Globalization Effects on the United States Essay

Thesis Statement

The thesis of the paper is how globalization disaffected the U.S in getting the country through various problems. Although the process of globalization gained zenith somewhat in the late 1980s which enabled the world economies to start experiencing the gateway towards the end of poverty. The struggles of the poor brought them to a land that served as a solution for poverty alleviation. However, that land when started realizing the problem of alienation started taking measures to reduce overcrowding.

Operation Gatekeeper is among such solutions which the U.S. initiated as a result of certain short-term factors. Among the most significant problems faced was the problem of socioeconomic conditions that were considered to be caused by unauthorized immigration. Therefore in this manner, a paradox was developed due to a global society for which the developed economy of the United States started taking measures to implement boundary enforcement and immigration restriction (Nevins, 2002, p. 61).

Introduction

The notion of “globalization in a paradigm of paradoxes” is true to the extent where globalization today is experiencing both positive and negative aftermaths, but to limit the global society to the boundaries of opportunities and losses does not let us analyze the intensities of being global. This is what happened to the U.S. programs when the local initiatives started intersecting with national-scale events and developments, problems occurred when the actions taken by the political administration traversed members of the Government’s congressional delegation over unauthorized migrants (Nevins, 2002, p. 61).

Discussion

To start with the international trade in goods and commodities would not be wrong as in the backend of Operation Gatekeeper were some economic as well as social factors. Though international trade in the 1970s provided ease to the global world those threats that remained at the threshold of the commodities fluctuation in terms of financial stability were never ignored. Similarly migration from one country to another where on one hand has provided with skilled labor and rise in the currency, on the other end it came up with the terms like ‘aliens’ for foreigners for the reason the immigrants acquired higher posts in other countries, who then bound to ignore its own citizen nationals.

Technology helped in trading commodities thereby posing a threat for patent regimes through the U.S economy but an issue of immigration restriction in the U.S. was the then-current issue where the Government did all its best on the national and local platform to control illegal alienation that still sought ways to implement operations like ‘operation gatekeeper’ (Joseph, 2002, p. 61).

Nevins (2002) elaborates that in such ‘alienation control’ movements, at that time federal government officials and national politicians played a vital role and started with a compliant media, to help construct the perception of a crisis and to stoke public fears. The political campaigns thought that the “problem” of unauthorized immigration would remain a mirage for which they even didn’t bother about the real events and developments that restricted forces (Nevins, 2002, p. 63). Though they realize that the globalize domination of its production, exchange, and banking structure by financial and non-financial corporations and banks practice uncontrollable flows of finance across every border. But they were not able to come up with a globalize strategy dependant upon other nations in technological advancements.

Globalization marked the limitation of social systems through placing an example of the U.S. before us whose immigration restriction in the 1970s still convince us to realize the heavy flow of unauthorized immigrants to various cities of the U.S. This gave rise to the operation gatekeeper, which in the 1990s emerged as a platform that gathered the political, social, and cultural interest of the U.S citizens in the quest for alleviating ‘alienation’.

The aim was to emerge a nation-state with no problematic concerns for the economy. This initiated a strategy to limit its boundaries to its neighboring countries like Mexico. After considering a significant shift in public attitudes from the widespread acceptance of racist policies to growing support for civil rights the immigration policy altered its strategies. The change from an immigration policy was first based on a racial exclusion that was founded on non-discrimination, but later this shift in public attitudes transformed dramatic change in the prevailing public ideology regarding race which modified interest groups’ positions on immigration and, ultimately, contributed to the liberalization of U.S. immigration policy since the 1960s.

As a result, when Operation Gatekeeper was initiated, the foremost effect it upholds on the world was in the financial aspect of global speculative society which was not limited by currency stability. Operation Gatekeeper although to some extent was able to control the traffic from the Mexican border but East Asian unpredictable scenario caused the East Asian economy to demote job growth where 20,000 white-collar employees were made jobless (Friedman, 1999, p. 1). In such scenarios, Operation Gatekeeper was no more than a lost hope for the poor and deprive individuals of the Mexican economy but East Asians were looking towards migrating to the U.S.

The reasons were obvious. Thai investment suffered through the global financial crisis when overnight the Government closed its topmost finance houses, which is remembered in history as the era which initiated the cold war. The haphazard resulted in the decline of the then newly emerging South Asian markets. Those who parked their cash demanded security or higher interest rates for their capital.

Throughout the Southeast Asian economy, economists throughout East Asian nations witnessed the new opportunities and constraints placed on them by the increasingly rapid shifts in global security arrangements and globalized domestic economies. The end of the Cold War signaled the loss of U.S. acceptance of authoritarian political systems as a safeguard against communism; and the rapid economic growth, brought about in part due to globalization, led to changing domestic political culture

In Thailand, the economic fragility reached an extent where people could not pay back their loans to the banks, and the banks had to ‘write off’ various accounts. The money supply held by the banks therefore declined, and they had less ability and incentive to continue creating money through lending procedures. This situation got worse until Thai banks decided to honor their own financial commitments. Thus globalization created the Mexican and Thai banks rather than governments who themselves acted as ‘banks’ that had borrowed dollars and other hard currencies, and both governments lost the ability to honor their hard-currency debt. The loss of confidence was flourishing within the financial system.

All these conditions brought a tough time for the East Asian and Mexican individuals who after Operation Gatekeeper started losing their hopes to enter the U.S. as legal and respected migrants. Globalization shifted the growth process in East Asia with an evolution of the economies from suppliers of primary and labor-intensive products to more automated processes and more technologically advanced goods and to services. As East Asian countries achieved higher per capita income, exchange rate appreciation and increasing wages reduced their competitiveness for labor-intensive products relative to other countries in the region.

Each country not only gradually shifted its production to more sophisticated goods as competitive pressures from its neighbors mounted in the more traditional products but also shifted its financial weaknesses towards its neighboring countries. This situation made the ‘being global’ boon a linked development ladder tying the development of the more backward countries to that of their more advanced neighbors. It also initiated a new era of competition among various East Asian countries with one another as suppliers and that some of them lose competitiveness as others gain.

Another reason that initiated the Operation Gatekeeper movement was to set an example to South East Asians who were confronting a crisis that later shifted towards Russia. The southeast Asian economy when experienced a decline in commodity prices, made Russia think who at that time was trying to stabilize its economy through self-made local products but despite acquiring the help of IMF was unable to deliver products worth any value. Because of the inability to deliver quality products Russia was being tugged and labeled as ‘negative value added’. Russian-made products like tractors were considered trash and they even were not paying taxes to the Government.

So, the Russian Government had no option other than to rely on commodity exports. Globalization in context with economics was on the unremitting decline which devalued and defaulted on the Russian Government. The Russian Government after seeking private capital investments suffered huge losses thereby selling their assets to stable countries like Brazil (Friedman, 1999, p. xiii).

Brazil on the other hand raised its interest as high as 40 percent throughout the world’s leading markets and parked its cash in Korean, Brazilian, Israeli, Egyptian, and Mexican stocks. Since the cash was placed securely in the form of U.S dollars, therefore the face value rate in the U.S increased with a decrease in interest rate which dropped down the U.S economy.

Globalization and economic growth helped in creating a significant middle class throughout East Asia which questioned the then existing political systems. On the other hand, most Asian nations benefited from a global economy because of their export-oriented strategy toward growth. However, the Asian ‘economic flu’ which began in 1997 served as a reminder that no country, especially Asian countries which derive a large percentage of their gross national product (GNP) through trade, could become complacent and expect continuous economic and political stability.

It was the Asian economic flu that caused East Asian and Mexican nationals to think of ways to reach the U.S, and of course, the only option they had was to enter the country illegally. Therefore globalization where on one hand made the political and economic fluctuations in accordance with the cultural underpinnings of Asian political systems, on the other it created unseen boundaries between Eastern and Western social systems.

Employment served as the backbone of alienation or illegal immigration of the Operation Gatekeeper. Illegal immigrants are first and foremost seen as economically motivated individuals who exploit informal economic opportunities in prosperous countries.

Economies in a specific range enabled the government to commonly tolerate at least some forms of informality but when it came with the limitations like Operation Gatekeeper, informal economic activities gained importance in advanced economies, as a result of far-reaching socio-economic transformations. Aliens posed a threat for the globalized society in dual ways, it not only subjected the ‘brain-drain’ system of their own economy but also was a continuous threat to the residents of the country. New immigrants were most likely to benefit from the opportunities at the lower end of the spectrum, where competition was fierce.

One issue that crossed over Operation Gatekeeper was the social cost of the overcrowded and oversized secondary labor market which pervaded the U.S economy. The preference of unskilled laborers over migrants prevailed in the form of social mobility by historically disadvantaged citizens. Wage deflation and competition for unskilled jobs obstructed many domestic migrants in their search for jobs and work which created a situation that was more or less a threat for legal citizens.

Even those who were lucky enough to find work were underestimated and paid poorly because of the wage competition from illegal aliens. Such conditions affected legal citizens who succumbed to the negative aspects of globalization by job scarcity, insecurity with too much hire and fire rate and poorly wages to serve as a step for the economic climb, therefore immigration policy made problems even worse.

Therefore political committees responded to the cry of legal citizens complaining at the local level to oppose immigration. In those parts which remained underpopulated and undeveloped of the United States formerly part of Mexico, no such groups mobilized. Policy innovations created administrative infrastructure to maintain surveillance over immigrants entering the major ports by ship, and state bureaucrats used these resources to advocate further regulation.

Despite introducing so many rules, regulations, and policies, no parallel development happened for border crossing from Mexico, unless INS (Immigration and Nationalization Service) was there. By the end of the century, immigration opponents saw the cause of the mortal threat to the nation as immigrants as the establishment of a national policymaking network facilitated the new scientific discourse of immigration restriction.

Though the growing concerns of public officials, public and increased legislative activism witnessed some control over unauthorized immigration, on the U.S.-Mexico boundary (Nevins, 2002, p. 67), what about the other southeast Asians who followed by unprecedented growth in federal resources were continuously denying the policing that initiated in the late 1970s. Combined with many wars like ‘war on drugs, and later ‘war on terrorism’ the then political administration made every effort to fight unauthorized immigration not only in the border region but also on an international level which had a transformational effect on the nature and scale of boundary policing (Nevins, 2002, p. 67).

Conclusion

Globalization in this context developed a paradox, with the help of which one society relied on and is still relying on the other. Having called by the names like ‘aliens’ and ‘wetbacks’, illegal immigrants are considered to be in inferiority complex for they are treated as a threat for the so-called ‘nation state’ that claimed to remain out of absurd social and economic conditions, while on the other hand the ‘nation’ Government witness ‘terrorist’ acts like World Trade Centre.

How is it possible that aliens who are fragile and in search of work leave their countries could be involved in such acts where they oppose the national U.S. Government? Although this topic has left its boundary but still the dilemma is not about the paradox blamed on the shoulder of globalization, but how it is misused to defame the dark side of being a global society.

Works Cited

Friedman, L. Thomas, (1999) The Lexus and the Olive Tree.

Nevins Joseph, (2002) Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the “Illegal Alien” and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary: Routledge: New York.