Legal Immigrants

We all come from different places and ethnicities, and because of having a dream, people fled away from their home to seek for something to make their life better. Going to a country like United States, is not only a dream but also, an opportunity because many people think that America is the best place to settle in, where work, and education are an easy access. Though this statement is partly true, it is not that easy. Everyone envied because America is a great nation because it's a country of opportunity, but a part of it also is a mixture of feelings that are hard to explain especially if you are immigrant. Every day in your life, you are fighting for something in order to fit in and survive. However, in the process of fitting in or blending to a certain place, people, and culture, it requires a lot of personal choices and a lot of effort as an immigrant. It does not only affect you as a human, but also it draws a lot of attention, conflicts and tension between the government and community. Most immigrants have a harder time to adjust or assimilate even though they speak fluent English and eat American foods. Whenever you see a person of white complexion, people assumed that blue eyes and blonde hair are the characteristics of an American, though these are how we perceived American long time ago, this are still the standards of a few now and doesn’t make a big change at all. The judgement of how a person look physically and how they

United States is usually believed to be a land of immigrants from its long history of admitting large numbers of foreign born people from around the world. These immigrants helped to build the country and pervade it with strong cultural diversity. However, increased immigration has been believed to be associated with increased criminal activity. Immigration and crime link begin with an overview of immigration history. On the other hand, immigrants might have significantly lowered crime rates than United States born citizens.

Are illegal immigrants or undocumented immigrants beneficial to America’s economy? Most illegal immigrants have a positive impact on the United States (U.S.) economy. Illegal immigrants have a positive impact on the United States economy because they increase our tax revenue, they add to our social security, and they also increase our employment rates.” In 2000, statistics revealed 8.7 million illegal immigrants resided in the United States” (Knickerbocker pgs.11-12). “A study of illegal immigrants living in Texas showed a 420 million dollar increase in the states economy” (Strayhorn). Companies risk hiring illegal immigrants

A couple of facts that counters the image of illegal immigrants as criminals include, “The anti-immigrant forces draw, for example, on the ‘2006 (first quarter) INS [immigration and Naturalization service/FBI statistical report on undocumented Immigrants’ with its array of alarming statistics about illegal immigrants and crime to make their case that undocumented immigrants not only break the law entering the country but also break the laws, with a proclivity to violent crimes, once they make their homes here.” And, “One of the most disturbing findings of the IPC study was that immigrant children and immigrants with many years in the country are more likely to become criminals than first-generation immigrants or those with less than 15

The author focuses on Hispanic/Latino immigrants and the views on immigrants who commit crime. In this study, the author’s findings come from the public perceptions. The perceptions of the public in local communities, towns, and cities, discriminate due to the increase in Hispanic/Latino immigration. The public’s view in the study were discriminative against Hispanics/Latinos who migrated to the United States. Sohoni found that societies perceptions in surveys propose a great quantity of Americans that consider immigration will indicate abnormal criminality. On the contrary, the author found that immigrant Hispanic/Latino youths were less likely than Hispanic U.S. Americans to participate in crime.

The article “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant” was written by Jose Antonio Vargas. In it, Vargas tells of the time when his mother brought him to the Phillippines’ Ninoy Aquino International Airport when he was twelve. His mother told him that she wanted to give him a better life so he boarded onto a plane with a man he had never met before and was told that he was his uncle. He arrived in Mountain View, California and moved in with his grandparents Lolo and Lola. Vargas says that he grew to love his new home and when he entered sixth grade that’s when he found his passion for language. He tells of his struggle of making a distinction between “formal English and

Although events such as San Bernardino in 2015 provide anecdotal evidence of immigrants committing acts of extreme violence, these events are extremely rare. Nonetheless, tragedies such as these inevitably grab headlines and capture the attention of millions of Americans across the country. Tragedies such as the attack in San Bernardino hold strong emotional appeal to proponents for restrictive immigration policy. However, these rare and uncontrollable events should not provide the base of logic for America’s national immigration policy as they are not a proxy for immigrant behavior as a whole. Various statistics regarding crime among immigrants may reveal an underlying reason for lower crime rates, which is that the majority of immigrants understand the implications of committing a crime and know that it would not be in their best interest as a new member of the country they wish to call home. Natives, moreover, have crime rates five times that of immigrants. This demonstrates the potential positive externalities that immigrants contribute to the social sphere by lowering the crime rate and acting as models within urban America.

It seems unusual for people to consider immigrants criminals to this day. Although we are in the 21st century, most immigrants are frowned upon and known to bring their cultural tendencies to the United States and cause harm. In Bianca E Bersani and Alex R. Piquero’s essay “Immigrants don’t commit more crimes. Why does the myth persist?” it is shown through various ways that immigrants commit less crime than native-born peers. Bersani and Piquero’s intention when writing this article was to prove to the nation that people are committing the same mistake as they did when large numbers of Polish, Italians, and Irish migrated to the United States and were blamed for crime without probable crime. Bersani and Piquero show the respect and commitment that immigrants have towards the authorities, providing another example that would diminish the fact of them committing crime.

Leaving a entire family and friends is not an easy task, and crossing the border illegally in search of the american dream is even harder. The first thing a friend said was, that if I could buy him a hat, another friends asked for money to help him to buy a expensive phone and another friend said that since I live in U.S it means I am reach, it was not until I hear those words that I understood how wrong was the idea that people had about U.S. That the money grow on trees, or that people find it on the streets like if it was nothing. The reality was different, at the age of 15 I started helping my mom to clean houses and offices at 2 am, I remember how hard it was for my mother to keep two jobs so that she could provide us the things we needed.

Immigrant’s criminal behavior is likely to change once immigrants leave their country of origin and get into a foreign country either illegally or legally. This is based on the recognition that that diverse migrant individuals are likely to have modifications in all of the constituents of life,( Nielsen and Martinez, 2011). Immigrants would have the fear of being deported back to their country’s’ of origin especially if their country’s’ are not stable politically are wars are being experienced, If they have a chance of making a decent living in the foreign country. If they are illegal immigrants they would fear the legal proceedings hence they have to lie low and keep away from the authorities. Assuming the migrants had much poorer legal labor market chances in their native country, whether attributed to their unemployment rates or their wages were lower, this would intensify the possibility of criminal behavior of immigrants compared to the natives, (Machin and Meghir 2004). If they are coming from desperate backgrounds and they need their lives to change.

It is proven that immigrants are far more afraid and less likely to as well participate in any crime involved activities, quit their jobs, shoplift, hurt others in any way, shape or form, or do something that could get them arrested. It’s the sense of fear they have for getting deported, but it may also be that good spirit in which they truly came here to start a better life with no problems. Many comparisons between cities, communities and counties are done by economists to differentiate the links of local concentration of immigrants and the rates of crime and violence in that specified area. Results showed that the higher number concentration of immigrants, the lower crime rate. There is no proven connection found between immigrants and higher crime

A quarter of the inmates in federal prisons are aliens. In a study comparing high immigration cities to low immigration cities, the high immigration cities were found to have twice as much violent crime as low immigration cities. Not only does immigration contribute to the poverty that causes crime, but also many aliens have criminal careers.

According to Emerick, today 11 percent of U.S residents are immigrants with recent estimates reaching 1.2 million immigrants entering the United States annually (363). Latinos and immigrants are quickly increasing sectors of the U.S population and a focus of the debates about crime in the social media and politics. The truth about crime as researched by the criminological theory states that the theory of illegal immigration promoting crime activity is not supported in studies. The fact that

In order to apply this theory to immigration and crime it is essential to recognize that different migrant groups are likely to have differences in all of the components of the cost benefit analysis that they undertake. There possible problem in exploring the link between immigration and crime was that, the data do not capture all crimes. Data is collected on individuals who are arrested and/or convicted, but will not include all crimes committed. Thus, comparing foreign born and US born populations can be misleading. A chain of factors might lead to foreign born individuals having higher or lower arrest or conviction rates than those born in the US born even if they commit crimes at the same rates.

The thought of arriving immigrants in any host country has been accompanied by reactions of exclusion, and continues to expand throughout the years. During any social illness, immigrants tend to be the first to be held responsible by their recipient societies. Most crimes are associated with immigrants due to the fact that they may not posses the same socio-economics status as natives. Another contributing factor is the media that conducts numerous stories that highlight the image of immigrant crimes to recall the alleged difference between native and foreign born. Undoubtedly, the correlation between immigration and crime has become one of the most controversial discussions in current society. As we enter a new era, immigrants will have