Robin Solomon

Cross Cultural Issues Period 8

March 8, 2011

Illegal Immigration in the US

To begin with, the idea of conflict relates to differences that occur within one person or more, and this affects them in a significant way. The way that it affects them could be disagreements, tension between a group of people, struggle, and confrontation and in extreme cases, violence. The case study that is being investigated is Illegal Immigration in the United States of America.

Illegal immigration has been an ongoing concern and it has been happening in countries all over the world. Illegal immigration is the act when one enters a country illegally without appropriate valid documents or overstaying beyond the time that was aloud and illegal immigration in the United States breaks the laws and policies of the country. By the year 2008, it has been estimated that there are more than half eleven million people living in the United States illegally and this is slightly lower than the past years. The majority of the illegal immigrants come from Mexico and also the rest of Central America, Latin America and Asian territories as well. Other common terms to

describe an illegal immigrant include a undocumented alien, unauthorized migrant, illegal alien.

The history of illegal immigration in the United States is dated back to the year 1882 when President Chester A. Arthur’s ban on certain groups resulted in the legilization of immigration in the country. People migrated from Asia to North America and the continent was introduced to the Europeans after Columbus discovered it in the 15th century. Overtime the United States had started to become a “sought after destination for people from all over the world by the beginning of 19th century”. During this period, large number of people from Asian territories came to America.

Having the thought in mind that a illegal immigrant have moved to their new home country, these people chose to take risk and move in search to have a new better life and or otherwise. Illegal immigration in the United States definitely relates to the idea of conflict as a issue because the people are definitely facing struggles in their lives and they do what they think is best for them so therefore people go to the United States to have a life.

Part 2. Causes

The original causes of illegal immigration in the United States because to begin with, people from America have invited them over at the first place because of cheap labor causes. Because of the cheap labor provided by the Mexicans many companies took advantage of that. U.S. Employers hire these people at wages higher than they could earn in their own native countries. This reason relates to groups beliefs in their own superiority because the American know that they could not get the same work done by their own native workers. These immigrants are doing the jobs that American citizen won’t do and therefore this has a big important truth to it. These people have made significant impact because industries such a construction building, meat packing and other various service industries needed large amounts of workers and most of them had little to no high school diploma (udallcenter).

Another cause of illegal immigration in the States is that people were even virtual extra legals in their own native countries as well. These people involved in the conflict come from a different socio-economic status which affects their perception of events. They had several issues such as being landless, lacking access to legal jobs and they were not able to grasp legal documents to have legal businesses.

“Mexico, for example, recently ranked 58th out of 123 nations in economic liberty and 88th in measures of legal structures and property rights, according to the World Economic Freedom Index. Mexican society is rife with kidnappings for ransom, the �disappearance� of women, drug cartels and gang killings, and the ever-present bribes” (CFACT )

Part 3.  Escalation of the Conflict.

“We should honor every legal immigrant here, working hard to become a new citizen. But we are also a nation of laws.”President Bill Clinton, State of the Union Address, January 23, 1996

Illegal immigration in the United States escalated overtime because of various reasons. One of the reason is that overtime, people started to use names and labels to categorize people. For example, the Mexicans were referred to as Wetbacks. During the time of

president Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first term, it was approximately one million due to illegal Mexican border crossings and it eventually has grown over time. Due to this massive force, negative impacts included on the wages of American workers. He was also concerned with the corruption that has taken place from the profits of illegal labor. Also, many illegal

aliens use “the lure of birthright citizenship” (a/k/a “anchor babies”) to find a way around United States immigration laws and by doing that they gain permanent residency, if not citizenship. This act is a misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment to the constitution that grants US citizenship on for those people born on American soil and this also applies to children of illegal aliens (NumbersUSA).

Another reason why the conflict of illegal immigration in the United states has escalated overtime is the reason of third parties getting involved. Discrimination towards Mexican’s have been on going like mentioned earlier. Law authorities in the state of Texas started announcing that Mexican drug cartels control a smuggling corridor that extends all the way to Phoenix from the Mexican border. These following quotes are from a Sherrif named Pail babeu…

"Drug cartels control this area.""Local law enforcement cannot handle and stop this on our own.""We are outgunned, we are outmanned and we don't have the resources here locally for us to fight this."

Part 4 :

To be honest, I’m not sure on how this conflict should end because there will always be different views and motives and definitely different view points. People are always going to be supporting one side and off course another side have different view points. However, liberals say to offer the illegal immigrants amnesty but by doing this will only convince more immigrants to come to the United States. Possible ideas could be that the USA can perhaps grant those with citizenship, people who are capable of showing their efforts and prove them that they are qualified to do so. Most of the time, there is always the negative aspect of illegal immigration and what people have been doing is that they think it would be best to also as well punish the employers who have brought them to the country at the first place. This shows the main motive on why so many poor individuals were willing to do so in the first place. “The most efficient way for Congress to eliminate the flow of illegal immigrants across our border with Mexico would be to seriously limit the opportunities illegal immigrants have in America. This means that Congress must include draconian sanctions on employers who hire illegal immigrants. You hire an illegal immigrant and you will be forced to pay a 100,000-dollar fine.”