Analysis Of The Immigration Problem Essay

, Research Paper

Analysis of the Immigration Problem

The world has gone through a revolution and it has changed a

lot. We have cut the death rates around the world with modern medicine

and new farming methods. For example, we sprayed to destroy mosquitoes

in Sri Lanka in the 1950s. In one year, the average life of everyone

in Sri Lanka was extended by eight years because the number of people

dying from malaria suddenly declined.

This was a great human achievement. But we cut the death rate

without cutting the birth rate. Now population is soaring. There were

about one billion people living in the world when the Statue of

Liberty was built. There are 4.5 billion today. World population is

growing at an enormous rate. The world is going to add a billion

people in the next eleven years, that’s 224,000 every day! Experts say

there will be at least 1.65 billion more people living in the world in

the next twenty years.

We must understand what these numbers mean for the U.S. Let’s

look at the question of jobs. The International Labor organization

projects a twenty-year increase of 600 to 700 million people who will

be seeking jobs. Eighty-eight percent of the world’s population growth

takes place in the Third World. More than a billion people today are

paid about 150 dollars a year, which is less than the average American

earns in a week. And growing numbers of these poorly paid Third World

citizens want to come to the United States.

In the 1970s, all other countries that accept immigrants

started controlling the number of people they would allow into their

countries. The United States did not. This means that the huge numbers

of immigrants who are turned down elsewhere will turn to the United

States. The number of immigrants is staggering. The human suffering

they represent is a nightmare. Latin America’s population is now 390

million people. It will be 800 million in the year 2025. Mexico’s

population has tripled since the Second World War. One third of the

population of Mexico is under ten years of age, as a result, in just

ten years, Mexico’s unemployment rate will increase 30 percent, as

these children become young adults, in search of work. There were in

1990 an estimated four million illegal aliens in the United States,

and about 55 percent of them were from Mexico.

These people look to the United States. Human population has

always moved, like waves, to fresh lands. But for the first time in

human history, there are no fresh lands, no new continents. We will

have to think and decide with great care what our policy should be

toward immigration. At this point in history, American immigration

policies are in a mess. Our borders are totally out of control. Our

border patrol arrests 3000 illegal immigrants per day, or 1.2 million

per year, and Two illegal immigrants get in for every one caught. And

those caught just try again!

More than 1 million people are entering the U.S. legally every

year. From 1983 through 1992, 8.7 million of these newcomers

arrived-the highest number in any 10-year period since 1910. A record

1.8 million were granted permanent residence in 1991. Because present

law stresses family unification, these arrivals can bring over their

spouses, sons and daughters: some 3.5 million are now in line to come

in. Once here, they can bring in their direct relatives. As a result,

there exists no visible limit to the number of legal entries.

Until a few years ago, immigrants seeking asylum were rare. In

1975, a total of 200 applications were received in the U.S. Suddenly,

asylum is the plea of choice in the U.S., and around the world, often

as a cover for economic migration. U.S. applications were up to

103,000 last year, and the backlog tops 300,000 cases. Under the

present asylum rules, practically anyone who declares that he or she

is fleeing political oppression has a good chance to enter the U.S.

Chinese are almost always admitted, for example, if they claim that

China’s birth-control policies have limited the number of children

they can have.

Right now, once aliens enter the U.S., it is almost impossible

to deport them, even if they have no valid documents. Thousands of

those who enter illegally request asylum only if they are caught. The

review process can take 10 years or more, and applicants often simply

disappear while it is under way. Asylum cases are piling up faster

than they can be cleared, with the Immigration and Naturalization

Service falling farther behind every year. At her confirmation

hearings at the end of September, Doris Meissner, Clinton’s nominee as

commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Services, conceded,

‘The asylum system is broken, and we need to fix it.’

Adding the numbers of legal and illegal immigrants, 50 percent