Immigration…what comes to mind when you think of the word immigrants? Mexicans, Crooks, job stealers or even drug smugglers? There are approximately 11 million Mexican immigrants living in America, more than half are settled in California & Texas. About 88% (15.9 million) children that are born in the U.S have foreign-born parents (Batalona et al). The fact that a majority of children that have undocumented parents causes a limit of traveling or exploring due to border patrol having checkpoints around the cities looking for immigrants is a big issue that would be detained right there and then and sent over the border of Mexico. During Obama’s administration, a bipartisan Senate plan was in the works, providing a pathway, for those that are undocumented, for their citizenship but DACA was surfed. Some undocumented were to provide proof of their lifestyles as if they were citizens but soon as the Trump administration started most of them were captured on the spot and sent over the border. The problem with drug trafficking cities like Tijuana and Juarez is that they have the worst gang members where kidnappings and crossfires of gun violence happen. It causes a big problem for the undocumented that have gotten a business/job with kids that were born here for a better life especially, that the minimum wage is significantly lower in Mexico then America, according to “The Political Economy of Immigration Law: Impact of Simpson-Rodino on the United States and Mexico” by Clark Reynolds and Robert McCleery.
An opportunity has to be made as there are families with stable jobs, bills to pay, and kids to raise. Throughout the years., there have been ways to deport immigrants and reduce the flow of drug smugglers, which is the number one reason that there are volunteers at the border with M16’s. One method that could have been created was the Registered Provisional Immigrant Status that would give citizenship to undocumented that have been in the U.S before December 2011. It would grant them a bigger choice of work opportunity and travel outside of the U.S without causing fear that they cannot return to the home that they created in America. There are two major policy groups that are devoted to lowering immigration rates, which are the FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) and the CIS (Center for Immigration Studies) that shape Trump Administration promises. (Sullivan #371). Even though Barack Obama was looked up to by undocumented, he has contributed the most out of any other president, 2.8 million deportations. So the fact is that deportation is still the main point of any current or prospective president, people want to come into the United States can’t even get their chance to apply to become a citizen. The worst part is that foreigners applying for citizenship to the U.S undergo a 6 step process. If you meet the requirements then they get approved or rejected, the process time of the application is 6 months. 
Immigration has been going on for decades, comedians and TV shows joke about the topic constantly. For example, Family Guy, an animated sitcom TV series, has a metafictional cutaway gag that often roasts American culture, in season 12 episode 5, Peter burns his family’s passports and social security cards then realizes it was a mistake that they want to go home but in doing so they need to go through the process like any other foreigner wanting citizenship. It’s known that the problem of immigrants that can’t attain citizenship through the process, they want opportunities that the Mexican government doesn’t provide and the U.S don’t want to get involved in. America doesn’t feel the need to help the undocumented because of the money it cost it would be easier instead to build a wall rather than putting that tax money into something else. The Trump Administration’s promise of building a wall that’s approximately going to cost 21.6 million, they expect that the immigration crises would be solved by the wall (Burke).
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To draw this to a close, immigration is what America was founded upon. It has always been an issue and will always be as long as the country stands. From the beginning, it was more over the conquest of foreign lands and to spread religious ideas. In modern times, it has become more of an issue of national identity, job competition, and social discrimination. People have tried to find solutions to the problem but as of this time, there’s no clear solution. Perhaps in time, the economy would evolve to the point that most of the foreigners would need an education in order to compete in the job market but with the parents that have lived here in the states for 30 years, they should have the right to become citizens as they would pay taxes which help the economy. Immigration is not just some issue that comes and goes like the national debt, financial market crashes, or police brutality. It is one that is as integral to the American culture as the Declaration of Independence. If we try to rid our country or ban immigration altogether we are only destroying the multicultural aspect of our society that has made us strong and united ever since colonial times.
Work Cited
Jones, Bradford, and Danielle Martin. “Path-To-Citizenship or Deportation? How Elite Cues Shaped Opinion on Immigration in the 2010 U.S. House Elections.” Political Behavior, vol. 39, no. 1, Mar. 2017, pp. 177-204. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s11109-016-9352-x.
Sassen, Saskia. “U.S. Immigration Policy toward Mexico in a Global Economy.” Journal of International Affairs, vol. 43, no. 1, Winter90, p. 369. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=5700460&site=ehost-live.
Burke, Alison. “Why Undocumented Immigration from Latin America to the US Will Slow to a Crawl-Even without a Border Wall.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring2017, pp. 1-6. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsh&AN=126511142&site=ehost-live.
Reynolds, Clark W., and Robert K. McCleery. “The Political Economy of Immigration Law: Impact of Simpson-Rodino on the United States and Mexico.” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 2, no. 3, Summer88, pp. 117-131. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=31h&AN=4432064&site=ehost-live.
SULLIVAN, MICHAEL. “Defending Family Unity as an Immigration Policy Priority.” Studies in Social Justice, vol. 11, no. 2, July 2017, pp. 369-388. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=128441950&site=ehost-live.
Mantu, Sandra. “Paper Citizens: How Illegal Immigrants Acquire Citizenship in Developing Countries.” Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, vol. 36, no. 8, Sept. 2010, pp. 1353-1354. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/1369183X.2010.497413.
Graglia, Lino A. “Birthright Citizenship for Children of Illegal Aliens: An Irrational Public Policy.” Texas Review of Law & Politics, vol. 14, no. 1, Fall2009, pp. 1-14. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=48307107&site=ehost-live.
Jie Zong, Jeanne Batalova, and Jeffrey Hallock “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States” Migration Policy Institute, Washington, DC; Migration Policy Institute Europe, Brussels; or Migration Information Source February 8,2018
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