Creating a Path to Citizenship for Undocumented Immigrants

America is a nation of immigrants. Starting with the Spanish and French who began establishing settlements followed by the English who set up their first permanent in present-day Virginia. Americans consider the first immigrants to be the indentured servants and then Africans who were forced to migrate to be slaves. Then we have the immigration of Northern and Western Europeans who migrated to escape the famine in Ireland and the Chinese who migrated because of the gold rush in California. Both groups faced discrimination over jobs and religion. Certain federal laws were passed to limit or restrict the population of foreign-born immigrating regardless of race and religion. Over our history, generations of immigrants have come to this country seeking a better life for themselves and, most importantly, their families. Some came in search of religious freedom and some for economic opportunities. Immigrants have reasons for leaving their countries and have taken risks to escape the harsh environments in their home countries. Family is a core reason for such risks which is why, regardless of status, they should be granted amnesty and given a path to attain citizenship.

Domination of Europeans and Americans. They believe they don't need a visa to travel, have the right to land. Naturally they get on a flight and go wherever they want, and third world countries will never really make it hard for them to get a visa if required. Their passports are visas which give them passage to whatever country they may want to visit. Sure, they are not allowed to vote, work and perform other civic and economic duties unless permitted to, but they can live wherever they want if they have money. 'Americans and Europeans currently assume that freedom to travel is their birthright … citizens of the former colonial powers can travel freely. These same countries routinely deny entry to people, especially poor people, from their former colonies.' They usually ban people from coming into the country but send people to go to other countries. Status of the undocumented has led to their large population. Slow process. Immigration Act of 1990 gave a group of migrants from countries suffering from war or extreme violence Temporary Protected Status which enabled them to work and return after. Another act was passed to address the number of asylum cases but given them a permanent status which did not favor anyone who was not Cuban or Nicaraguan. Then DACA which was Obama's idea in giving the younger generation a chance to work. This still left people without permanent statuses in limbo because every act passed to better the situation was temporary. Also, because the process of applying for work authorization every two years is too complicated and time-consuming. 

Immigrants generally from South and Central America have suffered from Neoliberalism. In the past, the economy in these countries, although bad, was tolerable, and then neoliberalism was then introduced, leading to fewer jobs and worsening conditions, often leading to violence and crime. This also led to less unemployment and an economic boom causing a rise in people migrating from South and Central America seeking jobs, opportunities and solutions to the crisis. In Brokered Boundaries, they categorized immigrants' motivations into five. Economic conditions at origin, destination, network connections (Family and friends' relations), violence at origin and family reunification. The authors go on to interview a large group of people asking, 'what made you come to the United States?'. Work is the main reason, considering their lives at the origin, they wanted to make enough money to help better the situation for family back home. Education was another reason, some wanted to further their education by getting their bachelors or masters or doctorate because it would be the only way to move forward in their community back home. Compared to the idea that most immigrants are not educated, we can see based on the testimonies from these migrants that most immigrants had some type of education rather they lacked the opportunity to further their education. Others come over to fulfill dreams, dreams of buying a house, getting a dream job, and buying a car. Families move over due to civil violence, the government not caring about their rights as citizens or war. Women testified to migrating because of domestic violence, some migrate because of family, marriage, no choice etcetera. Sixty out of a hundred would rather work and return home. Because there is no real freedom to go and return, they are stuck here. Most do not even like it here because of the discrimination they face, they expose themselves to the worst working conditions and threats from employers. They do not enter with the thought of breaking the laws but certain situations like needing a social security card to workforce them into taking actions to help their dreams a reality. A lot of immigrants hope to gain legal status in the country and do anything to ensure they are on the right path. Although they hope for this, they are still forced into situations where they violate the laws like driving without a permit or working without authorization. 

These issues that surround immigration policies should be addressed by first asking 'what policies do not work?'. Polices like border enforcement, guest-work programs, temporary protected statuses and blind arguments on how immigrants are stealing jobs and violence should be addressed. Undocumented immigrants are generally not poor or settle for lesser jobs. Some have authorization from the government to work and some do not. As previously stated, a lot of immigrants have their bachelor's, some have their masters, but they lack the opportunities in their home countries. For those who have been granted the authorization to work, they usually have high paying jobs within the information technology field, engineering field, education field, and work in the medical field. The idea though is that Americans may not want to work in such fields of work because of the working conditions. Here, we can see generalization is another issue attached to undocumented immigration in the United States which should also be addressed. A lot of immigrants have lived here most of their lives and deporting en masses would be viewed as a wrong approach because this would be seen as racism and would be causing an abrupt shift which may take years to recover from. Potential lawmakers, doctors, computer scientists, teachers, etcetera would be sent back to countries where they cannot harness their potentials. Instead of deportation, certain criteria should be created for the undocumented to meet so they can be granted citizenship. Not all immigrants belong in the 'making a better life for themselves and family' category, some are here temporary. In creating policies, this should be considered to effectively handle the different categories of immigrants. 

Creating a path to citizenship for the large number of undocumented immigrations through new immigration policies is a better approach considering how heavily influenced this issue is in the different sectors of American society. In discussing what should be done about immigrants, the lives of immigrants are often ignored and not put into consideration. The reason why there are so many undocumented immigrants is because of poor past actions that were taken to alleviate the problem.