Given the prescience and visibility of immigration policy this political election, it is my view that it is essential for your campaign to develop a nuanced and well-informed perspective on immigration. This document serves as both my recommendation and a potential outline for prescriptive policy elements for you to consider integrating into your campaign platform. Furthermore, I would like to present similarities between the experiences of disparate immigrant groups over the course of the 20th century and place them in conversation with the plight of immigrants today. This paper will draw together these divergent narratives in an attempt to assemble a more cohesive overview of the place of immigration in American society. Hopefully, helping …show more content…
Much of contemporary sentiment toward immigrants and refugees is based on emotion and not fact; it alway has been. If emotion can be set aside, even just temporarily, then studies of the last century of American history may reveal patterns of migration and outcomes comparable to issues facing the country today. Looking to the past as an indicator of possible future outcomes can be a key tool for successful policy making, which should place an emphasis on doing the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. We can learn from our governments’ prior blunders on immigration policy, and try to enact better legislation that is not based on exploiting cheap labor and human desperation. This paper will use supporting historical evidence to support my position in suggesting that you might do well to be delicate surrounding your rhetoric on this …show more content…
Prior to the creation of the Border Patrol, travel by individuals back and forth across the border was common, with many Mexicans working seasonally in the United States and then returning home. The federal government put an end to this when it established the Patrol by quietly setting aside one million dollars for “additional land-border patrol”. Libby Garland describes these acts as the American government seizing the reins of control over immigration: the creation of quotas marked a “major turning point in federal control over immigration … [broadcasting] a deep official unease about the permeability of the nation’s borders