Order at the Border

Order at the Border

America is thought of as the land of opportunity, so naturally people come here for just that. Our Southern neighbor, Mexico, loves opportunity. According to an article from PEW Research called 5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S out of the 11.4 million illegal immigrants about 49% of them were Mexican at the end of 2014. These numbers are still rising but have begun to level off. Mexican families cross over the border illegally looking for a better quality of life or escaping from a dreadful evil. When doing this it has certain effects on communities surrounding the border; rise in crime and jobs are being filled. There are many different solutions talked about today but I am going to focus in on three of them; the wall presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to build, addressing border security, different Congressional Acts that could be implemented.

I’ve always been interested in Mexican affairs, given that I am Mexican. So when hearing about Donald Trumps agenda to build a wall if he were to get elected raised some eyebrows for me. This got me thinking as to what could be done about illegal immigration. Could this somehow be a good plan? What other solutions have been proposed in the past?

Some who think illegal immigration doesn’t effect them are in fact wrong. Illegal immigrants usually don’t pay income taxes, so when they send their children to school, tax payers have to pay more. Virtually it effects everyone where there are a large number of undocumented people.

With almost all topics and current events I am pretty open minded to both sides of an argument. If I am not fully educated on something then who am I to say what is right. The same goes for illegal immigration. I am Mexican so I obviously sympathize with the people crossing the border, but not being fully educated on the topic I am open minded to different sides. I’d like to be fully educated on the topic through this process and form a more solid opinion of my own. What would happen if all the working illegal immigrants got deported? How would a wall effect people near the border? Do the problems immigration cause out weigh the good it causes? What are the current conditions of wall security? Will making laws prevent people from crossing over the border?

So far in my studies I have found a lot of recent, credible sources. My first article is from the New York Times named, How Mexico and the U.S. Can Fix Migration by Ernesto Zedillo and Carlos M. Gutierrez. In the article, they “propose a new bilateral agreement to regulate future flows of lower-skilled laborers between Mexico and the United States.” They then add onto their main point describing a blueprint for a “new era of cooperation”. The other article

I found relevant to my topic was named, As Donald Trump Calls for Wall on Mexican Border, Smugglers Build Tunnels by Ron Nixon. This articles main point was the struggle at the border, if a wall is built then so will tunnels. This is being taken seriously, this is proven when n Nixon states, “The Science and Technology Directorate at Homeland Security … spending several million dollars a year to fund tunnel-detection research.” Both articles will be very useful as starting points and actual references in my paper.

Works Cited

Krogstad, Jens Manuel, and Jeffrey Passel S. “5 Facts about Illegal Immigration in the U.S.” Pew Research Center RSS. N.p., 19 Nov. 2015. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.

Nixon, Ron. “As Donald Trump Calls for Wall on Mexican Border, Smugglers Dig Tunnels.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 01 Sept. 2016. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.

Zedillo, Ernesto, and Carlos. “How Mexico and the U.S. Can Fix Migration.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 12 Sept. 2016. Web. 15 Sept. 2016.