Ethical issues in US Immigration Policies
The sun seems unrelenting as it beats down on the two families huddled together in a rickety makeshift boat. The rafters have been floating in the open sea for what seems to them like years. Their food and water supplies have run out and the littlest ones cry out of hunger. But the keep going. Because they know that once their feet touch the land of opportunity their prayers will be answered. Finally, their raft makes it to the ankle-deep waters and they are only a few short steps away from dry land and freedom. As quickly as the wave of relief and happiness rushes over the rafters, so does it disappear. The Coast Guard is there and telling them that they will be shipped back. So close to freedom.Other families know what its like to have freedom snatched away. After years of working six days a week for miniscule wages, sewing dresses or picking vegetables, they have had freedom and the opportunity of a better life taken away after being rounded up by Immigration Naturalization Services and deported back to Guatemala, Honduras, or Mexico. These are only two examples of the travesties that occur daily in the land of opportunity and freedom-the Unites States of America. The United States was built by immigrants, many seeking a
Soon, however, Americans were complaining about European immigrants as well, especially those of eastern and southern Europe. As a consequence, Congress passed a new law in 1921 based on quotas; only a certain number of individuals with a given background or heritage could move to the United States. And only 30 percent of those could be from eastern or southern Europe (Anderson, 1998, p.2). Again in 1952, we see the same kind of discrimination when President Truman signed the McCarran-Walter Act. Under this law, ideology became a criterion for admission. Political beliefs were questioned as the government sought to weed out people with even a marginally communist background (Wilbanks, 1993, p.4). This un-American attitude, according to Rosin, is spurred by the belief that immigrants are welfare sponges. Republican Alan Simpson goes as far as to threaten deportation for legal immigrants who make 'excessive use of welfare' in their first five years (Rosin, 1995,p.2). According to the article, a recent Urban Institute study shows that working-age non-refugee immigrants are less likely than natives to be on welfare. These policies demonstrate that this country has a hypocritical value system. On one hand we value our heritage and the fact that we are all descendants of immigrants overcoming enormous obstacles to come to the land of the free. We value the ideal that Emma Lazarus penned on the Statue of Liberty when she wrote "Send these, the homeless, the tempesttost to me, /lift my lamp beside the golden door!" Now the consensus and un-American attitude has become "shut the door behind you." We value our heritage so much that almost every generation has drawn up some barriers to immigration. Now we value keeping out the same people as our ancestors once were, looking for a better life and freedom. As pat Buchanan wrote in 1996 in a column against immigration, " When did we vote to rid America of her 'dominant European culture'?" He supplies the answer to his own question: "Never" (Wilbanks, 1993, p.4). Questions about the golden door. (1993). America, 168, 3. In a recent article by Carr (1999), she examines the recent immigration laws as being unethical. As an immigration lawyer she deals with immigrants seeking asylum or fighting to not be deported. One case Carr gives as an example is of a young man who was guilty of the "crime" of working in the United States without permission. He was doing work that most Americans won't do in order to support his American wife and child. Carr had to break the news of his deportation back to Mexico to him. In another case, a mother was deported away from her six-month old baby. There wasn't time to arrange for the baby to travel with her so she was sent back to Mexico alone. In her desperation to get back to her baby, she died in the heat of the New Mexico desert (Carr, 1999, p.1.) Wilbanks, Dana W. (1993). The moral debate between humanitarianism and national interest about U.S. refugee policy; a theological perspective. Migration World Magazine, 21, 15. Early immigration laws aimed to preserve the racial, religious, and ethnic composition of the United States, which was then largely European (Wilbanks, 1993, p.1). The first immigration laws were aimed at nonwhites. In 1882, for example, the Chinese Exclusion Act suspended immigration from China for s
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Approximate Word count = 2239
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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