Transcript TAKS Remediation Lesson #1

Supporting standards comprise
65% of the U. S. History Test
13 (B)
Supporting Standard (13)
The student understands the causes & effects of
migration & immigration on American Society.
The Student is expected to:
(B) Analyze the causes & effects of changing
demographic patterns resulting from legal &
illegal immigration to the U. S.
Illegal immigration to the
United States
Illegal immigration to the United States,
also referred to as undocumented
immigration, is the act by foreign nationals
of entering the U. S. without government
permission (i.e., a visa) and in violation of
immigration law of the United States, or
staying beyond the termination date of a
visa, also in violation of the law.
The illegal immigrant population of the U. S.
in 2008 was estimated by the Center for
Immigration Studies to be about 11 million
people, down from 12.5 million people in
2007. Other estimates range from 7 to 20
million. According to a Pew Hispanic Report
statement, in 2005, 57% of illegal immigrants
were from Mexico; 21% were from other
Latin American countries, primarily from
Central America; 13% were from Asia; 6%
were from Europe and Canada; and 3% were
from Africa and the rest of the world.
Profile and
demographics
Illegal immigrants continue to exceed the number of legal
immigrants—a trend that has held steady since the 1990s. While the
majority of illegal immigrants continue to concentrate in places with
existing large Hispanic communities, increasingly illegal immigrants
are settling throughout the rest of the country. An estimated 14
million people live in families in which the head of household or the
spouse is in the United States illegally. Illegal immigrants arriving in
recent years tend to be better educated than those who have been in
the country a decade or more. A quarter of all immigrants who have
arrived in recent years have at least some college education.
Nonetheless, illegal immigrants as a group tend to be less educated
than
than other
other sections
sections of
of the
the U.S.
U.S. population:
population: 49 percent haven’t
completed high school, compared with 9 percent of native-born
Americans and 25 percent of legal immigrants.
Illegal immigrants work in many sectors of the U.S.
economy. According to National Public Radio in 2005,
about 3 percent work in agriculture; 33 percent have jobs
in service industries; and substantial numbers can be found
in construction and related occupations (16 percent), and in
production, installation, and repair (17 percent). According
to USA Today in 2006, about 4 percent work in farming; 21
percent have jobs in service industries; and substantial
numbers can be found in construction and related
occupations (19 percent), and in production, installation,
and repair (15 percent), with 12% in sales, 10% in
management, and 8% in transportation. Illegal immigrants
have lower incomes than both legal immigrants and nativeborn Americans, but earnings do increase somewhat the
longer an individual is in the country.
A percentage of illegal immigrants do not remain
indefinitely but do return to their country of origin; they
are often referred to as “sojourners: they come to the
United States for several years but eventually return to
their home country.”
The Pew Hispanic Center determined that according to an
analysis of Census Bureau data about 8 percent of children
born in the United States in 2008—about 340,000—were
offspring of illegal immigrants. In total, 4 million U.S.-born
children of illegal immigrant parents resided in this country in
2009 (alongside 1.1 million foreign-born children of illegal
immigrant parents). These infants are, according to the
Fourteenth Amendment, American citizens from birth. These
children are
are sometimes
sometimes referred
referred to
to as
as “anchor babies” by
children
by those
those
opposed to this method of citizenship attained outside of the
legal immigration process.
The majority of children that are born with
illegal parents fail to graduate high school,
averaging two fewer years of school than
their peers. But once the parents do gain
citizenship the children do much better in
school. Reason for this decline in school is
thought to be because of many issues not
limited to but including stress, pressure to
work at a younger age, and not having the
economic resources needed to get higher
education.
The categories of
foreign-born people in
the United States are:
• US citizens born outside the United States
(naturalized)
• Foreign-born non-citizens with current
visa to reside and/or work in the US
(documented)
• Foreign-born non-citizens in the United
States that are prohibited from entry
(illegal)
The United States is viewed worldwide as a highly
desirable destination by would-be migrants.
International polls by the Gallup organization have
found that more than 165 million adults in 148
foreign countries would, if they could, move to the
US, which is the most desired destination for
migrants. Most immigrants who come to the United
States come for better opportunities for
employment, avoidance of political oppression, the
opportunity to rejoin their loved ones, for the
prospect of providing better lives for themselves
and their children, and for the educational and
medical services benefits.
The continuing practice of hiring unauthorized
workers has
workers
has been
been referred
referred to
to as “the magnet
magnet for
for
illegal immigration.”
illegal
immigration.” As a significant percentage of
employers are willing to hire illegal immigrants for
higher pay than they would typically receive in their
former country, illegal immigrants have prime
motivation to cross borders. A study of illegal
immigrants from Mexico in the 1978 harvest season
in Oregon showed that they earned six times what
they could have earned in Mexico, and even after
deducting the costs of the seasonal migration and
certain additional expenses for living in the United
States, their net U.S. earnings were three times their
Mexican alternative.
In 2003, then-President of Mexico, Vincente Fox
stated that remittances “are our biggest source of
foreign income, bigger than oil, tourism or foreign
investment” and “the money transfers grew after
Mexican consulates started giving identity cards to
their citizens in the United States.” He stated that
money sent from Mexican workers in the United
States to their families back home reached a record
$12 billion in 2003. Two years later, in 2005, the
World Bank stated that Mexico was receiving $18.1
billion in remittances and that it ranked third
(behind only India and China) among the countries
receiving the greatest amount of remittances.
Because the United States education system creates
relatively few people who either lack a high school
diploma or who hold PhDs, there is a shortage of
workers needed to fulfill seasonal low-skilled jobs as
well as certain high-skilled jobs. To fill these gaps, the
United States immigration system attempts to
compensate for these shortages by providing for
temporary immigration by farm workers and seasonal
low-skilled workers, and for permanent immigration
by high-skilled workers. Another cause of illegal
immigration—the ineffectiveness of current employer
sanctions for illegal hiring—allows migrants who are in
the country illegally to easily find jobs.
The United States immigration system provides only
limited channels for legal, permanent economic
migration, especially for low-skilled workers. The
United States immigration system rests on three pillars
(family reunification, provision of scarce labor) as in
agricultural and specific high-skilled worker sectors
and protecting American workers from competition
with foreign workers. The current system sets an
overall limit of 675,000 permanent immigrants each
year; this limit does not apply to spouses, unmarried
minor children or parents of U.S. citizens. Outside of
this number for permanent immigrants, 480,000 visas
are allotted for those under the family-preference rules
and only 140,000 are allocated for employment-related
preferences.
The current system and low number of visas available,
make it impossible for low-skilled workers to legally and
permanently enter the country to work, so illegal entry
becomes the way migrants respond to the lure of jobs with
higher wages than what they would be able to find in their
current country. Another reason for the large numbers of
illegal immigrants present in the United States is the
termination of the bracero program. This program existed
from 1942 to 1964 to supply low-skilled Mexican workers
to harvest fruits and vegetables in the United States. Many
legal workers became illegal when this program ended
because the change in law was not accompanied by a
change in economic incentives for Mexican workers and
the American growers.
Chain
immigration
The flow of Mexicans to the U. S. has produced a
“network effect” (not unlike the process of
European immigration from the east coast of
American during the 19th century) furthering
immigration as Mexicans moved to join relatives
already in the U.S. The recent dramatic increase
in the population of illegal immigrants has
sparked more illegal immigrants to cross borders.
Once the extended families of illegal immigrants
cross national borders, they create a “network
effect” by building large communities.
The USA Patriot Act was passed seven weeks after the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The purpose of the
act was to give the government more power to act against
suspicious terrorist activity. The new governmental powers
granted by this act included significant expansion in
surveillance as well as a significant expansion in the range
of conditions in which illegal immigrants could be deported
from the United States based on suspicion of terrorist
activity. The USA Patriot Act had a direct effect on
deportations of immigrants from the United States. The
new act gave the government the power to deport
individuals based not on plots or acts of terrorism but
simply on affiliations with certain organizations. The
Secretary of State designated specific organizations foreign
terrorist organizations before the USA Patriot Act was
implemented.
Organizations on this list were deemed
dangerous because they were actively involved in
terrorist activity that threatened United States
national security. The USA Patriot Act created a
type of organization deemed designated
organizations. The Secretary of State and
Attorney General were given the power to
designate any organization that supported
terrorist activity on any level. The act also allows
for penalization of an individual’s involvement
for
in undesignated organizations that were still
deemed suspicious.
Under the USA Patriot Act the Attorney General
was granted the power to “certify” illegal
immigrants based on the grounds that they pose a
threat to national security. Once an illegal
immigrant is certified they must be taken into
custody and face mandatory detention which will
result in a criminal charge or release. The USA
Patriot Act has been criticized for violating the
Fifth Amendment’s right to due process. Under the
USA Patriot Act an illegal immigrant is not granted
the opportunity for a hearing before given
certification. It is criticized in general for allowing
mandatory detention of illegal immigrants on
inadequate grounds.
Several US cities—“Sanctuary Cities”—have instructed
their own law enforcement personnel and other city
employees not to notify or cooperate with the federal
government when they become aware of illegal immigrants
living within their jurisdiction. They include: Washington,
D. C., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco,
San Diego, Austin, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Detroit,
Honolulu, Houston, Jersey City, Minneapolis, Miami,
Denver, Aurora, Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, Or.,
Portland, Ma., & Senath. Most of these cities claim that the
benefit illegal immigrants bring to their city outweigh the
costs. Opponents say the measures violate federal law as
the cities are in effect creating their own immigration
policy, an area of law which only Congress has authority to
alter.
Concerns raised
by immigration
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Identity theft
Drug trafficking
Gang violence
Environment National security and terrorism
Harm to illegal immigrants, e.g., death at border
crossings
Slavery
Prostitution
Cultural—the threat to divide the U. S culturally into
an Anglo-Protestant north, central, and eastern
portion, and a Catholic-Hispanic southwest.
One of the most important factors regarding public opinion about
illegal immigration, is the level of unemployment; anti-illegal
immigrant sentiment is highest where unemployment is highest and
vice-versa. In general, some say that illegal immigrants are taking
away jobs from Americans; however businesses and agricultural
groups disagree and say that migrant workers are needed to fill
unattractive jobs. This is further supported by a May 2006 New York
Times/CBS News Poll report that 53 percent of Americans felt
“illegal immigrants mostly take the jobs Americans don’t want.”
However there are others who say that illegal immigration helps to
“decimate the bargaining leverage of the American worker. If
If you
you use
use
a form of labor recruitment that bids down the cost of labor, that
leads you to a society where a small number are very, very rich,
there’s nobody in the middle, and
and everyone
everyone is
is left
left scrambling
scrambling for
for
crumbs at the bottom. Yet there are still others who say that the U.S.
“has an economy that depends on illegal immigration” and “without
illegal immigration labor, it would almost certainly not be possible to
produce the same volume of food in the country.”
An ABC News Poll, indicates that most
respondents (67%) believe the United
States is not doing enough to keep illegal
immigrants from coming into the country
and, according to a CBS News/New York
Times poll most Americans believe that
US immigration policy needs either
fundamental changes (41%) or to be
completely rebuilt (49%).
In an opinion poll by Zogby International in 2005,
voters were also asked, “Do you support or oppose
the Bush administration’s proposal to give millions
of undocumented immigrants guest worker status
and the opportunity to become citizens?” 35% gave
their support; 56 percent disagreed. The same poll
noted a huge majority, 81%, believes local and state
police should help federal authorities enforce laws
Obama
taken Americans
to
against President
illegal immigration.
Although
task
Arizona Governor
may favor
oneby
immigration
policy over another,
perceptions of government
and officials’ ability to
Jan Brewer
implement these policies is consistently negative.
Appendix
As of 2006, the following data table shows a spread of distribution of locations
where illegal immigrants reside by state.
State of Residence of the Illegal Immigrant Population: January 2000 and 2006
State of residence
Estimated population in
January
Percent of total
Percent change
Average annual change
All states
11,555,000
100
37
515,000
California
2,930,000
25
13
53,333
Texas
1,640,000
14
50
91,667
Florida
980,000
8
23
30,000
Illinois
550,000
5
25
18,333
New York
540,000
5
-
-
Arizona
500,000
4
52
28,333
Georgia
490,000
4
123
45,000
New Jersey
430,000
4
23
13,333
North Carolina
370,000
3
42
18,333
Washington
280,000
2
65
18,333
Other states
2,950,000
26
69
200,000
An
Fini