Analysis of the Reasons for the Marginalization of Immigrants - Research Paper Example

Module Immigration Laws, Racial Profiling, Policing Practices, and Sentencing Disparities Idyllically, in a tolerant the word ‘citizenship’ is used in reference to an individual or individuals having full membership in a society. Citizenship, though, is hardly ever experienced by immigrants in this perfect way. In its place, the realities of race, class, ethnicity, gender, and national origin are the characteristic dividers of many communities, and bring about the reality of hierarchies among community citizens. Appreciating the premise of citizenship in its relation to the local administration as well as the formation of social hierarchies means shifting it to the sphere of the subjects regarding variation, where social class, gender, and racial identities influence belonging. The erroneous depiction of immigrants in the United States as a "criminal threat" has in the past equipped anti-immigrant attitudes and political policy in spite of social scientists having established through extensive researches that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes when compared to their American-born countermen. In the 20th and 19th centuries, the immigrants travelling to America to begin new lives mainly consisted of Asians and Europeans. In America, these groups became the victims of racial as well as interethnic conflicts. The American government then imposed severe restrictions on the movement of particular ethnic groups such as the Asians. It also passed laws that saw the large scale expulsion of Mexicans who had come to America to improve their lives. It was not until the late 20th century that Asians and Latinos once more began to enter the United States in large numbers. The subsequent anti-immigrant attitude and government policies that were aimed at disenfranchising these ethnic groups, along with the oratories from public officials that progressed from calling immigrants "aliens" to identifying them as "criminal aliens," have served to validate the development of strategies like home as well as workplace sweeps, detention, and abrupt deportation (Massey, 190). This kind of policing that has also resulted in agencies such as the ‘Immigration Industrial Complex’. This is an industry that is based on immigrant captives and backed by Congressional powers. In the same way that the ‘War on Drugs’ and the ‘Prison Industrial Complex “sought to eliminate the impending political threat of young black males who came into maturity after the period of the civil rights movement, the ‘Immigration Industrial Complex’ is a scheme that is being used to eliminate Latino immigrants from mainstream society while also realizing a handsome profit for correctional facilities” (Fernandes, 169). It seeks to block their latent social advancement due to the fear by the White majority that the existence of an America in which there are less Whites than Latinos will pose a perilous political, demographic, and economic danger to the reducing white hegemonic arrangement. According to Deepa Fernandes, in the past few years, “in spite of every other ethnic collective in America benefitting from advancements, the opposite has been true in the case of Latino immigrants” (Fernandes, 169). This is because the detention of immigrants provides a source of revenue for all the correctional facilities that are created to house illegal immigrants as well other offenders. In spite of the efforts of many movements that seek to advance the lives of immigrants, many Latino immigrants still live lives of poverty because of the structures in mainstream White society that seek to marginalize them. Some of these structures are the American Congress, successive American governments, powerful business corporations and the right wing. In the recent past, the American congress declined to ratify humane pro-immigrant rules even though immigration policy is executed on a daily basis. The impasse in the government concerning the immigration issue allowed state as well as local governments to begin forming immigration strategies on their own. This means that the most racist, intransigent, and anti-immigrant supporters in local governments are allowed to influence immigration policies on behalf of the government. The existence of this reality has seen massive raids carried out by the ICE, (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) on unsuspecting immigrants. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “over 1,200 bills of immigration bills, in 2007 alone, were submitted by local representatives” (Massey, 195). In addition, the numbers of anti-immigrant right-wing groups that were calling for all immigrants to leave the nation, grew by almost 600 percent. The existence of so much anti-immigrant sentiment only serves to make life harder for stressed people who are already in a difficult place. The ICE is mandated to stop immigrants at any place within their jurisdiction and request for their citizenship papers. This causes the immigrant workers many fears, with some even choosing to take their own lives rather than be re-deported to nations that are stemmed in poverty (Ross and Turner, 161). Some of the anti-immigrant sentiment has even reached peaks that were last witnessed in the civil strife that marked the 60s. Recently in Merrimack, the city’s lawmakers endeavored to pass a decree where only genuine residents could access a local beach when a large number of Latin immigrants started to visit the area frequently. This particular case raised awareness on the true depth of anti immigrant feeling in that area among other American citizens. In the recent past, a branch of the ICE visited a meat processing firm situated in Iowa and ended up arresting and deporting nearly 10 000 men. When immigrants are imprisoned, they usually do not have access to money or other facilities to help themselves. If they happen to develop health complications while still in detention, they can even die (Massey, 208). This has led to numerous questions being asked about why this trend is becoming the norm in a nation that is known for championing the human rights of the underdog. It has been established that Latin immigrants are perceived by American citizens as a challenge to mainstream America and that is why they are made to suffer. Their sufferings are mainly due to: Racism: Many White conservatives feel that if Latinos are allowed to migrate to America in large numbers, at their current birth rate they will soon overwhelm the original owners of the nation by sheer numbers (Massey, 76). The Capitalist Economic Crisis: Latino immigrants have in the past been a dispensable source of cheap labor in America. American citizens do not feel bad about allowing them to do menial tasks but wish for them to leave as soon as those tasks are accomplished. The American capitalists wish for the immigrants to remain in the nation in their capacity as menial workers, but without seeking for the same rights as other Americans. Globalization Forces: all over the world, many citizens in different nations are battling imperialist policies. Struggles against World Bank/IMF policies are increasing even as these policies compel workers to leave their native countries in search of better opportunities. The anti-immigrant panic is not merely something that is being seen in the United States but is prevalent all over the world. There is at present a cross-border flow of approximately 200 million immigrant workers all over the world. This wave of impermanent labor has reached grand proportions and is mainly the consequence of the capitalist system adopted by almost all nations in the world. The systems of government in the United States may desire to keep out the people who they feel are not a part of their citizenry; but they cannot stop the stream of humanity struggling against hopeless working conditions in many nations all over the world. This nation has created the predicament where the very commodities that the nation produces cannot be purchased by the workers that manufacture them. The ruling class therefore starts to depend on racism to split the multinational working class into different factions so that their fury and subsequent outlets at being left out of things can be turned on each other and not against the ruling capitalist class. Supporting the existence of unity to create a powerful all-inclusive movement is what may be necessary for immigrant workers to gain the assistance they require. In America alone, the immigrant rights pressure group must believe that there is power in the public. It is likely that the acquisition of full immigrant rights will only come through directly organizing support groups that pressurize the American government to make the necessary changes (Huntington, 137). Border Regulation, Prison, Accessibility Issues For People with Disabilities, and City Planning and Architecture That Explicitly or Implicitly Supports Segregation. Michelle Alexander clearly states in her book how the American government grew colorblind with the conclusion of the civil rights movement in the sixties, and how this reality has disguised a program of retaliatory laws in subsequent years. In America, there has been, since the early seventies, an inequitable enforcement that has witnessed the imprisonment of an astonishing number of men of African American extraction. Alexander suggests that this a new structure seeking to fulfill racial control and a substitute for Jim Crow rules. The new Jim Crow structure has been responsible for the formation of a social order of substandard citizens who, when cast out of mainstream society, will never be able to re-enter it in any significant way. Alexander argues in her book that the purported “War on Drugs” is actually equal to Jim Crow laws and slavery in its end product on the black community. Starting from 1971, the American government has carried out over 40 million drug related arrests. Of this number, the majority of imprisoned drug users and sellers are Black. Even though White and Blacks American citizens have comparable drug abuse levels, it is a known fact that African American citizens are 10 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses than their White counterparts. Today, “there are more African Americans in correctional institutions than were effectively used as slaves in the nineteenth century” (Alexander, 175). By 2004, “there were more African American men that were disenfranchised as a result of felon disenfranchisement rules, than the number of African American citizens who were in the same position in 1870, when the law that denied African Americans the right to vote was eliminated” (Alexander, 175). In 2005, the total number of arrests carried out for drug possession and pot possession were among Hispanic as well as African American men (Alexander, 175). Another noteworthy institutional spur for the American prison system is the creation of profit. There have been some alarming trends in the way businesses in America use prison labor to gain profits. It is an established fact that prisoners now construct and assemble different commodities and items for Starbucks, Microsoft, Boeing, Victoria’s Secret, and handcuff cases for police officials.  In 2007, when American taxpayers generated $74 billion for prisons, the greater sum of these funds went to for-profit prison corporations. The companies that are usually involved in such arrangements tend to give back to factions like political candidates, think tanks, and lobbyists.  According to the institute of Justice Policy, the firms that benefit from prison labor have spent approximately $835,514 on the campaigns of federal candidates in the past while extending more than $6 million to state politicians. There are many significant think tanks such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is a business front group that promotes strict drug laws, harsh immigration legislation, and prison privatization rules all over the nation. Some of the tough immigration rules that have been recommended are archaic and actually interfere with the learning practices of immigrant children. By calling for schools to decide the immigration status of each child on enrollment for instance, the law makes it difficult to differentiate between teachers and immigration representatives. Many immigrant parents will likely react to such rules by trying to keep their children out of schools for extended periods of time. This merely results in “the children succumbing to a deeper level of poverty than their parents when they attain maturity” (Massey, 139). Economic, Cultural and Educational Boundaries That Distribute Life-Chance Unequally. As immigrants make serious efforts like learning about their adoptive nation and becoming fluent in English, they usually endeavor to translate these achievements into upgrading their spatial location. Such spatial improvements are believed to involve shifting to neighborhoods that are up market and have more non-Hispanic and native-born Whites (Charles, 167). Essentially, residential mobility is the next step after the social mobility and acculturation of Americanized individuals. This brings about the scattering of minority-group members and results in de-segregative practices being adopted over time. Over the years, “prejudiced practices that seek to stop the advancement of immigrant populations have seen real estate agents direct racial groups to neighborhoods that are distinctly lacking in native born White populations” (Charles, 168). Immigrants also tend to be exposed to “disparate access to mortgage credit, exclusionary zoning - in, and the hostility of neighbors when they venture into neighborhoods that previously only had White populations” (Iceland and Wilkes, 249). Another disadvantage suffered by Latino immigrants has to do with other Minority groups in the United States. When Latino immigrants first reach the United States, they are usually poorer than even the marginalized groups in the US. They are at “a bigger disadvantage than even the African American and Asian collectives living in the projects” because they do not understand English and therefore cannot communicate effectively with the authorities or people who they would ask for help (Ross and Turner, 158). However, the other poorer Americans may feel that once they gain a good understanding of English and begin to seek to improve their life circumstances, they will be even more acceptable to the White hegemony than the poor Americans in African American and Asian societies. This causes the other ethnic groups to treat the incoming immigrants with a viciousness that can be surprising. There have in the past been cases of Latino immigrant families that were brutalized in various ways when they settled in poor neighborhoods on entering the United States illegally. In other instances, their presence was immediately reported to the authorities by complete strangers when they moved into poor neighborhoods (Huntingdon, 245). Owing to the fact that “Latinos usually settle in very impoverished inner-city settings, their children attend the most segregated educational institutions; which reduces their chances of graduating from high school or acquiring the skills that are necessary for the present economy” (Ross and Turner, 153). “Latino immigrants usually prefer to build strong social networks with their own and remain near them, and so will remain in poor precincts if that is where most of the Latino collective is situated” (Bashi, 277). In America today, Latino immigrant children have the lowest attendance rates for preschool, as well as the highest rates of high-school dropout. They also have the lowest rates of college attendance among all ethnic and racial groups. Often, immigrant parents do not have the social networks and cultural integration that helps in steering through the American education system, particularly where university is concerned. In addition, cultural as well as language barriers and the fear of dishonor often causes many Hispanic immigrants to reject helpful amenities such as mental health services for their offspring. Unmet mental health requirements usually destabilize the children’s academic performance. Most of the time, immigrants are effectively marginalized so that they can supply manual labor for definite divisions of America’s economy. The hierarchical association between Americans of all ethnic groups and recent immigrants supports this vital social dominance. Immigrants are usually held accountable for by American citizens for a great assortment of problems. American politicians have expressed their dismay in the past at the incidence of the continued arrival of illegal immigrants at their shores. They fear that “the Latino immigrants will endanger mainstream American customs and norms by continuing with their own private cultures and also cause an increase in the rate of crime” (Huntingdon, 301). Immigrants of Latin American extraction are often connected with many economic as well as social difficulties faced the United States, often without good reason. Works Cited Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press, 2010. Print. Bashi, Vilna. Survival of the knitted: immigrant social networks in a stratified world. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007. Print. Charles, Camille. “Dynamics of Racial Residential Segregation.” Annual Review of Sociology 29 (2003): 167–207. Print. Fernandes, Deepa. Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration.New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007. Print. Huntington, Samuel. Who are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004. Print. Iceland, John, and Rima Wilkes. “Does Socioeconomic Status Matter? Race, Class, and Residential Segregation.” Social Problems 52 (2006): 248–73. Print. Massey, Douglas. Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008. Print. Ross, Stephen, and Margaret Austin Turner. “Housing Discrimination in Metropolitan America: Explaining Changes between 1989 and 2000.” Social Problems 52 (2005):152–80. Print. Read More