Why does the U.S. Need Immigration Reform?

The United States has been the top destination for international immigrants than any other country in the world. With One-fifth of the world's migrants living there. Immigrants today account for 13.5% of the U.S. population which is around 43.7 million in 2016. This population has nearly triple the share form first recorded data in 1970 (Geiger, A. 2018, September 14). Among these immigrant 49 percent (21,2 million) of them are naturalized citizen. The remaining 22.5 million included lawful permanent residents, unauthorized immigrants, and legal residents on temporary visas (such as students and temporary workers) Hallock, J. (2018, February 27). Holding such a huge number of immigrants in the country U.S.A still work under the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) which was formed in June 30, 1968. Some other immigration related laws such as Real ID Act 2005, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Dream Act are made which had very tiny solution for the immigrants living here. Lately President trump had tried to make changes in the law which didn't pass through congress and a travel ban was active for some time. In July 1, 2015, and Kate Steinle was walking with her father on Pier 14 in San Francisco. But out of nowhere, a bullet ricocheted off the concrete and struck the unsuspecting 32-year-old in the back, according to NBC News. She died two hours later in a nearby hospital.

Jury found Kate's accused killer, 45-year-old Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, not guilty on charges of murder, assault with a deadly weapon and involuntary manslaughter, The Washington Post reported. Garcia Zarate, a Mexican citizen who has been deported from the United States five times, was found guilty of possessing a weapon as a felon. President Donald Trump often talked about Steinle's death on the campaign trail, using it to advocate for the construction of his proposed border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border with the aim of keeping out undocumented immigrants like Garcia Zarate (Magness, J. n.d.). Recent study of 2011 by the Government Accountability Office which estimated undocumented immigrants had committed some 25,000 homicides, 42,000 robberies and nearly, 70,000 sex offenses. However, the number of crimes by undocumented immigrants are lower than the native born. Building a wall around the country for illegal entry is not the only solution to control these entrance and crimes (Horsley, S. 2018, June 22). Next thing that pops up in the mind is deportation. It comes with various impact on the families and communities as well as country which, holds a large number of immigrants. We all know there have been crimes related to immigrated population, but we know native stand pretty high as per the number stands.

Even though, we have 45 million immigrants in the past three decades 340,056 peoples have been through deportation. Deportation and building wall will not make U.S. free from the problems of immigration. Instead problems are added to it. The U.S. citizen children that lived with an undocumented parent was 5.9 million according to the census 2010-2014. And about half a million parents get deported by the course of two years. This study shows us that about 1 million children get affected by deportation of their parents every four years. As I mentioned earlier, the problems of mental and healthy states degraded as well as the fact that 273,000 are U.S. born citizen children seems to add more to the problem. Its affect is long term health problems such as anxiety, depression, and many more stress related issues. It also brings children to an economic instability and poor childhood development (U.S. Citizen Children Impacted by Immigration Enforcement 2018, June 04).

Typical legal and illegal immigrants come to America primarily for better jobs and in the process add value to the U.S. economy. However, they take advantage of weak national security environment and stay in the country for longer period. When three out of every 100 people in America are undocumented (or, rather, documented with forged and faked papers), there is a profound security problem. The case of American dreams keeps people stay in the country (Johnson, K. n.d.). Moreover, the government has also taking advantage of this. In current day there are many immigrants who work in low wage around the country. Due to lack of proper laws and regulation government losses a great amount of tax money every day. People work in cash and even the price is low for working with undocumented people. A coin always has two sides. American government know the situation of its immigration law. This issue has not only been ignored but also misused. During his campaign, Donald Trump used the issue of illegal immigration as his point to change for his campaign. According to Trump, Mexico was sending high number of criminals over the border. He called for deporting the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

However; after the election, Trump accused undocumented immigrants of surreptitiously voting for Hillary Clinton in the general election. He and his attorney general have stepped up deportations, even for traffic offenses. And he has refused to extend the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows the children of undocumented immigrants, who came to the United States through no choice of their own, to avoid deportation. This acts also led to influence the general and native American and their view on immigrants (The Two Sides of Immigration Policy. n.d.). The famous concept claiming immigrants come here take our good jobs and women actually might be wrong. Government knowingly not acting for the reform of this law arises a big question why it is ignored. Every Year people come to the United States with dream of freedom and opportunity. But the current immigration system is broken; Families are separated, immigration workers are exploited, people die trying to cross border, and they face discrimination. Therefore, immigration laws of the United States should be reformed in order to increase economic growth, decrease crime, and acknowledge the benefits of too native people.

Cite this page