Personal Speech : The Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals

Madison’s primary focus throughout the beginning of this paper is factions. He holds a deep disdain for them as he thinks that they solely focus on themselves, while hurting other Americans, which is evident in this quote, (“…united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the

In “Federalist #10”, Madison describes the dangerous effects that factions can have on Republican government and on its people. Madison defines a faction as a group of citizens who unite under a shared cause, and work against other groups in order to achieve their means. Their means of achieving their goals may achieve adverse effects upon the rights of other citizens. Put in more modern terms, a faction could be reasonably compared to a special-interest group. The sort of faction that most endangers the liberty inherent in United States society are factions that contain a majority of the whole. The weakness of a popular government is its susceptibility to the effects of factions. However, a well-constructed Union provides numerous

As an individual who has witnessed family friends of immigrants that came to this country over 20 years ago in hope of a better future. I understand why so many immigrants are willing to cross a border so dangerous and treacherous to reach a country that is called the land of opportunities. What we call The Unites States of America the land of the free. An average of 2,700 illegal immigrants are willing to cross the border each day leaving there families and risking their own life's to cross to the US. Mostly in the news we tend to hear only the superficial fact but never the real facts or the stories of the capture immigrants. If we would just take time to listen to the real stories of what I called the unforgotten children and women. We

The danger of politics lead to the principal factor of checks and balances, within the government and Founding Fathers, throughout the “most crucial and consequential [decade] in American history” (27). Politics were also what lead to the quarrel between John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.

Dangers of factions mentioned by Madison in Federalist #10 and Washington's warning about the "baneful effects of the spirit of party."

On June 15, 2012, President Barak Obama gave a brief speech on a new Department of Homeland Security Immigration policy. This new policy will benefit thousands of undocumented students living here in the United States that were brought by their parents since they were young children from their native home. A policy called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. As President Obama mentioned in his speech about what undocumented students are, he mentioned part of a sentence that got to me. President Obama stated the following, “They are Americans in their

Publius states that it is not possible to smother a faction but what our country can do is control its effects. A republican form of government promises the cure of controlling factions. Through elected officials, the peoples voice will be channeled and there will be, “more consonant to the public good then if pronounced by the people themselves (Publius,77).”

James Madison warned, among several cautions, about factions, specifically a tyranny of the majority, when writing under the alias as PUBLIUS in The Federalist Papers. According to Madison in Federalist 10, a faction is a group of citizens, either a majority or minority, who group together by a common purpose or goal (2013, pg. 628). He argued that when governments are ruled by factions, “...the public good is disregarded…”, and rulings of the government are made by an “overbearing majority,” instead of by the “...rules of justice and the rights of the minor party…” (Madison 2013, pg. 628). However, in the two hundred plus years of different opinions on how government should run and political polarization, factions, in some fashion, have become a reality within the U.S. political system through the means of political parties. The two major U.S. political parties are the Democrats and the Republicans, and they are in a constant battle over who will control Congress and influence the policy-making process.

President Clinton overstepped her limits as President of the United States to implement the expansion of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Policy through an executive order. An action that was previously enacted by President Barack Obama but was quickly canceled in the decision of US v. Texas. She, or anyone that retains the position of the presidency, does not have the authority to enact immigration policy under the nation’s constitution and thus violates the separation of powers doctrine as outlined by our Founding Fathers in Federalist Paper #47.

Our nation gains strength when we accept the ideas of diversity and contributions from our young people. Have you heard about the American Dream? For people of all ages, races, and ethnicities to feel free and pursue happiness, it is more than a Dream. It’s a glimmer of hope from immigrants who come to America seeking better opportunities for their children. Being born in America gives you a lot of benefits, a child can go to college, apply for financial aid and/ or student loans, and even travel around the world.

The Framer’s notion of a republic, or democratic republic form of government, rested on the necessity to limit the formation and success of factions. Yet, as Dahl argued, the irony of Madison’s aversions to factions is that, not long after the ratification of the

In discussing the Madisonian Dilemma, one must first ask, “How do you give government enough authority to preserve social order and communal values, but not so much that it places unfair and inappropriate limits on individual freedom of choice?” (Bond & Smith 2013, p. 111) This delicate balance between governmental rights and individual freedoms has been a source of much contention and debate. James Madison, a primary framer of the Constitution and author of 30 of the Federalist Papers, believed that the only way this balance of power could be achieved was through controlling the effects of factions through a representative government, fragmenting the power of that government and creating a system of checks and balances within, and

When I think about a political community, I usually associate it with elections, politicians, and advertisements that bad mouth candidates from the different political parties. Politicians try to persuade citizens to vote for them by making promises that they may never fulfill. But a political community is more than that. A comparison of Aristotle and John Locke’s nature and purpose of a political community has given me a new insight. I learned that, even though the political community is responsible to provide security, its main purpose is aimed for the highest good of all its citizens, which is virtue and happiness.

Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. These words are engraved on the Statue of Liberty that was assembled in 1886. The statue was meant to be a beacon of hope for all immigrants that enter the U.S. Do we still agree with what those words say?

Erika Summers-Effler, when discussing my post-graduate aspirations, said to me “We don’t do this for fun or prestige, a sociology PhD does not turn my family’s heads at thanksgiving dinner. We do it because we’re drawn to it, there’s something that connects each of us to the field.” My senior thesis reflects this, a product of the life of an immigrant catalyzed by formal training as an undergraduate. Given the rate at which the political landscape is shifting, and the center stage that immigration has taken in discourse, a project on immigration, specifically DACA (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is the object of my motivation. My research is being conducted at a crucial period for immigration law, during the six-month period that