Presently, there is the major issue that America faces involved in illegal versus legal immigration, especially involving Mexico. Illegal Mexican immigrants, also commonly and discriminatingly called illegal aliens, are people who have illegally crossed the border into the United States without legal documentation, such as a social security number. There are many reasons why some Mexicans need or feel forced to do this, but typically it is in order to find financial opportunities in order to better their lives and support their struggling family back home. Some even migrate thousands of miles in order to avoid their impending death within their exceedingly violent country. In the past, many people did not want to cross but the situations involving crime, money, social tensions, gangs and drugs in Central America has increasingly gotten worse over the decades. Illegally crossing the border is to a great degree costly and dangerous, designated for only the most valiant and motivated to change their lives for this potentially extraordinary reward. Death and imprisonment are two genuine and detrimental risks that come along with illegally crossing the border. These convoys, or caravans, that lead Mexicans into America are normally driven by the Mexican drug cartel, which poses great risks on its own. Other incredible dangers include human trafficking, kidnapping, dehydration, venomous snakes, abandonment by smugglers if they are not moving fast enough, and so forth.
Although Mexican immigration was seen as an economically and socially progressive aspect of our country, it was and is also popularly feared and viewed with negative connotations. From these fears and negative views come harmful stereotypes and discrimination against ethnic people which detrimentally hinder their everyday life within this country. Mexicans, as well as most minority groups, in America are viewed with suspicions and negative attitudes by people with destructive and selfish views. There is no refutable argument against the positive effects and involvement immigrants left upon this country. Even though there is an infinite number of arguments made against immigration and how it caused the destruction of the “once great” United States of America, these arguments are rarely backed by factual and scientific evidence. The recent election of President Donald Trump made light to these issues and the embedded racism in weak and unseasoned minds across the country.
Most recently, President Donald Trump utilized a very intelligent strategy, manipulative rhetoric of opposing immigration, to secure his presidency as he knew that this country’s background is formed by racism and patriarchy. He stated from the beginning that he wanted to construct an insanely expensive wall across the border of the United States and Mexico, in efforts to prevent the illegal immigration within the country (Nixon). Nebraska is one of the majority Republican states, which is a pattern seen throughout the Midwest, and the majority vote was for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. The forty-fifth president of the United States is a Republican president with an immigrant wife, which is extremely ironic considering his extreme views on immigration. The majority of his Republican supporters were exceptionally optimistic about this idea of a grand wall and it brought out an extreme polar contrast among individuals, and political parties, in the United States and their opposing perspectives on immigration. But, recently there have been large debates on how Congress will be able to afford this type of expense. He is currently pushing to get five billion dollars towards it but Democrats will not budge past one billion (Watson). The democratic and republican party are disagreeing about the border wall, which Donald Trump threatens to shut down the government if they do not reach a deal and agreement soon. “I am proud to shut down this government for border security”, Donald Trump threatened in a tantrum during a recent meeting between him, Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer (Watson). Originally, during his campaign, Trump stated that he was to have Mexico pay for the wall, which is obviously an idiotic statement that fooled thousands of uneducated supporters throughout the United States. After this campaign, and the eventual winner of the presidential election in 2016, this country was the most divided it has been in decades.
Research has found extensive evidence of discrimination of foreign-born and minority populations in education, criminal justice, business, economy, housing, health care, media, politics, etc (Immigration). There are constant discriminatory acts carried out towards minorities in this country. So it is unfortunate that our country cannot seem to find a symbiotic peace within each other since we house the largest number of international migrants, one-fifth of the world’s total displaced people (Zong). Immigrants must find work, homes and accustom to new laws, culture, racism, discrimination, language barriers and more. Although there are still language barriers, especially considering the difficulty of learning English, more than two-thirds of immigrants reported speaking English “well” or “very well” (Immigrants). As immigrants are integrating into public life, social tensions and anxieties rise, as there is a demand for new programs and services for immigrants.
Currently, we are transitioning into a more technical economy which in turn creates more competition in the traditional low-wage sector job market. The integration of robots into the workforce affects the number of jobs readily available as well. We can see this even with the increasingly popular self-checkout lanes in the grocery store. Robots are not going to buy products or add sustenance to our economy, but rather robots are figuratively stealing jobs from legitimate and capable humans. We seem to want fewer people but we want more money, which is a conundrum. The obvious goal of a cooperation is to serve its investors, not to solely employ people. Many companies give money to charity, but do not be fooled, their first and primary duty is to please their investors. These organizations are not afraid to fire or lay off anyone in order to cut costs for themselves, and receive more profit for them and their investors. So naturally, integrating robots that replace jobs into the workplace to cut down on labor costs attracts companies. Capitalism only serves capitalism itself. Now, our economy is hurting and in order to fix that there must be a flow of money. More jobs need to be created, so more money can be spent, yet we are replacing jobs with these robots. Large companies do not care about the lower income sector of America. So yet again, we have tensions rising between low skilled Americans and low skilled American Immigrants. Once these tensions rise, ethnic minorities and immigrants are targeted against the most because this is not their “natural” country.
These tensions not only rise within the job market but as well as demographics. High fertility is a source of social disrupt and anxiety, and Hispanics have a very high fertility rate in the United States. This can be due to a lack of education, but as the Mexican government is educating more to reduce fertility, we can see the decline of their fertility rates. Mexico was sensitive to the idea of women having many kids and it quickly became unmodern to have many kids. The Catholic church is also forbidden by law to get involved, as well as men, so any sort of birth control is up to women. Sexual education courses have also had a positive impact on the fertility rates of all races within this country. This is our goal as we are an expanding world without enough space for all of the occupants now, let alone the extra millions in the impending future.
As the economy is changing into one that demands higher technical skills, a consequence of that is that it is also changing into one that comes with a higher cost of living. New occupations are demanding and most immigrants are not qualified for them, or they simply cannot afford to live where the job is located. This forces them to commute to work for hours or take a bus to the company which requires more time and affects them negatively mentally and physically. Since there is a lot of competition, Americans may resent that there is a larger demand for jobs and therefore resent Mexican immigrants. In turn, this results in an increase in hate crimes and illegal discriminatory acts.
There are many reasons for immigration and climate change will play a huge role in the future. Entire countries will be underwater and all of their occupants will have to find other places to live. Extreme weather such as hurricanes, floods, mudslides, and tsunamis are also becoming increasingly common, which dislocates people and causes more immigration. War is another large factor that causes an influx of refugees across the world, as their own country is now unsafe. Political and economic dislocation are also very real issues for the future. There will be an extreme increase in asylum seekers throughout the world and the nation, and our country needs to be prepared for that increase. In the past, we saw more cooperation with immigrants than today. The late 20th century was the golden age of immigration, although there are more pressures for immigration now. Whether the country will respond is another question.
In summary, this paper has examined and explored the history of Mexican immigration within the United States. Immigrants make this country great and make this country what it is today. Our entire history is based on immigration and that has positively affected our country and its residents. Integration of many different cultures is vital to a great country with great open-minded individuals. The integration of immigrants culturally enhances this country and that leads to new ideas, inventions and overall a better community. Although many immigration acts and other legal standings have tarnished the United States and Mexico’s relationship, we need to prepare to rebuild those bridges as the world will require more immigrants. The mind of this country must change in order to incorporate exponential amounts of impending cultural immigrants.
