Mexican Immigration Controversy

Another post of a paper I wrote, this is actually a paper I wrote in grade-school in 2007 on the top of Mexican immigration. While reading through the paper, I feel like I don't agree with myself completely anymore, it does have a few interesting points about the topic, how our country handles it, and what should be done about it.

Illegal immigration is no doubt a dangerous topic in today’s political world. It has so many different opinions, and is debated about by several groups of people who will never really back down from their side of the issue. As everyone well knows, America was and always will be an immigrant country, as everyone in our country migrated from somewhere, in one way or another. There are two forms of immigration, though, legal and illegal immigration. Legal Immigration is the way the American government wants new immigrants to take, however many illegal immigrants come into America. Most of these illegal immigrants come from Mexico, directly over the border. The reasons for the immigrants coming are numerous. This includes better pay rate for their families, or seeking a better life. Some Mexican immigrants bring their entire families over the border. There has been many problems in the United States caused by this outbreak, and many Americans are affected in many ways. For example, many legal United States citizens, especially unskilled laborers, lose their jobs to Mexican immigrants, who can be paid significantly less because the pay rate in Mexico is even worse. Furthermore, these immigrants do not pay income taxes, so the government loses money they would otherwise gain from a legal citizen working. It is clear that these illegal immigrants are causing harm to America.

    Like everything in America, there are many different sides and stories about this issue. There are some people who don’t see a problem, and don’t mind if they migrate illegally. However, others believe that this is a major problem and must be stopped. The conservative side, or republicans, view this as an issue that should be remedied however possible. The liberals, or democrats believe that the immigrants should become citizens and should be able to stay. While there are certainly both logical and moral merits to each side, I believe that neither of these views are entirely correct. To try to stop immigration makes us look greedy, and unwilling to help others less fortunate than us. Also, Mexican immigrants usually take the jobs that most Americans don’t want to do anyway. But there are some Americans that would do them, so we can’t just allow everyone to come on in. The American government and the lower-class American workers would lose tons of money, which is never good.

A top-issue, it is often debated whether illegal immigration is negative.

    While I don’t have any real personal experiences with this topic, I tend to dislike injustice and prejudice. At the same time, however, I hate anything that takes advantage of something, like the Mexican immigrants trying to take advantage of the United States. Such acts are no better than a leech, and the leeches will keep sucking money out of the United States mercilessly until there is nothing left. Over the Spring Break, I took a trip to Mexico. We went to Piedras Negras, a border town, no more than 20 miles from American soil. Even there, it was shocking. While some of the city was exciting and modern, if you go to the slums you get a new perspective. There were many families that were living in houses built with scraps from the nearby junkyard, with no heating or running water. Even the better houses in these areas looked poorly made, very small and not made from sturdy materials. There were also government housing, which were very small townhouses in which the lower class would never be able to get out of due to their price. This encounter was a completely eye-opener. Piedras Negras is known to be one of the nicest cities in Mexico, and there is still all this rubbish. I did not even want to imagine what the rest of Mexico was like. While I was down there, I interviewed a Mr. Nate, a full-time missionary who is deeply involved in Piedras Negras. “Because education is so limited and the Mexican government doesn’t supply financial aid, the poorer families stay poorer, and the richer families stay richer. It’s hard to break from this cycle, especially since most Mexican children don’t go to school past 8^th grade, and some kids outside of the city are only required to go up to 4^th grade.” It’s horrible that people are so trapped, not being able to better themselves no matter how hard they try. It is completely understandable why Mexican immigrants choose to illegally enter the United States.

There has been numerous solutions suggested to fix or to calm this problem, however none of them has grown enormous support and there seems to be flaws with each and every one of them. One of the more popular ideas is the idea of a 600-mile Mexican wall built on the border of Mexico. The idea behind this originated from not being able to cover the entire border with border security. The wall would be mounted with cameras and other devises that enable anyone who tries to pass will be caught. This idea has grown a lot of oppositions, however. Besides many liberals thinking this is immoral to keep poor Mexican immigrants seeking America out, there are also economical problems with this. Building a 600-mile wall would be extremely expensive and would take years to complete. Also, there are no guarantees that border security would be able to act quickly enough if someone was to illegally cross the border. It would also be costly to keep any machinery in the wall running.

    A common solution among liberals is to simply lower security on the border. This is more for people who have the view that it is immoral to deny anyone seeking America from entering our country. This solution hasn’t been able to gather widespread support due to the conservative and even moderate opponents who realize the complications of allowing illegal aliens into the country. On the other side of the issue is raising border security, which is a common practice today. The idea behind raising border security is to increase the effectiveness of stopping illegal aliens from entering through the border. This is exceptionally popular in Texas, which has the highest rates of Mexican immigrants within it. This doesn’t have that much support, either, as it is opposed by liberals who want to help the Mexican people and it is very costly and ineffective. It is incredibly costly to pay for the wages of border security workers, and it also becomes a pain for legal Americans to travel in and out of the border. It is also ineffective, and there is no way that border security can cover the entire border of Mexico. This also causes problems with Mexican immigrants dying as they try to enter America through the harsh deserts, where border security isn’t as strong.

    Yet another solution that many people are debating over is the idea of going after employers of illegal immigrants, instead of the immigrants themselves. This has grown much more support from moderates, who find it immoral to punish poor Mexican citzens, but isn’t as popular with either the conservatives or liberals, who find this plan to be insulting to what they believe in. It could work, as it is much easier to prosecute companies than millions of immigrants, but the opposition is widespread for this. Conservatives view that this solution will harm small businesses, who may have no choice but to hire illegal immigrants. The liberals, however, view this solution as too restricting to rights of employers, and hurts immigrants too much. After all, who cares if you can get into America if no one will hire you?

    Through all the finger pointing and ridiculous solutions, there is one reasoning behind this problem that I’ve found. There is no way that America can stop this problem internally, and it must turn to an external, diplomatic issue. The Mexican government is no doubt to blame for this crisis, as they rarely provide for their lower class citizens. The fact of the matter is, Mexico should be no where near as poor as it is. Mexico is a great land with fertile soil and many resources, so the question becomes why is it so poor? The answer is that Mexico’s government, which is made up of entirely upper class Mexicans, are not willing to pay high taxes to make improvements to their failure of a country. They can do this because they can rely on their richer neighbor, the United States, and leech off of them to take care of and educate their children. It is not looked down upon, and in many cases encouraged for Mexicans to illegally migrate to America. It would not take a lot to make Mexico better, though. Mexico’s GDP, which is measured by natural resources, is 22.5 points higher than any other Latin American country, beating out Brazil. Brazil, however, does not have nearly as many problems as Mexico when it comes to quality of life. Why, is it then, that Mexico cannot create a realistic world for their citizens to live in? For this reason, my solutions are designed to “fix” Mexico.

In both solutions I will present, I do not blame Mexican immigrants for coming to America. I understand that these immigrants do so to have at the very least a decent life, and to support their families. For that reason, I propose that any illegal immigrants currently in America should be able to stay and become legal citizens of the United States, and bring any immediate families from Mexico with them. This would have a deadline, of course, and any illegal immigrants found in the Untied States after the deadline will be sent back to where they came from. However, we still must stop the current immigration by remedying the problem.

    We must change Mexico for the better, and to do this I have two ideas. My first solution is far less drastic than my second, and perhaps more realistic to gain support as well. While it is certainly an investment, it will keep us from losing money in the future due to damages from illegal aliens, which will add up to a far greater amount. This solution is to support Mexican programs to provide them with adequate education, fair chances to get further learning, to help Mexican small business grow, and provide work to unemployed Mexicans that will also have positive influences on the Mexican environment. It may seem strange another country’s government to be supplying these things, however the Mexican government refuses to do it for their own people. Therefore, to save future money we must do it as soon as possible. Then, if the Mexican government becomes more willing to handle their more beneficial nation, we will continue to fund them for some years to help them build up programs of their own.

   My other plan may take military action, and that is why many people may be against it. In my opinion, this solution should only be used if my first plan is a failure. In this solution, the United States needs to confront Mexico about this issue, and force them to shape up. It shouldn’t be that hard for them to make their country better, if they are willing, so this is not a impossible request. America might also provide small funding towards the Mexican government to help them with this process, but not a whole lot. It would be the Mexican government’s responsibility to raise the quality of life for their own people, not the United States’. This should be enough for Mexico to listen, as America is a world superpower, and it should be able to be done with minimal spending. However, if they refuse to cooperate, we cannot take back our threats and military action should be taken. 

   Of course, my solutions would not be without opposition. However, there isn’t many reasonable arguments that could be made against them. An argument that may be made against my first solution is most primarily the cost. Like many other solutions, cost is of great importance. The difference is that most of the higher cost solutions don’t have a very high chance of actually working, and is not for a good cause. Investing money to make Mexico better is not only a good cause, but it is also something that will almost undoubtedly keep Mexican illegal immigration down. My second solution is likely to have much more opposition, such as the questionable possibility of military action. However, drastic times often lead to drastic measures. If we do not solve this problem, it is likely that it will do great harm to the United States. Mexico cannot leech off of America forever, it must end now.