Social Change Project: Building Bridges with Immigration Reform in the United States
Introduction
One of the most controversial issues that America faces today is its policy on immigration specifically the issue regarding undocumented immigrants. An undocumented immigrant, also known as illegal immigrant or unauthorized immigrant, is a person who is foreign-born that does not have the legal right to stay here in the United States. (UsLegal.com) According to the Pew Research Center, there is approximately 11.1 undocumented immigrants living here in the United States. Half of those undocumented immigrants came from Mexico and the other half is from countries from South America and Asia like Guatemala, El Salvador, China, South Korea and the Philippines. Eight million of these undocumented immigrants are employed here in the United States. Most of the jobs that they take on are and mostly construction agricultural like farming. (Pew Research Center). Nowadays, with President Donald Trump’s administration, undocumented immigrants are living a fear of deportation, discrimination and separation from their families. Efforts have been made to help undocumented immigrants seek sanctuary, employment cards and a chance to reside here in the United States legally as they continue to live their American Dream.
Immigration to the United States: Visa
Although we constantly hear about illegal or undocumented immigrants, there are also immigrants who enter the United States legally. We also must remember there is a process to get into the United States legally, which is the Visa System. Immigrants mainly migrate due to push and pull factors. Three categories for push and pull factors are: economic, cultural, and environmental. Foreign citizens who want to enter and live in the United States, must get legally approved with a visa.
· Push and Pull Factors: Push and pull factors are what makes immigration happen. Push factors such as economic insatiability or religious persecutions pushes the immigrants out of the country. Pull factors are opportunities other countries have, which makes immigrants want to go there. For example, the United states has a democratic system that encourages freedom of expression, so people want to immigrate in order to practice their religion. These pull factors may be a few reasons to why immigrants stay in the united states even after their visas have expired. We currently know that people most commonly entering the United States with visas are from Canada, Mexico, Germany, Brazil and Italy.
· Visa Process: Foreign citizens who want to enter the united states are required to go through a visa process. The visa process is mainly used and received for family or employment reasons. The process starts with submitting a petition to migrate over. After the petition is approved, the individual has to check the priority date, begin the National Visa Center processing, choose an agent to communicate for the case, and then pay the required fees. If petition is approved, the National Visa Center processes the required paperwork and the individual prepares for an interview to see if they are eligible for a visa.
· And although we know there are people who overstay their visas, the Washington Times states there is no way of tracking people with visas who are going out of the country, therefore the number of immigrants overstaying their visas is unknown.
Seeking Sanctuary for Undocumented Immigrants
Numerous efforts today, have been carried out by pro-immigration groups to help out undocumented immigrants seek sanctuary. A good example would be the New Sanctuary Movement (NSM), which is a movement led by religious groups that aims to seek efforts to provide sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. The NSM is also involved in lobbying lawmakers to write laws regarding immigration reform like the establishment of sanctuary cities and also to establish the undocumented immigrants’ representation. A study was conducted in Ventura County, Los Angeles County and San Francisco, California to prove the NSM’s effectiveness with their goals. Research says that the NSM has been effective with their lobbying efforts to improve public policies and their ability to give immigrants’ the ability to negotiate with local, state and national political structures. (Freeland, 2011)
The establishment of sanctuary cities has been also proven to be effective in protecting the rights of undocumented immigrants living in it. A sanctuary city is a city that provides personal freedom towards undocumented immigrants; this includes not being questioned by immigration officers, police officers and any other public officials. According to Richard J. Cebula, sanctuary cities has been proved to increase the wellbeing of undocumented immigrants who live in sanctuary cities as they can live without the fear of getting deported or separated with their families and that they become more economically stable as they provided with more opportunities living in sanctuary cities. (Cebula, 2016)
Meanwhile, for students who are undocumented especially those who are Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) students and AB540 students, the establishment of sanctuary campuses will be able to help students be free of the fear of exposure and deportation. According to Emily Wilson, the recent establishment of the Undocumented Student Center in the University of California system helps DACA and AB540 students help pay for resident tuition at UC schools. Undocumented students can also receive extra support with these kind of programs in schools and with that kind of support this will help AB540 and DACA students have that sense of belonging as they can live without fear. (Wilson, 2015)
Undocumented Students in our Schools
The large numbers of undocumented citizens, that live in the United States, range from people as young as baby infants, to old seniors. With this in mind, there is, without a doubt, that our schools have enrolled and included in the education system undocumented students.
There are undocumented students in our schools. And it is important that we understand and know that our schools are very inclusive of all students, without questioning students’ citizenship statuses. There have been so much efforts put in place for higher education establishments/ institutions to be more inclusive. And this efforted has proven to be successful, for undocumented students have taken the opportunity to proceed to higher education after graduating high school.
Now, the effort has changed. Now, the same community that pushed for inclusiveness, is pushing for other issues. There are clubs and groups on campuses that are in support of helping the undocumented students to be more successful students. There are clubs, groups, and faculty members that are on campus to help undocumented students achieve their academic goals, to achieve a degree in higher education. There are even organizations that raise funds to provide undocumented students scholarships to help pay for college, since they cannot take out student loans.
The fight has changed from getting undocumented students into colleges and universities, to helping them succeed in colleges and universities. With the new presidential administration, this effort put in place for years, is being threatened. And undocumented students, and their parents, are afraid that all of this is going to change.
Labor and Economy
The United States has been facing major economic challenges in which healthcare costs has increased, as well as retirement spending and not so many Americans working to help pay for it. Economic growth is slowing down because of the Americans leaving the workforce. Immigration is the only thing that is keeping the U.S. in good standing economically because of the undocumented immigrants who want to come and work in the U.S. It is believed that these immigrants decided to come to the U.S. because they wanted to live better lives and be able to take care of them and their families, by doing so, they took the opportunity to find a secure high paying job. This increased the rate of labor and workforce because there were more participants from the foreign countries rather than the native-born Americans. While the labor supply is increasing, the undocumented immigrants reduced the average earnings of the U.S. born by an estimation of $1,700, roughly 4 percent between the years of 1980 and 2000. The presence of the undocumented immigrants filling in the workforce helped reduce wages, prices, and the health of the U.S. economy because manufacturing and the growth in global trade increased. Specifically, in sanctuary cities, for the economy, the median household income is on an average of $4,352.70 which is significantly high. According the Dual Market Theory, undocumented immigrants show a greater deal of mobility between jobs in the secondary sector. What that means is that the immigrants are able to gain experience and the knowledge over time such as agricultural workers. All in all, undocumented immigrants give a lot of contribution to the U.S, economy because they invest and consume goods and fill the services of being a part of the working force. This increased the productivity and lowered the costs of goods, helped fill the positions within the job opportunities, developing the overall U.S. economy. Undocumented immigrants also have to pay for taxes, and with them they add billions of dollars in sales, property, income, and payroll taxes which includes Social Security, Medicare, public coffers, and unemployment taxes. Although they are secured from most government benefits like food stamps, federal housing programs, Supplemental Security Income, etc. Even though they have less benefits and they are still required under the same income tax laws as U.S. citizens, their status improved most unauthorized workers’ pay a higher effect tax rate. Undocumented immigrants have a huge impact and played a big role with making the United States economy/labor better than it was before.
Employment Card
Many undocumented immigrants have come to the U.S in search of new opportunity and a whole new lifestyle. Throughout the years, many of them have been the key source in keeping the U.S economy up and running. Many have taken businesses that were small and help lead them on to play a bigger role in the economy. Many have made big impactful changes to the U.S and to the way how other countries see U.S. They have been one of the major groups that help lead U.S to a stronger economy and a major key group to the U.S workforce. Each year thousands of undocumented immigrant arrives here in the U.S in search of new dreams, but faces many struggles along the way, such as trying to find job without legal paperwork. In the U.S an Employment card in required for an undocumented immigrant, before they are able to start working. However not everyone is able to get accessed to one or even obtain one without the time and investment put into getting one. It seem like an easy access card to obtain, but it actually takes a long time period to get one. An employment card is one of the things undocumented immigrants value a lot, since it could be the key source to them getting a job in the U.S. There are many different types of employment cards that are distributed and given out each years to those that are willing to put their time into it. It all depends on whether U.S officials agree to giving them one or not, after running many security check. In the U.S employment card is a big factor to undocumented immigrants, it is a source that will help them in the work force.
The Reasons Behind President Donald Trump’s Immigration Ban of Muslims
According to the report made by Dan Merica from CNN, “President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that indefinitely suspends admissions for Syrian refugees and limits the flow of other refugees into the United States by instituting what the President has called ‘extreme vetting’ of immigrants” (CNN). His executive order also banned the entry of immigrants from seven different countries including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya. President Trump’s executive order gained so much anger from people all around the globe because most of them are tourists who were detained in the airports as soon as his order came out. President Trump’s main argument is that he is doing all of this in order to protect the America from terrorism.
Based on the research found, experts such as David J. Bier of Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity argued that President Trump only used the 1952 law in order to discriminate a nationality “he finds are detrimental to the interest of the United States.” The 1952 law “allows the president the ability to ‘suspend the entry’ of ‘any class of aliens.’” (The New York Times). But, President Trump can no longer hide the truth that the [Congress restricted] this power in 1965, stating plainly that no person could be ‘discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence’” (The New York Times). This 1965 law defeated his executive order. What Trump is doing recently is that he is trying to stab the America’s constitutional system from its back without the ordinary citizens knowing it. Because of this, the Supreme Court rejected his executive order which caused him to revise it again.
In his revised immigration ban, it still focuses on banning the entry of immigrants from seven countries stated above. Also, “green-card holders and dual citizens of the U.S. and any of those countries are exempt. The new draft also no longer directs authorities to single out — and reject — Syrian refugees when processing new visa applications” (Daily News). However, Based on Trump’s order, the Department of Homeland Security can prioritize a person from Muslim countries where war has affected him/her to apply for a refugee status only if he/she is part of "a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality” (CNN). President did not back away from his statement that although his revised his executive order, discrimination can still be shown not in terms of ethnicity, but in terms of religion. On the countries stated above, Muslim is the majority religion which therefore proves that President Trump only wants to acknowledge those who have different religion and beliefs than them. Trump did not back away from the idea that he is prioritizing Christians over Muslims. He argued that Muslims from these countries treated Christians horribly. “[T]hey were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians. And I thought it was very, very unfair,” President Trump said (CNN).
Trump’s immigration ban is “one of the most backward and nasty executive orders that the president has issued” (Merica, D.). It is unfortunate to find out that after all the civil right movements and civil right activists’ efforts to push for social change, the America will turn out to be moving backward from hereon now. President Trump’s action is something that should not be acknowledged because imputing a single person’s actions to a whole group of ethnicity or religion can be detrimental to the success of a civilized society.
One of the most controversial issues that America faces today is its policy on immigration specifically the issue regarding undocumented immigrants. An undocumented immigrant, also known as illegal immigrant or unauthorized immigrant, is a person who is foreign-born that does not have the legal right to stay here in the United States. (UsLegal.com) According to the Pew Research Center, there is approximately 11.1 undocumented immigrants living here in the United States. Half of those undocumented immigrants came from Mexico and the other half is from countries from South America and Asia like Guatemala, El Salvador, China, South Korea and the Philippines. Eight million of these undocumented immigrants are employed here in the United States. Most of the jobs that they take on are and mostly construction agricultural like farming. (Pew Research Center). Nowadays, with President Donald Trump’s administration, undocumented immigrants are living a fear of deportation, discrimination and separation from their families. Efforts have been made to help undocumented immigrants seek sanctuary, employment cards and a chance to reside here in the United States legally as they continue to live their American Dream.
Immigration to the United States: Visa
Although we constantly hear about illegal or undocumented immigrants, there are also immigrants who enter the United States legally. We also must remember there is a process to get into the United States legally, which is the Visa System. Immigrants mainly migrate due to push and pull factors. Three categories for push and pull factors are: economic, cultural, and environmental. Foreign citizens who want to enter and live in the United States, must get legally approved with a visa.
· Push and Pull Factors: Push and pull factors are what makes immigration happen. Push factors such as economic insatiability or religious persecutions pushes the immigrants out of the country. Pull factors are opportunities other countries have, which makes immigrants want to go there. For example, the United states has a democratic system that encourages freedom of expression, so people want to immigrate in order to practice their religion. These pull factors may be a few reasons to why immigrants stay in the united states even after their visas have expired. We currently know that people most commonly entering the United States with visas are from Canada, Mexico, Germany, Brazil and Italy.
· Visa Process: Foreign citizens who want to enter the united states are required to go through a visa process. The visa process is mainly used and received for family or employment reasons. The process starts with submitting a petition to migrate over. After the petition is approved, the individual has to check the priority date, begin the National Visa Center processing, choose an agent to communicate for the case, and then pay the required fees. If petition is approved, the National Visa Center processes the required paperwork and the individual prepares for an interview to see if they are eligible for a visa.
· And although we know there are people who overstay their visas, the Washington Times states there is no way of tracking people with visas who are going out of the country, therefore the number of immigrants overstaying their visas is unknown.
Seeking Sanctuary for Undocumented Immigrants
Numerous efforts today, have been carried out by pro-immigration groups to help out undocumented immigrants seek sanctuary. A good example would be the New Sanctuary Movement (NSM), which is a movement led by religious groups that aims to seek efforts to provide sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. The NSM is also involved in lobbying lawmakers to write laws regarding immigration reform like the establishment of sanctuary cities and also to establish the undocumented immigrants’ representation. A study was conducted in Ventura County, Los Angeles County and San Francisco, California to prove the NSM’s effectiveness with their goals. Research says that the NSM has been effective with their lobbying efforts to improve public policies and their ability to give immigrants’ the ability to negotiate with local, state and national political structures. (Freeland, 2011)
The establishment of sanctuary cities has been also proven to be effective in protecting the rights of undocumented immigrants living in it. A sanctuary city is a city that provides personal freedom towards undocumented immigrants; this includes not being questioned by immigration officers, police officers and any other public officials. According to Richard J. Cebula, sanctuary cities has been proved to increase the wellbeing of undocumented immigrants who live in sanctuary cities as they can live without the fear of getting deported or separated with their families and that they become more economically stable as they provided with more opportunities living in sanctuary cities. (Cebula, 2016)
Meanwhile, for students who are undocumented especially those who are Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) students and AB540 students, the establishment of sanctuary campuses will be able to help students be free of the fear of exposure and deportation. According to Emily Wilson, the recent establishment of the Undocumented Student Center in the University of California system helps DACA and AB540 students help pay for resident tuition at UC schools. Undocumented students can also receive extra support with these kind of programs in schools and with that kind of support this will help AB540 and DACA students have that sense of belonging as they can live without fear. (Wilson, 2015)
Undocumented Students in our Schools
The large numbers of undocumented citizens, that live in the United States, range from people as young as baby infants, to old seniors. With this in mind, there is, without a doubt, that our schools have enrolled and included in the education system undocumented students.
There are undocumented students in our schools. And it is important that we understand and know that our schools are very inclusive of all students, without questioning students’ citizenship statuses. There have been so much efforts put in place for higher education establishments/ institutions to be more inclusive. And this efforted has proven to be successful, for undocumented students have taken the opportunity to proceed to higher education after graduating high school.
Now, the effort has changed. Now, the same community that pushed for inclusiveness, is pushing for other issues. There are clubs and groups on campuses that are in support of helping the undocumented students to be more successful students. There are clubs, groups, and faculty members that are on campus to help undocumented students achieve their academic goals, to achieve a degree in higher education. There are even organizations that raise funds to provide undocumented students scholarships to help pay for college, since they cannot take out student loans.
The fight has changed from getting undocumented students into colleges and universities, to helping them succeed in colleges and universities. With the new presidential administration, this effort put in place for years, is being threatened. And undocumented students, and their parents, are afraid that all of this is going to change.
Labor and Economy
The United States has been facing major economic challenges in which healthcare costs has increased, as well as retirement spending and not so many Americans working to help pay for it. Economic growth is slowing down because of the Americans leaving the workforce. Immigration is the only thing that is keeping the U.S. in good standing economically because of the undocumented immigrants who want to come and work in the U.S. It is believed that these immigrants decided to come to the U.S. because they wanted to live better lives and be able to take care of them and their families, by doing so, they took the opportunity to find a secure high paying job. This increased the rate of labor and workforce because there were more participants from the foreign countries rather than the native-born Americans. While the labor supply is increasing, the undocumented immigrants reduced the average earnings of the U.S. born by an estimation of $1,700, roughly 4 percent between the years of 1980 and 2000. The presence of the undocumented immigrants filling in the workforce helped reduce wages, prices, and the health of the U.S. economy because manufacturing and the growth in global trade increased. Specifically, in sanctuary cities, for the economy, the median household income is on an average of $4,352.70 which is significantly high. According the Dual Market Theory, undocumented immigrants show a greater deal of mobility between jobs in the secondary sector. What that means is that the immigrants are able to gain experience and the knowledge over time such as agricultural workers. All in all, undocumented immigrants give a lot of contribution to the U.S, economy because they invest and consume goods and fill the services of being a part of the working force. This increased the productivity and lowered the costs of goods, helped fill the positions within the job opportunities, developing the overall U.S. economy. Undocumented immigrants also have to pay for taxes, and with them they add billions of dollars in sales, property, income, and payroll taxes which includes Social Security, Medicare, public coffers, and unemployment taxes. Although they are secured from most government benefits like food stamps, federal housing programs, Supplemental Security Income, etc. Even though they have less benefits and they are still required under the same income tax laws as U.S. citizens, their status improved most unauthorized workers’ pay a higher effect tax rate. Undocumented immigrants have a huge impact and played a big role with making the United States economy/labor better than it was before.
Employment Card
Many undocumented immigrants have come to the U.S in search of new opportunity and a whole new lifestyle. Throughout the years, many of them have been the key source in keeping the U.S economy up and running. Many have taken businesses that were small and help lead them on to play a bigger role in the economy. Many have made big impactful changes to the U.S and to the way how other countries see U.S. They have been one of the major groups that help lead U.S to a stronger economy and a major key group to the U.S workforce. Each year thousands of undocumented immigrant arrives here in the U.S in search of new dreams, but faces many struggles along the way, such as trying to find job without legal paperwork. In the U.S an Employment card in required for an undocumented immigrant, before they are able to start working. However not everyone is able to get accessed to one or even obtain one without the time and investment put into getting one. It seem like an easy access card to obtain, but it actually takes a long time period to get one. An employment card is one of the things undocumented immigrants value a lot, since it could be the key source to them getting a job in the U.S. There are many different types of employment cards that are distributed and given out each years to those that are willing to put their time into it. It all depends on whether U.S officials agree to giving them one or not, after running many security check. In the U.S employment card is a big factor to undocumented immigrants, it is a source that will help them in the work force.
The Reasons Behind President Donald Trump’s Immigration Ban of Muslims
According to the report made by Dan Merica from CNN, “President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that indefinitely suspends admissions for Syrian refugees and limits the flow of other refugees into the United States by instituting what the President has called ‘extreme vetting’ of immigrants” (CNN). His executive order also banned the entry of immigrants from seven different countries including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya. President Trump’s executive order gained so much anger from people all around the globe because most of them are tourists who were detained in the airports as soon as his order came out. President Trump’s main argument is that he is doing all of this in order to protect the America from terrorism.
Based on the research found, experts such as David J. Bier of Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity argued that President Trump only used the 1952 law in order to discriminate a nationality “he finds are detrimental to the interest of the United States.” The 1952 law “allows the president the ability to ‘suspend the entry’ of ‘any class of aliens.’” (The New York Times). But, President Trump can no longer hide the truth that the [Congress restricted] this power in 1965, stating plainly that no person could be ‘discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence’” (The New York Times). This 1965 law defeated his executive order. What Trump is doing recently is that he is trying to stab the America’s constitutional system from its back without the ordinary citizens knowing it. Because of this, the Supreme Court rejected his executive order which caused him to revise it again.
In his revised immigration ban, it still focuses on banning the entry of immigrants from seven countries stated above. Also, “green-card holders and dual citizens of the U.S. and any of those countries are exempt. The new draft also no longer directs authorities to single out — and reject — Syrian refugees when processing new visa applications” (Daily News). However, Based on Trump’s order, the Department of Homeland Security can prioritize a person from Muslim countries where war has affected him/her to apply for a refugee status only if he/she is part of "a minority religion in the individual's country of nationality” (CNN). President did not back away from his statement that although his revised his executive order, discrimination can still be shown not in terms of ethnicity, but in terms of religion. On the countries stated above, Muslim is the majority religion which therefore proves that President Trump only wants to acknowledge those who have different religion and beliefs than them. Trump did not back away from the idea that he is prioritizing Christians over Muslims. He argued that Muslims from these countries treated Christians horribly. “[T]hey were chopping off the heads of everybody but more so the Christians. And I thought it was very, very unfair,” President Trump said (CNN).
Trump’s immigration ban is “one of the most backward and nasty executive orders that the president has issued” (Merica, D.). It is unfortunate to find out that after all the civil right movements and civil right activists’ efforts to push for social change, the America will turn out to be moving backward from hereon now. President Trump’s action is something that should not be acknowledged because imputing a single person’s actions to a whole group of ethnicity or religion can be detrimental to the success of a civilized society.