Latino Migration: The Issue of the Mexican – US Immigration and the US Border Policies Report

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Introduction

Political and social events and processes that take place in the world are very interesting and, at the same time, challenging topics for writing. On the one hand, every educated person who wants to be a rightful member of the human society must be interested in the geopolitical processes that are going on in the surrounding world. This is necessary for everyone in order to control one’s own life and regulate it in accordance with the things taking place in the world. But, on the other hand, this is a rather difficult topic for communicating and discussion, which can be explained by the following facts. Firstly, it is not an easy matter to follow all the social and political events that are present in this or that country. It needs considerable effort and time together with certain devotion to the task. And secondly, discussion of politics presupposes having a large amount of the respective knowledge by the person dealing with the questions of politics. This policy brief is dedicated to a specific problem, namely the problem of the Latino migration, or, to be more exact, to the issue of the Mexican – US immigration and the US border policies towards the illegal immigrants (Gonzalez, 2002).

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What is the problem?

The problem of immigration has always been very important for every nation. Some peoples are concerned here as “the victims” of immigration, i. e. native inhabitants of this or that country who are oppressed in regard to their employment and education opportunities because of the increasing number of aliens who take working places and vacations in colleges and universities. Others are direct participants of what is called immigration. This people can not afford high enough living standard in their native countries and look for better lives abroad. The issue of immigration concerns many countries around the world. Highly – developed countries of the world suffer from this process most of all, because they offer higher standards of living for people from young and developing countries who look for ways to feed their families.

For example, Germany, France and Great Britain now experience a harsh problem of the Eastern European immigration. This problem was burning through all the history of these countries interrelations but recent events have given it much more importance. European Union has spread over the Eastern European countries, such as Romania, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and this increased the workers’ immigration drastically. As the members of the European Union, citizens of these countries do not have to undergo any form of special border control and can freely change countries. Due to the fact that their salary expectations are much lower than that of the native inhabitants of these countries, the immigrants take jobs and cause the unemployment problems in these countries (Castles, 2003). Another examples of the problem-causing immigration are movement of Brazilians to Japan, immigration of Asians to Ukraine where they can find work or get a chance to immigrate to some more developed country of Europe (Tsuda, 1999).

In the United States of America the problem of immigration presents a huge field for political and social activity aimed at changing the situation. This issue is so often spoken about in the US because the state of things is really bad. Illegal immigration causes many problems to the domestic life of the US, to its economy, trade, policy, domestic as well as foreign (Jencks, 2001). Especially important is the point of the Mexican immigration to the United States and the policies the US Government implements to manage the problem, as Mexicans constitute the greatest part of the immigrants among all other nations living in the USA:

OriginAmong all immigrants in the USA
Mexico57%
Central and South America24%
Asian Countries9%
Europe and Canada6%
Other countries4%

(Jencks, 2001).

This issue has its own causes that need to be looked at in order to conduct the further research. First of all, Mexico and the United States of America are at different levels of economic and socio-political development, and consequently people from Mexico are not satisfied with the level of living they can achieve in their native country. So, they go to the neighboring country in search of something better. Secondly, opportunities for education and career development present in the USA are much wider than in Mexico. And thirdly, the international policy of the US Government by itself serves as a powerful impact to the process of immigration of Mexicans.

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Activities of NAFTA and other Transnational Organizations influence negatively lives of ordinary citizens, leaves them without jobs and living, giving them no chances get education, and enlarging the gap between the rich and the poor in the Mexican society. These are the reasons for immigration, and the US Government takes some measures to overcome them and to stop the immigration which takes immense rates (Peggy, 2001). Among these measures, the majority are enforcement and police ones. The US adopts laws restricting immigration and limiting the freedoms of the immigrants, legal and illegal, in the country. Police enforcements are formed to control the border in the most dangerous places, new border lines and fences along the US – Mexican border. But, nowadays these measures do not prove to be effective at any rate because the process of immigration is still developing. This draws us to the statement that the today’s US policies are not effective and need improvements which are going to be offered in this work.

Current Policies

The policies against great rates of immigration were started in the United States of America already in the middle of the 19th century. The Government adopted a number of laws regulating the relations between immigrants and the authorities of the country. The laws including Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), Immigration Act (1891) and many others restricted immigration to the united states and forbade the naturalization of representatives of certain nations, also restricted their possible participation in the social life of the US. The most important achievement of that period was the foundation of the Bureau of Immigration in 1891 which was established with the aim of detecting and deporting the illegal aliens, and of defining the legality of this or that person’s living in the United States.

Further legislative measures included the Immigration Acts of 1924 and 1990, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Illegal Immigration Act of 1996 and many other laws and acts directed to the cutting of immigration amounts that were permanently growing. Some of the acts adopted by the US Congress contradicted the ones adopted earlier but were said to only serve the solution of the immigration problem. For example, the Posse Comitatus Act initially forbade the participation of military forces in the civil or police actions concerning arresting or searching for people. But in 1995 the Congress altered the Act so that it allowed the defense of the US-Mexican border by the detachments of the US Armed Forces combined with the parts of the US Border Patrol. This Act’s force was stopped after a young Mexican, Esequiel Hernandez was killed by the US soldiers while trying to cross the border with the group of other Mexicans. The social protests raised by the killing forced the Congress to change their decision and annul the military help to the Border Patrol (Massey, 2005).

After the tragic events of the September 11, laws concerning immigration became even stricter. According to the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Form Act of 2002 and Real ID Act of 2005 foreigners in the US are under strict control, even the foreign students of the US colleges. All aliens have to carry special biometric IDs corresponding to the world standards and get the standard driver’s licenses. The number of Border Patrol members was increased greatly and no obstacles were on the way of erecting additional border barriers. Moreover, in 2006 President Bush claimed that not only the US Armed Forces but also the US National Guard will participate in keeping peace and detain illegal immigrants at the US-Mexican border. This measure turned out to be rather unpopular, but nevertheless it was put into practice and is still being used by the US Government to fight illegal immigration.

But the measures for restriction of the immigration taken after 9/11 are not that effective as they were supposed to be. All these steps were taken to fight terrorism, so most attention was paid to the foreigners of Asian or Arabic origin who could turn out to be the Al-Qaida members and potential terrorists. During this time the control over the Mexican border reduced and the amount of the Mexican illegal aliens to the United States of America increased for almost 10% – from 69% before the September 11 events to 78% after the World Trading Center attacks (Migration Policy Institute, 2004). So, the methods of the immigration control used after 9/11 turned out to show little effect and cause more problems. The sanctions against the employers who employ illegal aliens were restricted, laws were adopted but the crisis caused by the immigration is still developing. Great amount of cheap labor force from Mexico, as well as from other countries, created high level of unemployment in the USA. The US laws make the deportation of the immigrants difficult because they do not define what should be done when parents are illegal immigrants and their children were born in the USA and are rightful citizens of this country (Martinez, 2002). Consequently, the cost of aliens living and deporting from the country increases from year to year, from state to state:

StateCost of Educating AliensUS Citizens
California$ 3, 220, 200$ 4, 508, 300
New York$ 1, 306, 300$ 1, 828, 900
Other states$ 11, 919, 900$ 16, 687, 900

As we can observe, immigration not only needs money to be spent on the Border Patrol organizing but employs money spent on feeding, educating and accommodating the illegal immigrants (Huntington, 2004). These all are serious issues demanding consideration and some new methods of their solution.

Possible Solutions

The first possible measure that can improve the situation is connected with the international policies of the United States of America. As it has already been stated above, the US carry out the international policy aimed at their own development with no attention paid to the conditions of living in other countries. This is how by means of NAFTA the United States worsened the living standards of ordinary Mexicans and caused their migration to the country that would give them more chances for survival – the USA. So, possible solution to the issue is not to carry out the NAFTA-like policy in Mexico and to create acceptable living conditions for Mexicans in Mexico, for example by creating new jobs for them, reducing the taxes for the goods produced by Mexican enterprises and imported to the United States. Another possible solution is opposite to the first one but it also can bring good results if carried out properly. This way lies in making it non-profitable to immigrate to the US to work. His can be reached by setting lower wages for immigrants than they could earn in Mexico and launching certain sanctions towards the employers of the illegal immigrants. This measure will make US not unattractive for illegal aliens and will possibly reduce the number of immigrants. But the measures that are now being taken by the US Government are too aggressive. As we can see from the history of mankind, aggressiveness has never given the desired results. Only those, who invented clever measures to fight their problems, succeeded.

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So, the above given information, draws us to the following conclusion. The problem of the immigration of Latinos, namely Mexicans, to the United States of America is rather important and it demands certain measures to be taken for its solution. The steps taken by the US Government are not effective that is proven by the current events and the growth of immigration. Possible ways of the solution of the immigration issue are offered in this essay. Among them are moderation of the US international policy, restriction of the domestic policy of this country and change in the attitudes towards the policy of militarism which have become typical of the USA recently, especially after the events of September 11. If carried out with proper diligence, these measures can possibly change the situation and improve the state of things in the two countries – the USA and Mexico.

Works Cited

Juan Gonzalez. 2002. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. New York: Penguin. ISBN-10: 0140255397.

Ruben Martinez. 2002. Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail. Picador. ISBN: 0-312-42123-0.

Levitt, Peggy. 2001. The Transnational Villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN: 0-520-22813-8.

Castles, Stephen, and Mark J. Miller. 2003. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. New York: Guilford Press. ISBN: 1-57230-900-8.

Jencks, Christopher. 2001. 48(19). Web.

Jencks, Christopher. 2001. “Who Should Get In? Part II. New York Review of Books 48(20). Web.

Massey, Douglas. 2005. “Backfire at the Border: Why Enforcement without Legalization Cannot Stop Illegal Immigration.” Washington, DC: Cato Institute.

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Samuel Huntington. 2004. “The Hispanic Challenge” Foreign Policy.

Migration Policy Institute. 2004. “The Hispanic Challenge? What we know about Latino Immigration.” Washington, DC: MPI.

Castles, Stephen, and Mark J. Miller. 2003. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. New York: Guilford Press. Chapters 6 & 7.

Tsuda, Takeyuki. 1999. “The Permanence of “Temporary” Migration: The “Structural Embeddedness” of Japanese-Brazilian Immigrant Workers in Japan.” Journal of Asian Studies, 58(3): 687-72.

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