Should the U.S. give a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants
People still move to the United States today for the same reasons as in the past: to work, join their families, search for safety, or refuge from violence, war, and natural disasters. But the rapidly increasing number of illegal immigrants has been the cause for alarm to both the American citizens and the American authority. The question of what to do with more than eleven million illegal immigrants already in the U.S. has sparked years of fierce debate. Still, ironically no significant action has been taken. The knotty question is, should the U.S. government give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship? The purpose of this paper is to offer an in-depth discussion of this question to provide a convincing answer to it.
Should the U.S. give a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants?
Giving a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants is indeed providing an incentive for breaking the law, and one cannot do so without expecting more rules to be broken in the future. But the fact that Americans need to acknowledge is that its immigration system has failed the nation. Talking of deporting more than eleven million people is economically impractical since it will require the U.S. government to spend millions of dollars on that task.
Even if it were to have enough resources to deport them, these illegal immigrants have already scattered all over the country, and it would be a challenging task to round them up from all over the country and deport them and leave the country clean of illegal immigrants. The nation needs to accept the fact that a massive number of illegal immigrants are already living among them. Since they have become law-abiding residence since they came to the U.S., it would not be necessary for the government to commit millions of dollars to deport them.
Instead of incurring such a high cost in deportation, the government has the option of giving citizenship to illegal immigrants by taking them through a rigorous verification process. This process should include a background check, learning English, and paying taxes and penalties. Those who will pass this process should be legally allowed to remain in the country and maybe deport the who fail the process.
Furthermore, it is not the fault of illegal immigrants to enter and settle in the U.S. It is the fault of the failed immigration system. Even after the government spending billions of dollars to secure the American borders, there is still an inflow of illegal immigrants. With the economic breakdown and civil wars experienced in many countries today, there is no doubt people will look for better places to settle. America is one of the most peaceful and secure nations, with a thriving economy, and definitely, it will be the first option for many. Thus, if America doesn’t want illegal immigrants in their country, let them streamline their immigration system, but not victimize those who have already entered the country through the country’s legal entry points.
Most illegal immigrants do not come to beg in the U.S. They come hoping that they will find work, and earn their own leaving. Some of them are great innovators and quite knowledgeable in different fields. Therefore, injecting them into the country’s workforce will not only increase the consumption of goods and services but also will stimulate the economy and increase tax collection.
Some of the illegal immigrants have lived in the U.S. for a long time. Some have even married in America and have American children. Deporting them will be an act of breaking their families, which is morally wrong and inhuman. Similarly, letting them continue to live in the shadows does not solve their problems and drawback they are currently experiencing. Maybe the only needful thing to do is to give them a path to citizenship.
However, living with more than eleven million unvetted people poses a serious security threat. Most of the illegal immigrants have not identification documents that can be used to check their background criminal records. How then can the government be sure that some of these immigrants are not members of criminal and terrorist groups sent to spy in the U.S.? To avoid such kinds of fears, maybe the honorable thing to do is for the government to gather all the illegal immigrants and deport them to their countries of origin. American security cannot be equipped with any amount of money.
Allowing these immigrants into the workforce will limit the job opportunities available for American citizens and legal immigrants. This causes the wages of less-educated U.S. workers to continue to stagnate or decrease since there is more supply for labor. Besides this, illegal immigrants, like other immigrants, pay less for taxes than the benefits and services they receive from the government.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be noted that there is a great need for the U.S. government to streamline and maintain control of its immigration system. However, rounding up and deporting the millions of illegal immigrants is a nonstarter. This exercise, as it has been noted above, it is prohibitively expensive, inhumane, and disruptive to many communities that live with and depend on these immigrants for one thing or another. These immigrants are generally law-abiding residence, whose hard work contributes significantly to the economy and the wellbeing of their local communities.
Additionally, statistics show that most of the illegal immigrants workers are concentrated in jobs considered to be unsafe, unpleasant, and low-paying. These jobs include farmworkers, dishwashers, housekeepers, and brick masons. These are indeed job sectors where workers are vulnerable to mistreatments and exploitation. But the point here is these are not jobs that U.S. citizens or legal immigrants will compete for. Thus, the argument that illegal immigrants are causing congestion in the job market is untrue and invalid. But the government should enforce labor laws to these job sectors to ensure that those who work there, because they too are human, enjoy the benefits of human rights as provided for in the American constitution.
To sum up, the government to ensure that it modernize and fix the mess in its immigration system. In so doing, it should ensure that the door to America remains open to the future generation as they were to our ancestors. Therefore, as the government fixes its immigration system, it should allow the illegal immigrants already in the country to legally settle in the U.S. by giving then a path to citizenship or legal residency permit.