Immigration Struggles Essay

Globally, the United States has been known as "a nation of immigrants" almost from its inception. Beginning in the 1600s with English Puritans and continuing today, America is a melting pot of culture and ethnicity. In fact, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, immigration was the major source of U.S. population growth. Looking over our 200+ years we find that to clearly be true, with approximately 1 million immigrants coming to America during the 17th and 18th century. Almost 3 million arrived during the 1860s, and another 3 million in the 1870s. In the next four decades, the number of immigrants rose to over 25 million people, most from various European nations, most arriving in New York or one of the Eastern seaports (Damon, 1981). Despite the politicization, as of 2006, the United States actually was the number one country globally to accept legal immigrants into the country, with a current immigrant population of almost 40 million (Terrazas and Batalova, 2009). In fact, the peak of immigration was 1907, when over 1.2 million Europeans entered the country beginning a push towards legislation limiting immigration in the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1924 and the 1921 Congressional Quota Act. These immigrants came for two sociological reasons: the push factor (wars, famine, persecution and overpopulation) and the pull factors (jobs and the promise of freedom). Most came by ship, and a passage often cost the equivalent of an entire life's savings causing many

America is traditionally a country of immigrants. Very few people today have relatives who were Native Americans, many of them because of religious persecution, and others because of they were just looking to start a new life on the exciting untouched frontier. For instance, in Florida, the first arrivals were European, beginning with the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon who explored the land in 1513, following French and Spanish settlement during the 16th century. From the past, America was seen as a country of opportunities. People from all over the world have moved here looking for better opportunities. There are a lot of reasons why immigrants should live in this country, but I would like to mention three of them.

At present, the U.S. immigration system is burdened both by policy and implementation challenges. It is barely able to meet the commitments required by law and policy and is ill-prepared to address new challenges and mandates. Agreement that the system is broken may be the only point of consensus among many diverse stakeholders. The Task Force believes that immigration laws and policies are broken in four ways:

There are many vulnerable populations within the United States. One of the many vulnerable populations are undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants also known as illegal immigrants according to Wikipedia (2016) is defined as “the migration of people across national boarders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country” (para 1). The United States of America has one of the largest population of immigrants. In this paper, I will be discussing the multiple stressors related to undocumented immigrants as well as the programs that can be used to help alleviate those stressors.

This paper explores the United States, Immigration Policy from an historical, fair and factual perspective. The Immigration Act of 1990 States limited “unskilled workers to 10,000 a year. Skilled labor requirements and immediate family reunification were major goals. The Act continued to promote the nuclear family model, foreign-born in the US was 7%”. This paper will also explore the demographics and diversity, of immigrants, throughout the U.S. This paper includes an article form the website of the Washington, D.C., Immigration Policy Center, and American Immigration Council. This paper will examines significant research data from the Pew Research web site on Hispanic trends and immigration, around the United States. This paper will also cover numbers, facts and trends which shape the immigration policy. This paper will also include five different books written by authors concerning the immigration policy and public issues which most concern Americans. This paper will cover topics of history of social problems and the policies that address immigration, special interest groups advocacy groups, political party and supporters, social justice and ethical issues, policy outcomes of illegal immigrants and how other countries compare to the United States when dealing with immigration.

The debate over immigration has become one of the most heated arguments. Immigrants leave their home countries desperate need for food to feed their families, unemployment purposes, their poverty conditions environment, for those who are employed are tired of the below market wages, and the unequal treatment. Today they are about 11 million undocumented workers in the United States and Americans fear that because of this matter, immigrants will increase

The United States has long served as a refuge for people who seek to escape hunger, poverty, torture, and the oppression of the human spirit in their own countries. However, the issue of immigration in the United States has become a political flashpoint since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The sacralization of the tragedy has served to paint all immigrants with the same fear-ladened brush, and has marginalized and stereotyped an already vulnerable population. Today, more than ever, immigrants in the United States face increasing stressors as they try to assimilate in a politically charged post 9/11 world. To be an effective social worker, immigration issues and multicultural awareness is critical. Mary and Mario, a couple who

The changing environments throughout the ages have caused the movement of thousands of families out of their homelands. Whether forced to make such decisions or doing so by their own desires, all immigrants have had to survive the physical and psychological challenges encountered along the way. To speak about the experiences of all these different people using the same ideas and examples would be quite inaccurate. They all, however, had to live through similar situations and deal with similar problems. Many of them succeeded and found the better future they were looking for. Many others found only hardship and experienced the destruction of their hopes and dreams. All of them were transformed.

The United States of America has the largest foreign-born population in the world. With nearly thirteen percent of the total population being foreign-born, one may find it hard to imagine an immigrant-free country (U.S. Bureau of the Census). Immigration has been an integral part of the United States’ overall success and the country’s economy since it was established and without it, would have never been founded at all. Although there are some negative issues associated with immigration and many native-born Americans believe to be more of a problem than a solution, overall it actually has a positive effect. Immigrants in America, among other things, fill jobs where native-born Americans may not want to work or cannot work, they contribute

In 2009 a Pew Research Center found that nearly one-in-four (23%) Americans said Hispanics were discriminated against “a lot” in society. A recent study has shown that there are more than 11.7 million Hispanic immigrants living in the United States (“Mexican Immigrants in the United States”). This means that more than 11.7 million humans live in fear of their livelihood being taken from them on a daily basis. With the rising number of Hispanic immigrants coming into the United States, the want of a solution to the problem becomes more popular. Although the concern for a solution is highly desired, American citizens should consider different factors such as: the two different type of immigrants, the

Illegal immigration has been a controversial issue that has benefitted and harmed the country in several ways; however, many issues dealing with the subject have transformed the future for America dramatically. Although the United States has absorbed and benefitted from the contributions of the undocumented, their presence has imposed harm to the country’s economy and political stability. They have taken over American jobs by retrieving several advantages that come along with the country’s policies, as well as harming the country by not assimilating to the culture and sustaining their identities. The influx of immigrants from other parts of the world has prompted an overwhelming change in society and the immigrants themselves due to more opportunities available in the United States. These immigrants have different motives for entering the country, hoping to obtain a better life in the land of opportunities. There is a greater chance of freedom, protection, and benefits, which are a priority to the migrants to achieve the American dream. Although the immigrants are advancing to achieve their goals, the government is advancing towards stabilizing the overcrowding population due to the hazards caused to the environment and the country. Many of these aliens have aspirations and hopes for a better future in this country, and they do not plan to harm it. On the other hand, some are a threat, but they come to reach that goal of self- independence and a new opening of opportunities.

The United States has always been termed as land of opportunity which attracted immigrants to come to country so as to manage better living and to cash in employment opportunities. Immigrants coming to US are either low skilled or high skilled people however they have made their significant respective contribution to enable economic growth for the country (Diana, 2014). The Immigration and Naturalization Act provide permanent immigrants limit of 675,000 and these immigrants could be family based like spouse, unmarried minor children and parents of US citizens or employment based immigrants working on temporary visas (AIC, 2014). Presently there are around twelve million immigrants in the US who even have partial papers or no paper works and considered as illegal immigrant. The largest immigrants are Hispanic-Americans who represent the 16.7% of US population (Aguilar, 2013).

Along with its economic classes, American is known for its freedom, its liberty, and the melting pot of ethnicity. This ethnic diversity comes form the immigrant population in the country. However this perfect country is a major falsehood. These untrue ideals of harmony, freedom, success, and equality are deceptive and do not show the struggles that immigrants face when coming to this class dominated country. The immigrants of today do not come from just Europe, but overwhelmingly from Asia and Latin America. “They are driving a demographic shift so rapid that within the lifetimes of today 's teenagers, no one ethnic group – including whites of European descent – will comprise a majority of the nation 's population’ (Colombo, Cullen, Lisle). These immigrants challenge the social myth that everyone has an equal chance in life. They

　　According to Migration Policy Institute(MPI) immigration is a prominent part of the United States ' DNA. Among different immigrant groups in the United States it is highly uneven, and the size of the unauthorized population continues to be a powerful barrier to social cohesion, full social economic, and political integration. (Jimenez, 2016)

To this day, more and more immigrants are coming to the United states in search of religious freedom, escape from war, fleeing from political unrest, and in search for a life that can provide basic needs for themselves and their children. Some of these immigrants are here legally and some are also here illegally. In 2003, the government estimated that 8-12 million illegal immigrants lived in the United States at that time and to this day there are 15.7-19.7 million illegal immigrants living here now. (http://www.cairco.org/issues/how-many-illegal-aliens-reside-united-states). In 2014, it was determined that immigrants as a whole made up 13.3 percent of the United States population and there is a total of 42.4 immigrants altogether (http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states).This leads to a great deal of problems in our country that are beginning to be addressed in an extreme manner.