not being deported after they are ...Download file to see next pagesRead More