The Immigration Controversy: Is America Still a Melting Pot?
A major source of contention has also been border security. After 911, citizens became more aware of the need to secure our borders to lessen the likelihood of terrorists entering the United States. NPR states that the bill would have toughened border security; however, many Americans feel that the Government should worry about finishing the fence on the border and not reward immigrants who came into this Country illegally by granting them legal status. It has been said that immigration cannot truly be reformed until the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States is stopped.
While working in the legal field and from my own personal experience, I have witnessed both sides of this debate. There was a case recently where a young woman from Haiti had been brought here by her mother when she was four years old. She grew up in the United States and attended public schools. She has since graduated and is now married to an American citizen. The Haitian woman then received a notice from the Government stating that she was going to be deported. She filed an application for citizenship and was denied because she entered the United States illegally and there was no proof that she was ever inspected upon entering the Country. She knows nothing about Haiti or their culture and considers herself to be an American. It was not her choice to enter the United States illegally, but the choice she now faces is to leave and go back to a country which is foreign to her or to stay here illegally.
On the other side of the coin, my Grandmother immigrated to the United States from Holland and became a naturalized citizen. She is proud to be an American and will gladly tell you so. She feels that immigrants should have to enter this Country legally and go through the same process that she did to earn their citizenship.
It is not cheap to become a legal citizen of the United States. The following are examples of the costs of some of the common forms which are filed with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Petition for Alien Relative, I-130, $355.00; Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker, I-140, $475.00; Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, I-485, $1,010.00; Supplement A to I-485, $1,000.00; and Application for Employment Authorization, I-765, $340.00.
Either way, most people will agree that there needs to be some kind of immigration reform. America was once considered a melting pot because of the immigrants who settled here from all over the World. Only the Native Americans can claim that their ancestors were from this Country originally. However, in this post 911 era, border security and the cessation of the flow of illegal immigrants is essential and there has to be a definite way of keeping track of the persons living in the United States already by either deporting the illegal immigrants or granting them legal status.
Published by Tiffany Soto
I have been a paralegal for ten years and write in my spare time. View profile
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11 Comments
Post a CommentRemind me--why did we shut down Ellis Island? BTW, we are not a melting pot. I went to grade school with people who wore black hats and bonnets and considered everyone outside their communities "The English." (...aks,Omish.) And, find me major US cities without "Little Italy" or "Chinatown"--what would "Westside Story" be without the Jets *and* the Sharks? So as for "melting," good-Saint-Jimmy hit this one on the head:
"We (have) become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams."
Jimmy Carter
(I think he was echoing someone else, but it is the same sentiment . . .)
Hmmm... expensive is right! It takes over $100 for me to get a paper (passport) that says I can re-enter my own country . . . These prices look much less than the going transit price(thousands of dollars) charged by human "coyotes." (I prefer the term human "jackals", but that would defame some other continent's wildlife.)
this is a good article. It takes a arm and a leg to be legal in united states for both legal and illligeal immigrants. For legal employment based visa (H1B), The employers harrass them and delay the application for green card as the employees stick to the same firm. Secondly, after 3-5 years when the employer applies for the green card the USCIS takes a long time to getI-485 filed for India, China..etc... Will a techincally qualified experience person for 5-6 years would like to have a green card and stay or move to canada where its easilier to be a citizen?
Tiffany, this is a good article. Lot's of different views on this issue. Chronicler, I agree with you. Check out my recent article I just wrote. This is America, speak English.
chronicler: How do you define the word "debate"? 5 or 6 years ago a group of people decided to lobby the US government to declare Spanish the National Language, because the USA does not have a legally defined National Language. One of the reasons given by people who bypass the law to live in the US as citizens is because it costs too much and takes too long to become a citizen. "911" sparked fears that terrorists were using the borders to sneak in; hence heightened border securtiy and those that do not choose to obey laws, got in an uproar, calling USA racists. Perhaps "war" is a better word than "debate".
No other group of immigrants has lobbied the US government to declare Spanish the National Language. That is a slap in the face of immigrants that worked to build the country. Those people do not want to melt. They have already declared victory in their war upon the US by tearing down US flags and hanging Mexican ones in many California cities. If Mexico is so much better than the USA then why do so many people choose to immigrate to the US rather than Mexico?
Jeff talks about "cheap labor". Yes there have been guest worker programs to get people to pick lettuce, but that does not mean that the MS-13 and Mexican-Mafia gangs should be given free reign to walk across the borders, smuggling in drugs and guns. Our immigration laws are not much different than Mexico's or China's. The difference is US citizens are not disobeying those countries laws and more people are sneaking into the US and bypassing our laws.
I read some of the immigration bill that is stalled and I do not see how it was giving legal status, but rather an enforced rigourous path to citizenship. It would relax regulations, so that, perhaps those silly cases would stop clogging the system and the time could be spent on deporting the criminal element that sneaks in the country or lures people to cross illegally only to force them into slave labor and prostitution. Some people have paid their life savings to be smuggled into the US via port containers.
I do not know if the US ever melted. New York city had Harlem and Chinatown for instance. In my hometown, it seemed there were distinct neighborhoods, usually centering around a church. One would find more Italian/Americans close to the Roman Catholic Church; the Hungarian/Americans closer to another; German/Americans clustered near a Prostestant Church and so on. People proudly display flags from the country of their origin, even if they were born in the USA and never visited the land of grand or great grandparents.
The furor over immigration points to the hypocricy of the American system, more than happy to have cheap labor, but still looking for someone to blame for societal ills.