Illegal Immigration can be curbed by enforcing existing immigration Essay

Illegal Immigration can be curbed by enforcing existing immigration laws, repealing birthright citizenship, and requiring proof - Essay Example In the decades that followed, the number of immigrants entered USA presented a trend of continuous increase; in 1977, 1 million immigrants from Mexico entered USA (Reed 25). It is clear that appropriate measures need to be developed towards the elimination of illegal immigration across the country. These measures should not be considered as an opposition to human rights but rather as an effort to secure the quality of life of citizens. Moreover, appropriate criteria should be used for judging the provision to immigrants of American citizenship. The measures taken for the control of illegal immigration across USA would include the introduction of mechanisms for enforcing existing immigration laws (especially ‘the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996’ (Koven & Gotzke 142)), the repealing of birthright citizenship and the provision of right to apply for social services only to th ose who can prove their citizenship. The above issues are discussed in this paper referring to the literature that has been published in this field. It is assumed that the plans promoted in USA for the control of illegal immigration are important but they are not appropriately monitored; as a result, these plans often fail to address effectively the specific problem. It is assumed that it is not a problem related to the lack of legislation but rather to the lack of effective cooperation among the authorities involved in the relevant processes. In accordance with Anderson (2010) the control of illegal immigration in USA has been proved to be quite difficult; in the context of the above finding, authorities in USA have tried to focus on those forms of immigration that would be easier controlled – reference is made to the legal immigration (Anderson 215). For this reason, the measures developed for the control of illegal immigration in USA may affect legal immigrants also, a pro blem, which needs to be appropriately addressed; however, the above problem should not prohibit the authorities from enforcing the current immigration laws, as such practice would benefit the illegal immigrants across the country. At this point, the following issue needs to be highlighted: under certain terms, immigration laws are not enforced in US because of the existence of a series of interests depended on illegal immigration; the most indicative example of such case is the entrance of illegal immigrants in the workplace. Illegal immigrants cannot ask for normal wage – in terms of its level; in fact, their wage is lower compared to the average wage of employees in a similar job position. As a result, employers prefer illegal immigrants, a fact that makes the entrance in the workplace for citizens and legal immigrants even more difficult (Weissinger 203). The above phenomenon is so extended that the enforcement of immigration laws across the country has become quite proble matic. However, no signs seem to exist regarding the limitation of the above problem. In fact, in a relevant research it has been revealed that the immigration agents across USA are about 2,000 – while the illegal immigrants in USA have been estimated to 11.5 million (Gaines & Miller 124). In accordance with Wepman (2007) the lack of effective enforcement of immigration laws in USA leads to the following assumption: existing illegal immigrants across the country ‘face little or no risk of removal once they entry the country’