Leaky Borders Immigration And America

Leaky Borders; Immigration And America’s Future Essay, Research Paper

Immigration & America’s Future

Since the creation of mankind, our world has undergone many revolutionary changes. One of the more recent (20th century) changes has been a decline in the death rates around the world, led by the emergence of modern medicine and the practice of better farming methods. This was a great human achievement, but we cut the death rate without cutting the birth rate. Now population is soaring, and while human population has always moved to fresh lands, for the first time in human history, there are none, no new continents. What does this mean to the United States. Immigration! Immigration can be a healthy process for the world well as a positive asset to the U.S.; however, if poorly regulated, immigration will lead to a structural imbalance in our society, an economic nightmare and to a cultural disaster for our children .

There were about one billion people living in the world when the Statue of Liberty was built. There are 4.5 billion today (Encarta, 1998). World population is growing at an enormous rate with no end in sight. The world is going to add a billion people in the next eleven years—– 224,000 every day—— and experts say there will be at least 1.65 billion more people living in the world in the next twenty years (Lieber, 1996). We must understand how this will impact our country.

Eighty-eight percent of the world’s population growth takes place in the Third World (Brinkerhoff,

White, & Reidmann, 1997). A growing number 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 (Lieber, 1996). This means that the huge numbers of immigrants who are turned down elsewhere have turned to the United States. The number of immigrants is staggering. The threat they represent is a nightmare.

At this point in history, American immigration policies are in a mess. More than 1 million people are entering the U.S. legally every year (Brinkerhoff, White, & Reidmann, 1997). From 1983 through 1992, 8.7 million of these newcomers arrived —the highest number in any 10-year period since 1910 (Lieber, 1996). A record, 1.8 million were granted permanent residence in 1991, many of whom sought asylum(McClellan, 1993). 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. U.S. applications were up to 103,000 last year, and the backlog tops 300,000 cases (McClellan, 1993). 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.

Immigration 3

Chinese are almost always admitted, many claiming that China’s birth-control policies have limited the number of children they can have (McClellan, 1993). 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 (Encarta, 1998). Once here, they can bring in their direct relatives. As a result, there exists no visible limit to the number of legal entries. These people look to the United States. 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 (Lieber, 1996). 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. 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.” (Lieber, 1996) The sad fact is that these numbers do not even reflect the masses of illegal immigrants that flood the borders of the United States every year.

In 1990, an estimated four million illegal aliens in the United States, and about 55 percent of them were from Mexico (Lieber, 1996). 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 (Lieber, 1996). The United States is no longer an empty continent. In 1886, there were 58 million people in the United States. In 1984 there were 240 million people; (Encarta, 1998) that is four times the total population in less then a century. Adding the numbers of legal and illegal immigrants, 50 percent of all U.S. population growth comes from immigration (Encarta, 1998). The U.S. cannot and should not be the home of last resort for all of the world’s poor. We are not doing a good job with our own poor, which puts us in no position to fix the rest of the world’s poverty stricken.

Supporters of immigration use many arguments to support their side. Let’s look at a few of these arguments: Illegal immigrants take jobs no Americans want. The fact is that the average illegal immigrant arrested in Denver, Colorado, made more than seven dollars an hour. Many were making ove