Fixing our immigration system

Fixing our immigration system:

The United States is trying its best to control its borders from restrictive visa regulation to strict borders control. As of now, it is very hard to get the US citizenship. There are many conditions you have to meet in order to be eligible for green card and then for citizenship. I do realize that the country is full right now and that many people do not want the immigrants to take their jobs from them. I think this job taking ideology is not right. There is a misconception in many Americans head that immigrants will take their jobs form them. As we all know, immigrants tend to work harder than many American. They left their family their country, and they came here for the sake of the American dream. So, they do their best to succeed in their schools and their jobs. In contrast to some American who are born here, they are more relaxed and not willing to do their best to get high grades.

I can’t of course say that all Americans are not responsible or don’t do their best, but I tend to see that most of the immigrants who are not born here are hard workers. Because of their hard work they get some of the good jobs. For profit companies they don’t care where you came form and if you are Truly American or not. What they care about is how much money you can make for the company. If you are a very productive person, they will keep you otherwise they will fire form the company.

I think the country should attract more talented immigrants and make it easier for them to work in the United Sates. The US is doing a huge mistake with educating international students in many science related fields, and then send them back to their country. I think it is kind of silly that many universities are sponsoring talented international people and provide them with all of the knowledge, so they can go back to their country and compete with US.  In my view, this part should change, or otherwise the United States will not be the leading country in technology.     

Great depression

The book talked about the great depression of the 1930 and how it changed the pattern of immigration drastically. The great depression is an immense tragedy that placed million of American out of work. When the great depression hit the US many people left he country. According to the book” in the 1930s the number of people leaving the United States exceeded the number entering”. I think that this is a natural act. As we studied before, in order for an immigration to happen there have to be push factor that push people out from their country, and pull factor tat attract people to the new destination.  When the great depression strokes the US, the pull factor was eliminated, and the push factor was created in the US. Many people left because of the economic situation. The number of immigrants dropped intensely from 191,039 in 1930 to 35,257 in in 1931. This is a huge decrease of the number of immigrants that entered the country.

The book pointed two reasons that led to the decrease in the immigrant’s number. The first reason as I mentioned above was the great depression. The second reason is that the American government changed the rules. In 1930, the president of the United States Herbert Hoover issued an order to all American consulates to interpret the LPS clause more strictly. Before that, it was possible to get into the country if you had at least twenty-five dollars in your pocket.  After they tightened the regulation, many people have to show evidence of financial support form their relatives. This regulation denied many immigrants from entering the country.  

When president Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, he made a lot of changes in the US economy, the American politics, and the immigration structure.  He gave enormous appointments for Catholic and Jews. He wanted to give more freedom and right to these groups. Roosevelt was against nativism; he stated to the nativist groups when he celebrated the remarks to the daughters of the American revolution in 1993 “ remember, remember, always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionaries” President Roosevelt welcomed all immigrants regardless of their faith. Many people did not like this act and started to attack this notion of equality to all religions.

A leading nativist propagandist, Madison Grant wrote:

“ When the Bolshevists in Russia are overthrown, which is only a matter of time, there will be a great massacre of Jews and I suppose that we will get the overflow unless we can stop it”

Clearly Madison was against getting more Jews as immigrants. Madison was a lawyer and a historian. He played an active role in crafting the immigration restriction in the United Sates.

         

Browning America Article discussion

The article I read was very interesting. It talked about “ Browning America” and how the United States population demography is changing. It says that the majority of babies born were kids of color, and the majority of kids under age 5 in the District of Columbia are of color. Before reading the article I did not think about that the United States might loose their white image in the future. Internationally speaking, when thinking of the United States we picture white person in our head. If this demographic change happens it will impact every thing in this country: education, politics, and culture.

Some people are afraid of this transformation. The conservative interest group Eagle forum stated:

“The USA is being transformed by immigrants who do not share [American] values, and who have high rates of illiteracy, illegitimacy, and gang crime, and they will vote Democrat when the Democrats promise them more food stamps.”

How could this group judge these kids based on their color!! So let us assume that these kids were white, but they are not from the States they are lets say Armenian. They will still face the same problem the brown kids will face. Your color doesn’t guarantee you better education or quicker assimilation. This organization is very rude and ignorant, and shortsighted.

The article also mentioned that by 2042, there will be no clear ethnic majority anymore, and the majority of this country will be minorities. It is very true that there is a disparity between communities of color and white. White neighborhoods tend to be safer and African-American neighborhoods are not. Recent reports addressed that Hispanics and especially African-Americans were highly affected by the economic recession, and their recovery pace is slower then whites.

At the end of the article, the author focused on the bright side of this diversity. He/ she said that we should be thankful of our growing diversity.

It gave us hopes for a better future for our country. Japan and some European countries, for example, are having an gaining population “workforce. This is not the case in the United States, because we have such a diverse place. The youth population in the US is primarily due to communities of color. The States will continue to thrive and flourish with its diverse population.  The author also addressed that “I hope that our leaders, from the President on down, start to publicly acknowledge not just our growing diversity, but why it’s a good thing for America”

The article website:

http://www.essence.com/2012/05/22/preparing-for-the-browning-of-america/

Immigration in an Age of Globalization: Part 2

Immigration in an Age of Globalization: Part 2

When looking at the immigrants we have to look at individual groups and on classes within those groups. Generalization is meaningless and misleading. The book divided these immigrants into different categories in table 17.3 “immigrants Admitted by Country of Birth, 1998” Mexico ranked number one where there was 131,575 people entered the country followed by China and Hong Kong, India, Philippines, Soviet Union, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Cuba, Jamaica, and lastly El Salvador. Distribution of these immigrants throughout the United States was concentrated into two cities. More than 20 percent of these immigrants told the INS that they are planning to live either in New York or Los Angeles.  

One out of nine immigrants was admitted to the United States under employment-based preference. These immigrants are of two general kinds: skilled workers who held technical degrees and agriculture and service workers. It is not surprising to know that the skilled workers tend to acculturate more quickly than the less educated one. Educated people tend to have better understanding of the world and more willing to blend in the society, on the other hand, non-educated people are more confined with their own environment and culture. The third category of the immigrants is so called millionaire immigrants.  These immigrants has to invest 1 million dollar in an American enterprise or $500,000 if the investment in an economically poor area. The number of such immigrants from that category has never been large; in 1998 it compromised around 0.1 percent of the total immigrants.  The investor program or what is called now “employment creation” had many frauds in it.

Unfortunately we can’t count all the people who entered the United States. There are other types of immigrants who are not recorded. These people came to the United States on various kinds of visa that do not entitle them to apply for permanent residence status and these visas have expiration dates. Some of these people did not have the intention to stay when they first came, but after a while they decided to do so. Other people have the intention to over stay their visa and settle in the United Sates. According to the book, thirty million people came to the United States in 1998 on visas, but there is no system that would allow us to track the number of people who returned to their home country. We simply can’t know if these people are here or not. Our system is broken and we have to find a way to fix it. We should require every one who leaves the country to check out with the immigration and custom department, so we can track the number of people who over stay their visas.