When it comes to immigration policy, the United States is at a crossroads and any decision made will have drastic implications upon the future ethnicity of the country. Should the United States adhere to its heritage and allow immigration to continue to culturally shape and transform the nation, or should the United States close all borders and rigidly enforce against illegal immigration to preserve its ethnicity and legitimize U.S. residency.
Each year the number of illegal immigrants in the United States grows by half a million. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, more than 4.4 million of the 12 million illegal immigrants have come to the United States within the last five years—that is roughly a 40 percent increase. Between 1990 and 2000, only 412,000 illegal immigrants were removed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Clearly indicated in these numbers is the disparity in any given year; 500,000 immigrants in, 40,000 immigrants out. Such an uneven ratio is alarming, and at this rate it will not take long for 12 million illegal immigrants to grow into 24 million illegal immigrants. When is the number of illegal immigrants too many?
If illegal immigrants continue to flood across the border at the pace they are now, it will not be long before the problem will be hopelessly out of control and U.S. citizenship will be compromised by the rights of illegal immigrants. According to Jeremi Suri, UW-Madison professor of history, We need to rethink what citizenship is. Citizenship needs to be defined by what they do in our society, not by when or where they came from ... We need a policy that mixes our expansive and open view with that of enforcing our border.\ He said the deportation of the illegal immigrants that have established themselves in the United States should not happen, and the nation needs to ""accept those that are here, and at the same time, enforce our borders.""
Illegal immigration is problematic for all parties involved. Life is dangerous for illegal immigrants, as they are unable to obtain health care and are often scammed by employers that know illegal immigrants have little means to protect themselves.
Furthermore, illegal immigrants are a drain on the U.S. government and there is a growing case of immigration fraud, in which the use of fake social security cards, fake drivers licenses and fake passports are used. In the post-Sept. 11, 2001 world, false identities and fraudulent documents can no longer be tolerated.
An immigration bill that was recently proposed in Congress is similar to a bill presented in 1986. At that time, Congress backed down and gave all immigrants amnesty, a decision that still has repercussions that are being felt today. By allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the United States, many more immigrants snuck through the border knowing that the United States was lax on controlling it.
Today, if the United States provides amnesty to the 12 million immigrants from Mexico, the United States would unintentionally discriminate against other ethnicities. Millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico would be granted citizenship solely on their ability to sneak across the border, while immigrants from Asia who have a hard time of sneaking into the United States would be left out.
The immigration problem goes beyond what many people realize. It is not just about illegal immigrants and protecting U.S. jobs. It is about establishing a precedent for the next century that will determine whether the United States will become a bilingual, two-faceted society or whether it will remain a multi-racial, English-speaking society. More than anything else, immigration reform is about establishing and redefining what it means to be a U.S. citizen.
Something needs to be done, either these illegal immigrants need to be legitimized and the law needs to be changed, thus incorporating these immigrants into our society, or they need to be deported back to Mexico, because currently there are 12 million people breaking the law.
While the idea of deporting all illegal immigrants is a bit misguided, the thought of maintaining the status quo is equally troubling. If 12 million illegal immigrants are allowed to remain and current immigration enforcement practices are continued, what is to stop the next 12 million illegal immigrants from entering the country? It is the ultimate dilemma and it is almost too late to fix, as millions of illegal immigrants are currently entrenched within our society.
A problem that has such an impact on so many people has no easy solution, and the longer the United States waits to fix it, the more doubtful it becomes that it can be corrected.
Adam Seston is a junior majoring in history. Send your feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
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