Research

Running head: Are Current Immigration Policies making America Great Again?

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IMMIGRAITON POLICIES 13

Are Current Immigration Policies making America Great Again?

Tamika S. Bouldin

Liberty University

HLSC 520

Abstract

The current immigration policy has come under sharp criticisms from both the political and scholarly communities. The Trump administration proposed an immigration policy that would provide green cards to foreigners who comply with the requirements associated with age, education, and English-speaking capabilities. In the past, the United States utilized an immigration policy that placed emphases on family reunification and employment-oriented immigration system, and towards a point-based system that focuses on the inclusion of immigrants with certain specified levels of education and employment qualifications and professional certifications. The administration has also previously recommended the implementation of immigration policies that deny immigrants’ entry to the United States or unlawful permanent residence if they are likely to utilize Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, and other kinds of public support. The current immigration policies are not making America great again. Instead, they are causing America to move against the values that made it great in the first place. The immigration policies have increased racial profiling, restricted people from practicing their liberty, and promoted unethical practices by the U.S. government.

Impact of New Immigration Policies on Increased Racial Profiling

The new immigration policies have promoted unfair profiling of certain racial, cultural, and ethnic groups. Profiling of minority ethnicities such as Latino/Latina and Asian communities has increased significantly. The Civil Rights Act 1964 discourages discrimination of people based on race and nationalities. The immigration system encourages profiling because it recommends denying green cards for immigrants who are from non-English speaking countries. The Trump administration roots for an immigration system that provides green cards only to immigrants who meet the requirements that are associated with education, age, as well as English speaking proficiencies (Krogstad & Gonzalez-Barrera, 2018). Trump’s immigration policies are built around developing a wall in the Mexican border to prevent illegal immigrants; to deport all of the estimated 12 million Mexican immigrants who are not legally authorized to live in the United States; and to ban Syrian refugees from entering the United States. Furthermore, the Trump immigration policies seek to exclude all immigrants from Islamic nations from entering the country. In so doing, the Trump administration is encouraging a race/ discrimination based immigration system (Schmidt, 2019). Consequently, critics of the existing immigration policy have raised complaints that such views contravene the nation’s previous views of welcoming immigrants and visitors from different racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds from entering the country.

Historical assessments show that form the start, racism and xenophobia have been driving forces behind immigration laws in the country. An understanding of immigration policies in the country requires a critical assessment of the history of racial exclusion and inequality. Immigration laws and racial, ethnic and religious discrimination the country can be viewed as opposite sides of the same coin (Oppenheimer, Prakash & Burns, 2016). From the establishment of the Republic, the American immigration policies have represented racial ideals with respect to several and changing racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups (Pham & Van, 2019). In 1790, the first Congress established the he first naturalization laws, which provided citizenship to any ‘free white person’ of good moral character. Trump’s immigration policies seem to mirror the first immigration law. Thereafter, the American immigration legislations have sought, with varying success, to exclude the disfavored communities of each era, usually by defining such groups in racial light. In all such efforts, the ‘undesired’ ones continue to set foot on the American soil. For the most part, foreigners who immigrated on their own were largely assimilated (especially Europeans), or integrated into the American social system (as is the case with still-racialized Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans) (Oppenheimer, Prakash & Burns, 2016). The notable exceptions for the assimilation or integration of immigrant groups are the descendants of Africans, who were forcibly transferred to the New World and held bondage for more than four centuries, and who continue to face significant hurdles in terms of racial and structural barriers to integration.

Currently, the immigration policies have increased anti-immigrant hysteria, which has been as high as it had been in the American history. The hostility against immigrants is directed largely at immigrants from Mexico, and increasingly at foreigners from Islamic nations, Africans, as well as South Asia (Oppenheimer, Prakash & Burns, 2016). One issue that dominates debates on immigration crisis is whether or not Mexican immigrants will comply with the same patterns of assimilation or integration as previous groups of immigrants, or if they will collaborate with Black Americans as long-standing second-class citizens. Apart from the mixed judicial disagreement with the state policies, many social, economic, and political factors will continue to impact whether immigrants are eventually wholly embraced as the latest groups continue to join the country’s racially heterogonous identity.

The Impact of The Immigration Policies on People’s Liberty

The immigration policies limit immigrants’ freedom of movement because of the extreme limitations. The policies threaten the citizenship by birth rights of immigrants’ children. The U.S. constitution accords all people the freedoms that these policies are threatening (Grover et al., 2019). One of the misstated elements of the contemporary debate is the idea that aliens in the country have no rights. While it is true that such people may ultimately lack the right to live and remain in the United States, they still have many important rights and freedoms under the American constitution. The Supreme Court, for instance, recently supported the view that the US representatives serve all residents, and not merely those who are legible or registered to vote. For instance, immigrants and citizens alike have the right to fair treatment, which is under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the American Constitution. In one of such cases, the Supreme Court in Plyer v. Doe, the Court determined that it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for the State of Texas to decline undocumented school-aged immigrant child the free public education that it offers to all American citizens.

The right to education is fundamental and universal. As such, all immigrants should of school-going age children should be given the right to education and intellectual development. According to the Supreme Court, education has a fundamental role in the maintenance of fabric of the social system. As such, the significant social costs that re borne by the country when only certain select groups are denied the means to admit the values and skills upon which the social order rests cannot be overlooked (Franco, 2019). The right to receive free public education does not, however, precede to higher education for immigrants according to the current immigration policies. In many states, undocumented high school graduates face hurdles in securing their admission to institutions of higher learning since they are required to pay nonresident tuition, and are denied access to the most important scholarship programs or other kinds of financial support. Interestingly, the unlawful presence should not relieve a person from conforming to local civil and criminal laws. As such, an undocumented couple from Asia, who search desire to marry in the state of New York, must comply with the New York laws, and not the Asian laws.

The right to quality and affordable access to healthcare cuts across both citizens and undocumented immigrants. The current immigration system denies immigrants of their rights to health. The United States has for a long time been depicted as the land of freedom and opportunities, a place in which the prospective immigrants can attain prosperity and upward mobility (Wood, 2019). However, American natives and immigrants have voiced concerns that immigration reduces wages and that new arrivals may fail to be assimilated into the American social system. Furthermore, in the last twenty years, new anti-immigration policies and legislations have surfaced to tackle migration of undocumented foreigners (Wood, 2019). As a result of the immensely large variations in living standards brought by wide income inequalities between developed and developing economies, people have been migrating to more promised and developed regions across history. However, access to health care services becomes a major problem for undocumented immigrants. Immigration laws and policies explicitly provide or constrain access to health services. Laws and policies in many states still restrict rights to health services to undocumented immigrants. Moreover, laws and policies that provide minimum rights to health services are not clearly defined for undocumented immigrants. In the same vein, numerous legislations restrict immigrants from accessing basic health care services such as emergency care (Wood, 2019). More precisely, such policies openly state that undocumented immigrants do not have the right to seek health care services. In addition, the policies mandate professionals to report each patient’s documentation status.

The current immigration policy uses ‘documentation status’ as a means of exclusion of basic healthcare services such as HIV, STI, and prenatal care services that are provided by government agencies or nonprofit institutions that receive government funding. In some jurisdictions and states, healthcare services are only provided to undocumented immigrants who are found in detention camps and centers. Other states have explicit legislations and policies in which undocumented immigrants are entitled only to emergency care or forms of care that are specified as immediate or urgent. Nonetheless, in numerous cases, while such services are available to undocumented immigrants, they are hesitant to seek health care services in health institutions to get emergency care owing to fear of potential retaliation and deportation. While undocumented immigrants may be entitled to emergency health services, such services often entail administrative processes, such as the completion of applications and forms, that when put into practice, deterred their access to health care to a certain degree. There is a strong direct correlation between perceived fear of deportation and harassment from authorities and lack of immigrants’ access to a broader range of health care services.

Immigrants often perceive immigration policies as a threat not just to their wellbeing, but also to their families as causes of criminalization. Additionally, in states that have explicit laws the prohibit undocumented immigrants from access to health services, institutional structures such as law enforcement agencies and health care organizations discriminate against undocumented immigrants. In so doing, undocumented immigrants not only fear forced deportation, but they also feel discriminated against and harassed by other governmental and non-governmental institutions. Specifically, regular police checkpoints and immigration raids serve to perpetuate the fears of and isolation from health care services. It is also worth noting that the clear relationship between immigration policies and access to HIV services and care coordination services for undocumented immigrants, including LGBT individuals. The timely entry into HIC treatment and management is crucial for early administration of therapy, immunological recovery, as well as enhancing chances of survival. Nonetheless, undocumented Latinos and blacks are more likely to enter HIV care at later stages in the disease course (Wood, 2019). As such, getting diagnoses of AIDS, together with the presence of anti-immigration policies, act as big impediment to accessing sufficient care. For instance, immigrants are commonly threatened by anti-immigration policies and feel that such policies prevent them from accessing HIV services, alongside general lack of health service accessibility and lengthy bureaucratic requirements that serve as barriers to getting care.

Promotion of Unethical Practices by the Government

The government has engaged in many questionable practices supported by immigration policies. The policies have caused separation of children from their parents. Many children have been placed in concentration camps. People who know no other home than America since birth are at risk of deportation (Grover et al., 2019). The current immigration system has been faulted for encouraging unethical practices by the federal government. In 2018, the US government developed a zero tolerance illegal immigration control approach within the US-Mexican border, a measure that resulted in the massive detention of all adult in readiness of federal prosecutions for illegal entry into the country. The policy issued by the government also resulted in the subsequent removal of their children to separate child shelters across different parts of the United States (Sager, 2018). Approximately 2300 immigrant children and infants were separated from their parents for immigration reasons. The media exposed scenes of families in destitutions and desperation, which ignited international condemnation of the American immigration policy and fresh criticisms of the detention camps. The detention of children for immigration reasons is a widely mentioned practice that has been in existence for many years, despite numerous studies indicating the existence of physical and mental harm on victims.

The Trump Administration has been criticized for engaging in unethical behaviors that threaten the rights and wellbeing of immigrants. Both the media and the international community have vehemently condemned the government’s zero tolerance immigration system, which calls for the detention and federal prosecution of all adults that have been apprehended for illegal entry at the US-Mexico border, such as those who are seeking asylum. The American Constitution and other laws prohibit the act of child detention in federal jails, the outcomes of such parental arrests, as well as the forceful removal of accompanying children to separate detention centers. In 2018, approximately 2300 immigrant children, including preverbal, breastfed infants were moved to separate child detention shelters in different parts of the United States (Wood, 2018). While the children awaited the outcomes of their parents’ cases, their reunion is not guaranteed. Following a wide public outcry, the Trump administration signed an executive order to end the policy of separating children from their parents within the US-Mexico border. Since the American legal system does not allow child detention in federal jails, the outcomes of these parental apprehensions and arrests , coupled with the forceful removal of accompanying children to separate detention centers, amounted to gross violation of human rights and liberty.

The United States High Commission for Refugees approximated that about 50 million children have migrated across different countries and boundaries, and have been forcefully detained or displaced (Wood, 2018). In the US-American borders, immigrants who are captured and detained are mainly asylum seekers from politically unstable societies such as Guatemala, Honduras, as well as El Savador. Such immigrants do not deserve ill treatment by the government because they are basically searching for asylum, peace, and stability. Moreover, they come from critically destabilized parts of the world that are plagued by gross and systematic violations of human rights. Furthermore, the immigrants often face insecurities brought by drug cartels, poverty, violence as well as corrupt criminal justice systems. Furthermore, criminal gang groups target and use children as tools for exploitation and control (Wood, 2018). As such, migrating through Mexico to the United States is similarly herculean and torturous, since immigrants report cases of violence, kidnappings, sexual assaults, and physical abuse. Massive cases of human trafficking takes place between the US-Mexican border, as well as extortions and maltreatment of both children and adult immigrants by law enforcement officials who man the border. Refugee immigrants’ rights to access to affordable decent housing and food are equally frustrating. For instance, immigrants’ access to sufficient shelter, nourishment, and medical services is hard. When immigrant children reach the American-Mexican border, their compounding exposures to the negative social determinants of health and summative negative experiences put them at risks of developing mental, physical, and developmental illnesses that could affect their adult life.

In light of the above, there have bene widespread concerns about increased child detention, which also takes the form of the indiscriminate utilization of no touch rules that are designed to deter inappropriate physical contact with law enforcers (Wood, 2018). Although such polices have been embedded in the criminal justice system to protect adolescents from sexual assaults, the deprivation of young children from physical comfort heightens trauma and depression (Wood, 20180. These situations clearly heighten the risks of getting untreated, undetected, and new forms of health problems that may threaten their lives and mental wellbeing.

Conclusion

The new immigration policies do not make America great again. They are a reflection of the opposite of the values that make America great. The policies promote racial profiling, infringement of people’s rights, and unethical practices by the government. Additionally, the current immigration policies encourage gross and systematic violations of human rights. When immigrants are deprived of right to access quality and affordable health, basic education, and decent housing, they live as second-class human beings.

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