Informative Essay: The Immigration Reform

Aaron Rodriguez
Composition I
Dr. Gonzalez
The Immigration Reform For many years, the immigrant population of the United Stated had faced many hardships and obstacles during their lives; some during their short lives, due to the way America feels about immigration. This great nation was not established overnight, but it came to be through a process; a process called immigration. Immigration is America’s heart and soul, in fact, America dwells and depends on it. For some reason though, Americans more and more have begun to think of immigration as a bug that needs to be squashed. Beginning with making ridiculous immigration laws, spending millions of [needed] dollars on border security, and withholding peoples’ rights, America has fallen so low, it seems impossible to get back up. Because of the many hindrances this country has put in the immigrants, many of them, unable to afford the great
amounts of money and the long process to reside legally, have decided to come in illegally. Unfortunately many of them don’t make it. The America that used to be thought of as a place of refuge and of comfort is now responsible for many lives of immigrants who were only in search for a better life. In order for these problems to be fixed, an immigration reform, with a path of citizenship, should be put into action immediately for America to carry out what it preaches in the statue in New York. America has fought its way to portray immigrants as a disadvantage to this country. Television commercials, flyers, and campaign speeches often humiliate immigrants and brand them as criminals. Immigrants are presented “as scowling young Latino men wearing bandanas and sporting tattooed chests” (Friedmann, 1) instead of what they really are: sun burned men wearing hard hats while working from dawn to dusk on a toasty July day for minimum wage pay. Images like that one are the ones that should be, but are not shown on television. Illegal immigrants, because of their inability to produce valid documentation to work in a decent place, often take low profile jobs that Americans would deem demeaning, work for minimum or even lower wages, and are exploited and mistreated by employer is the workplace. Undocumented people are also humans that, according to the United States constitution, are equal, and have equal rights. America should fix her eye upon these ill-fated people and do something to help them. Another argument is that immigrants cost the nation of too many resources; resources that could be used to benefit American citizens.
Writers like Heather MacDonald state, “The costs that these immigrants impose on U.S. taxpayers for health care, schooling, welfare, and (all too often) incarceration far outweigh the benefits they offer.” This argument is flawed beyond reason. Though, as mentioned before, undocumented immigrants have low paying, dangerous jobs, many of them still make sure file taxes and pay their dues to a country that is out to get them. Unfortunately there is a part of the immigrant population that is exactly the way that Americans view all immigrants. Some gang members, drunks, and high school dropouts are also illegal immigrants. One thing anti-immigration Americans fail to point out is that their jails are also filled with naturally born citizens, and many of their teenagers are also high school dropouts that have joined gangs and are a threat society. Immigrants benefit society economically and with their upright family values and powerful work
ethic. The need for an immigration reform is constantly growing. One can no longer remain blinded to this great need. Immigration is water and sunlight to this withering economy. People around the world still view America as a place of refuge and comfort. In search for a better life, and consequently the American dream, people will find a way to come into this country. The values that America was founded upon still should be honored and taken into action today. All people were created equal; said a famous document in American history. An immigration reform with path to citizenship for immigrants is that factor that will bring more success to this great nation. Let people follow their dream of getting an education and living a good life in this country or possibilities; after all, at some point, every individual is an immigrant and a person that has the natural born right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.