Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco and Carola Suárez-Orozco discuss the topic of anti-migration measures taken in the USA, and the genuine implications of the tendencies observed in the field. The authors provide the findings of a statistical report of the Pew Hispanic Center about a dramatic reduction of illegal migration rates from the south of the continent to the USA.
The authors initially assess the tendency as a logical one, since the greatest economic recession since the times of the Great Depression reduces the migration incentives seriously, with advanced economies offering much fewer jobs and much worse living conditions for immigrants.
However, the author indicate that this is not the key point to consider with the framework of illegal immigration topic. They offer an alternative approach to the topic consideration, claiming that it is more constructive than the modern anti-migration measures.
The statistics the authors offer shows that there are $14.9 billon expenditures on the US Custom and Border Protection services, which is incredibly much in the conditions of the economic crisis in the country. However, even under the strengthening power of enforcement officials at the border and the aggravating policies of deportation, there are still 300,000 illegal immigrants recorded annually (Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco). The authors assess this tendency as a major breach of the fundamental US legislation, which is integrity of its borders and national security. The access of illegal immigrants erodes public trust and creates the projects of hopelessness in the issue of immigration.
The authors expand on this critical situation even further, assessing the number of children of illegal immigrants who become US citizens by birth (4 million in 2008), while the official applicants for immigration have to wait for years, and sometimes decades, to join their relatives, official residents and citizens of the USA (Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco). The present tendency is shown by the authors as a dramatic discrepancy in the anti-migration theory and practice, harming obedient citizens, and ignored by deviant ones.
Upon a critical appraisal of the present situation, the authors of the article offer a different approach to the issue of illegal migration. They remind to the reader that it is actually the American population that created the demand for illegal, cheap labor in the 1990s, and that employs illegal immigrants as nannies and gardeners.
It is useless to reject people once they are already in the USA. Hence, the authors claim that in case Americans could have given cheap manual jobs for those immigrants, they should consider the opportunity of welcoming them in their community, at their workplace, and in the neighborhood. To achieve that, immigrants have to fit a certain set of characteristics that will enable them to assimilate with the mainstream American society as equal members thereof.
Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco propose a three-stage program for fighting illegal immigration. They state that each illegal immigrant, after living for three years in the USA, has to sign an affidavit in which he or she accepts unlawful stay in the country.
After that, the immigrant will have to pass a security check and pay a fine of $6,500 for the unlawful stay in the United States, and will then take a course of studies including the US history, English language, and fundamentals of the US government system (Suárez-Orozco and Suárez-Orozco).
However, the authors emphasize that the program will not achieve success in case there is no support from government and administration; the officials have to accompany these comprehensive steps on assimilation of worthy immigrants with the tough deportation and border security measures.
Works Cited
Suárez-Orozco, M. Marcelo, and Carola Suárez-Orozco. “Anti-Anti Immigration: Principles to Make Migration Work.” Huffington Post. 2010. 7 Oct. 2011. <https://www.huffpost.com/entry/antianti-immigration-prin_b_706609>