Citizenship for Immigrants

There is an uptick in the number of people in the United States who do not have valid identification and do not meet the qualifications to become legal residents. Immigrants arrive in the United States of America due to a variety of circumstances. Some of them are born to parents who immigrated to the world, and as a result of their birth, they become illegal immigrants. Others find a way to enter the country illegally and begin their lives there without being recognized as lawful residents of the United States. Undocumented immigrants into the United States constantly live in the fear that they may be deported to their countries of origin at any time even though some of them do not even know any other country except the United States of America where they have grown (Joppke, 2).

Undocumented immigrants that should be given a path to citizenship

From my point of view, I would advocate for hardworking immigrants into the United States to be given legal citizenship so that they can benefit from the privileges accorded to other citizens living in the country. In Joseph Carens, "the case for amnesty: time erodes the states right to deport”, a number of situations where undocumented immigrants are almost deported after the government finds out they have been living there without being documented as legal citizens are given. The first instance is about a person named Miguel Sanchez who kept trying to obtain a visa which would enable him to move into the United States but he kept being rejected each time. He was able to get into the country on foot with the help of a smuggler. Miguel joined his relatives and family in Chicago where he started working as a construction worker. He married a lady who was born in the United States in the year 2003 and they have a son together. Miguel lives in constant fear of being deported if he is found out. Despite the fact that he led a normal life with his family where they owned a home, paid taxes and their son attended school, they could not travel to other cities or by plane. The reason for this is because Miguel was an undocumented immigrant and if anything made him discovered, he would be deported to Mexico. The worst part was that the United States laws did not provide him a way in which he could regularize his status (Carens, 1).

Miguel’s case brings to light the plight of the many undocumented immigrants who are living in the United States of America and in Europe. The immigrants somehow find their way into the countries, settle down, start families and even start working but they live without official documents showing that they are legal citizens. They lead the ordinary lives led by other citizens but live in the fear of being deported anytime. A number of issues arise due to situations like these. Should immigrants who have been in a country for an extended period of time be accepted as members of the particular country? Should undocumented immigrants be penalized and restricted but given permanent residence? According to the argument by Carens (2), irregular or undocumented immigrants should be allowed to remain as legal residents on condition that they have settled for a long time. He argues that the moral claims of the immigrants to stay can be accelerated by marrying citizens, arriving as children or permanent residence but the main reason should be the amount of time they have lived there.

In my own opinion, the undocumented immigrants should be given a path to citizenship if they were brought into the country as small children who were not able to make a choice but arrived with their parents. This is because they are undocumented immigrants due to circumstances rather than their own will. In “Pro/Con: Should Congress pass the DREAM Act?” Josh (1) talks about the DREAM Act which stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. The Act is meant to protect young immigrants who were brought into the United States by their parents. The beneficiaries of the Act would stand the chance of getting better education, as well as better and higher paying jobs. This would be beneficial to the economy of the United States because better jobs for them would mean that they would pay more taxes and make more contribution to the economy.

Josh (2) asserts that the DREAM Act would benefit the United States socially and economically. He continues to say that Act would legalize the status of millions of unauthorized young people living in the country in a way that would not go against core American values. The Act would empower the young people to become better workers with high incomes, making use of their potential and talents. I support an Act like this meant to legalize undocumented young people who were brought into the country as children. This is because once they are empowered, they are going to be hardworking citizens of the United States who will take part in nation building and improving the economy of the country.

I would also support the legalization of undocumented immigrants who had spent a long period of time in the United States. This is because when a person settles in an area for a long time, they get attached to the people in their neighborhood and the environment getting a sense of identity (Sadiq, 17). They strive to get a means of livelihood meaning they have to get employment or invest in businesses. This would be beneficial to the economy of the United States. Another way that the immigrants contribute to the economy is by utilizing the country’s resources whereby they pay for services like education, health services and various other services. Legalizing them would make them do all these things without the fear of being found out and deported and they will contribute more openly to the economy.

People who have grown old in a country meaning that they have spent most of their life there to the extent of getting married and having children should be given a path to citizenship. An example of such a situation is given by Carens (3) about a woman known as Marguerite Grimmond. She was born in the United States but as a young child, she moved into Scotland with her mother. The issue arose when at the age of eighty years she left the United Kingdom to go to a family vacation in Australia. She used an American passport and when she returned to the United Kingdom, the immigration officials told her that she was not legally entitled to be in the country. They gave her only four weeks to leave the country and go back to the United States. They termed her as an irregular immigrant because she had not established a legal right to be in Britain. In cases like this, I think it would be wrong to deport immigrants who have lived in a country for a large part of their life. Deporting them to a place where they have not been attached to the neighborhood and people from countries where they have had all their experiences, known people and even worked in is not right in my opinion.

Undocumented immigrants that should not be given a path to citizenship

Illegal immigrants who sneaked along the borders of the United States or sneaked in boats and planes violate the laws of the country according to Koopmans (23). This particularly applies to rule breakers who get into the United States where they live on whatever legal American taxpayers are paying for using their taxes. Some of these immigrants go on to indulge in criminal activities like rape and murder. Undocumented immigrants like these who get into the country and instead of taking part in useful activities that improve the economy indulge in acts of crime should not be given a path to citizenship. They should be tried and where necessary, taken back to their countries because all they do is endanger the lives of the legal citizens. Giving criminal undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship would be encouraging bad behavior and acts of crime in the country. Giving a right to be legal citizens of the United States of America would encourage other law breaking immigrants to sneak into the country indulge in criminal activities because they would be assured of acquiring legal citizenship.

Illegal and undocumented immigrants who get entry into the United States faking identities and forging documents should not be given a path to citizenship. This is because they will encourage millions of people from other countries to do the same and get illegal entry into the country. The illegal immigrants do more harm than good to the United States to some point because they may fear taking part in activities that contribute to the economy like businesses with the thought that they may be found out and deported. On the other hand, they utilize services that are provided by the government which are made possible by legal citizens through the taxes they pay. This implies that the undocumented immigrants use up more resources than the ones that they contribute to the country. Uneducated immigrants who do manual jobs that legal Americans are afraid of doing become a liability when they reach certain ages and they cannot do the jobs anymore.

Bibliography

Carens, Joseph H. "The Case for Amnesty." Boston Review. Joseph H. Carens, 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 06 Apr. 2017.

Joppke, Christian. Citizenship and Immigration. Cambridge: Polity, 2010. Internet resource.

Jost, Kenneth. Pro/Con : Should Congress pass the DREAM Act? Pro/Con : Should Congress pass the DREAM Act?, 9 Mar. 2012. Internet resource

Koopmans, Ruud. Contested Citizenship: Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe. Minneapolis, Minn. [u.a.: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2005. Print.

Sadiq, Kamal. Paper Citizens: How Illegal Immigrants Acquire Citizenship in Developing Countries. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009. Internet resource.