Immigration Policy
People immigrate to the United States for many reasons including education, employment opportunities, and challenges such as war, famine, floods, and other disasters in their countries. I have interacted with many immigrants who have different stories to tell. One of my friends who immigrated explained to me how his family had to immigrate to the United States from Mexico due to Hurricane Liza which destroyed their properties and left 2000 people dead. Additionally, there was severe flooding in locations such as San Jose del Cabo. His family had no other place to escape to but the United States. By being open and accessible, I was able to strike up so many conversations and hear so many stories. I also made a friend from Iran whose family escaped to the United States during the Syrian Civil War that led to the displacement and deaths of many. He told me about his mother and brother being murdered when he was five, and how his dad did not know how to help him cope and how the grief counselors changed his life- which is why he is now a child psychologist.
My friend is an undocumented immigrant living in New York. He is a special case compare to other undocumented immigrants since he is unqualified for DACA. He is turning 20 years old this year and has been living in the U. S since I was 13 years old. The moment when being undocumented hit him is during his senior year of high school when he started applying for colleges. The lack of financial aid is a problem for him because his parents are also undocumented. Their annual household income is $27k. He does not have many colleges choices as most of them are out of his budget range. It is also hard for him to find jobs as he is not allowed to work. There are a lot more opportunities he is missing out such as studying abroad, sometimes even trips with friends out of state. He cannot report crimes committed against him and has a fear of being deported when traveling out of state.
Significant policies should be implemented to address undocumented people and grant asylum status. First, undocumented immigrants who fled violence and who would have sought asylum should be provided an opportunity to petition for asylum now and have legal status in the county (Franco, 2020). Undocumented immigrants who have been abused and tortured should be dealt with in a variety of ways, for example, any existing requests for asylum may be expedited. In a broader sense, to combat the problem of undocumented immigrants, the government needs to make the legal immigration process easier and may make it easier for migrant workers to come here to work, then return home.
A different policy should also be implemented to help undocumented people gain status. This policy should be to incorporate new technologies in the immigration process. With today’s technology, immigration should be fast and straightforward for people immigrating from different countries. The government should make them legal while the system works toward determining the right outcome on a case-by-case basis. To do this, all immigrants should be given a 6-month residence and a work visa and let them work legally and pay taxes while they are in the country (Dabach et al., 2017). The visa should be easily renewable every six months as long as there is no police record. During this temporary visa process, they should be learning English and working through the process for legal immigration.
References
Dabach, D. B., Fones, A., Merchant, N. H., & Kim, M. J. (2017). Discourses of exclusion: Immigrant-origin youth responses to immigration debates in an election year. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 16(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2016.1239538
Franco, D. (2020). This land is our land: Exploring the impact of US immigration policies on social work practice. Journal of Progressive Human Services, 31(1), 21-40. https://doi.org/10.1080/10428232.2019.1583956
