In 2014, President Obama delivered a speech in which he states, “To be American is about something more than what we look like, how our last names sound, or the way we worship.” This excerpt is just a small part of the speech he gave five years ago in which he addressed the then problems of immigration but, the problem has capsized and five years after his speech the nation seems to be failing at finding a solution to a problem that has dire consequences for its residents and its immigrants. After carefully analyzing the current immigration system and policies, I’ve come to believe that immigration reform is a must because of the existing policies, the nation’s economy would receive a boost, and there would be benefits for certain industries requiring workers.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, immigration is traveling to a new country to permanently reside there. For instance, a Mexican born and raised in Mexico coming to the United States without proper documentation and with the purpose of residing in the “new country”. On the other hand, there is immigration reform which is a term that describes the attempts made by congress, the president, or the judicial court to change laws governing immigrants and immigration. Immigration reform has been a constant issue since 2014 when Obama still had hold over the presidency and have catapulted to a new level upon the integration of the Trump administration.
Upon Trump’s first year of presidency, he signed three executive orders. His first executive order revolved around “border security”. By “border security”, I mean the infamous Border Wall that extends for more than two thousand miles. The problem with the wall isn’t so much related to the actual wall but the cost of making it. Many math professionals have come up with various prices ranging from $21.6 billion to a whopping $70 billion. Why is it bad? Well, to start off, taxes would definitely increase both foreign and domestically. Cooperate industries could end up paying $15 million in taxes or more. BAT could even raise the dollar 25%, hence the creditor countries would become richer than the U.S citizens. The second executive policy signed by Trump called for “prioritized removal of immigrants”. Normally, when unauthorized immigrants are caught in the border, they are released in the U.S until the day of their court hearing. However, President Trump has now ordered for them to be put into removal facilities and has increased enforcement personnel. Maintaining removal facilities, cost approximately $2 billion a year. This puts the U.S into a tougher economic spot not to mention the fact that two immigrants that were children died while captive in the Border Control facilities causing a ruckus on social media. The third policy focused on terrorism prevention which basically banned immigrants from the middle east from entering the U.S., and even refused to provide refugee for a hundred and twenty days. Three executive orders signed in the span of a year proved the need for immigration reform.
With two of the executive order signed by President Trump, there is something in common: money. The U.S currently holds the world’s largest debt with an astonishing number such as $22 trillion dollars. As time has gone, the debt is now leaning towards $23 trillion dollars putting the U.S in a troubling position. Although the government has come up with a solution involving the increasement of domestic production instead of overseas production, the real answer lies with the legalization of eleven million immigrants. The nation would experience an economic growth unseen in the last 10 years. If immigration reform involved a legal status and worked hand in hand with labor rights, the pressure put on job wages would exceed the ones right now. This goes to mean that higher wages for Americans and immigrants would eventually lead to more purchasing of goods and then to the U.S economy being boosted. The debt could be decreased little by little and the government could start working on improving the country internally as well as externally without having to worry about illegal immigrants.
In addition, immigration reform could end up creating more jobs and opportunities for immigrants and its citizens. There’re currently eleven million immigrants in the U.S., and twenty three percent of those eleven million which would be roughly around two million fifty-three thousand illegal immigrants are part of the U.S labor force. These immigrants work in difficult industries such as high-tech manufacturing, information technology, mechanical engineering and more prove be slightly more educated than people born in America. Immigrants are usually characterized as drug traffickers, pedophiles, gang related and more. However, immigrants, no matter what nation they come from are seemingly knowledgeable on certain subjects. This proves to be highly beneficial to cooperate industries that work in certain fields in which immigrants are interest in. With immigration reform, certain industries could really benefit from hard working people trying to accomplish the “American Dream”.
The Trump administration has made it difficult for immigrants by first creating an “invincible wall” in which the policies of immigration have become more tightening. There is no “line” available for a green card anymore due to the wall that has been created. However, America cannot strive without immigrants because it was founded by immigrants. It would make little to no sense to remove the reasons as to why America is a beautiful mixture of cultures. With immigration reform, America has a chance to thrive once more socially, economically, internally, and externally. America has a long way to go, but it definitely will be worth the wait when immigrants proudly come into the U.S and thrive as well as succeed in their endeavors.
