Immigrants And Diasporic Communities

Joshua Weg
Professor Guevara
POLS 197
20 May 2016
Immigrants and Diasporic Communities

This year’s election seems to focus on immigration. You here politicians stating their positions and their reasons: the economy, terrorism, unemployment, social welfare, crime, drugs. My thesis is that today immigrants still face many obstacles to becoming American citizens, mainly political and social ones. This is extremely difficult for those of the diasporic communities, who wish to maintain strong ties with their homeland. You can see this struggle through the intersectionality of classes and race that will hopefully allow us to overcome race and ethnicity. Though many individuals all over the world want to immigrate to America there, still face many
challenges in order to be considered. Most of these barriers are political, in the form of legislation that is for the purpose to limit immigration. The others are social constructions about immigrants that affect their possible presence in the country in a negative way, which further enforces the harsh legislation. These two groups of obstacles make up most of the issues that immigrants face when trying to come to the United States. First, we will talk about Congress. Today the legislative branch of are government has the power to regulate immigration in this country (Shaw 335). They have implemented different types of legislation Like the National origin quotas to limit immigration (Shaw 335). It was a system that categorized immigrants based on the country they were coming from, and each country was allowed a specific number of immigrants a year (Shaw 335). It also help maintain the white majority of the population because the quotas disproportionally represent the European nations compared to the non-European nations (Shaw 335). Therefore, you can see that though the quotas were about limiting immigration, there were also about maintaining white privilege and superiority. It was left unchallenged for some time being considered well accepted by congressional members but after 1965, they abandon the legislation all together (Shaw).
They reformed their immigration policy to the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments (Shaw 338).
Immigrants can come to America if they qualified based on three conditions: the one was if they had family currently in the United States, next they could come to America if the possessed a skill needed by the government of employer, final possibility is if the immigrants were refugee (Shaw 338). Refugees are individuals who flee their home country because they are fleeing from a war that is ravaging their home (Shaw 338). Though this policy sounds very general and open, it still managed to prevent so many people from being able to immigrate (Shaw 338). This is because there are a large number of people all over the world who do not fit any of these requirements.
Then there was the passing of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. This mandated that “employers verify the work eligibility of all new employees within the first three days of employment and created legal penalties for employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers (Shaw 339). This put pressure on all the undocumented immigrants in the country at the time. This also led to more detail background checks for several things (Shaw 340). Things were getting tougher for immigrants as the laws became more
severe.
There is even stricter immigration policies along the border of this country and Mexico. The border patrol, are law enforcement officers that are to make sure that unauthorized immigrants do not try to cross the border without the proper paperwork (Issues 104). They have this privilege granted to them by the government where they can walk up to any individual they are suspicious of, and ask them directly to see their identification, it is called border search exception (Issues 104). This sounds preposterous. For one thing, it goes against our fourth amendment, which states that there shall be no unjustified search or seizures of any individual without a warrant from the court. How can anyone really be okay with such power belonging to so few individuals?
As immigration becomes increasingly difficult for foreigners, they will need to face other issues like how to maintain the simple necessities of life. Most immigrants are given limited access social welfare program like food stamps (Shaw 340). They are people who have just entered this country, yet they are not given access to a little assistance that may be necessary. They do not know how to navigate this country, most of them struggle for the basic needs, and they deserve a little help. Moreover, they cannot get the opportunity for full aid until they become a US citizen, which will take 5 years just to be able to apply. I can just imagine so many of them thinking about how so many of them miss their home.
So why do immigrants get such a hard time? Throughout time, there has been a social construction about what immigrants that come to this country are like. There is fear that having so many immigrants will create a fierce economic completion, making it harder for the citizens already here to compete with the foreigners (Shaw 332). There is also fear that the immigrants will bring a cultural change to America (Shaw 333). There is also fear that foreigners may be involve in some kind of foreign activity (Issues 105). Therefore, we have all this speculation about what immigrants are really like, that we become too afraid to explore the possibility of letting them into our country. We even begin to resent them, because we believe them to be the problem. Of course, this is not partially, if not entirely true.
When immigrants come to this country, it is so much more to them than just a new country. In Alexandra Pelosi’s film, Citizen USA: A 50 State Road Trip, she goes around the country state to state asking all the immigrants, why they decided to become a citizen of the United States. Many of the respondents stated that there was no country like the United States. A place that seems very welcoming, has great opportunities in business and education, has easy access to resources like food and water, has a decentralized market system where “you can but your own car” (Citizen USA), a place with the greatest army in the world, there was so much they all had to say about how great this country was. There was so much they were grateful for, they did not sound like people who hated our country, or people who wanted to take our jobs or resources. They were just people who wanted to be part of something bigger. They are even able to say the oath, “I hereby…renounce and abjure [the government of my home country]” (Shaw 371). They really must love America if there are able to renounce the homeland.
Still there are those who reach to stay connected with their home countries. These individuals practice diasporic politics or the politics of their home nation (Shaw 371). These immigrants maintain their transnational connections with family still in their country (Shaw 361). It is easier for these individuals to stay connected with the internet and low cost services like the telephone (Shaw 361). These people love being in America too, they just want to be able to stay connected with where they were from. Would anyone want to truly forget where he or she came from? It is important to know that though all these immigrants are different people, they all share the same struggles.
Intersectionality is a tool used to look at the factors that connect with race and determine the extent at which it effects ones political and social status (Shaw 395). This tool is helpful in two ways. First, it helps us understand how difficult it is for people to overcome racial barriers (Shaw 395). Second, it helps us understand how different groups can build bridges through their commonality (Shaw 395). With intersectionality, we can see how not just one race of people, but a variety of people struggle to achieve higher social status due to their race or gender disparities (Shaw 396). That way we can stop generalizing about a singular group.
Let us look at this article, to see how the factors can create barriers.
Mateo Pimentel wrote an article on May 13th discussing the National Border Patrol Council’s endorsement of Donald Trump (The Border You Keep).He also discusses the brief history of the border, and the individuals that have died trying to cross it illegally (Pimentel). “Migrants and border entrants is anything but an ‘unfortunate consequence’ of a misguided decision to cross in the first place.” Is a quote that Pimentel wrote trying to demonstrate the absurdity of the thought. He follows, “It is a premise that so infuriatingly ignores the intersectionality of the economic, the political, the social, the cultural—the endless forces that render impossible any tenable notion of a solitary choice on the part of the migrant or border entrant.” (Pimentel). This discusses how the factors literally push people to try to cross the border, as a way of looking beyond the individual’s
race.
My thesis is that today immigrants still face many obstacles to becoming American citizens, mainly political and social ones. This is extremely difficult for those of the diasporic communities, who wish to maintain strong ties with their homeland. You can see this struggle through the intersectionality’ of classes and race, that will hopefully allow us to overcome race and ethnicity. This is the hope that one day we may all free