Immigration Policy Research Paper

Immigration Policy

Sean T. Griffin

St. Petersburg College Immigration Policy Each generation deals with immigrants from other countries into the United States in different ways and the immigrants usually have to deal with issues such as oppression. There are legal ways into America which are difficult and are made nearly impossible due to the foreign immigrants’ current resources and knowledge. The immigrants, who are struggling in their own countries have no choice other than to get into America in another way, illegally. The current immigration policy is proving to be failing because currently 3.5% of the United States population is built off of illegal immigrants ("5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S."). America is a

Currently America is failing to help new immigrants seeking legal citizenship gain it and is not upholding its part of the deal. Although gaining citizenship seems like a simple thing on paper, it is truly more difficult. America gains the majority of its illegal immigrants from Mexico, totaling just under half, which is currently 5.4 million people ("5 facts about illegal immigration in the U.S."). If there were more attainable methods of gaining citizenship, this would allow these people to become bigger contributors to society. Even though illegal immigrants only make up about three and a half percent of America’s population, they are slightly over five percent of the workforce (Billups). About eight million illegal immigrants are working or searching for work out of eleven million which is seventy-two percent (Billups). If the majority of illegal immigrants are working to trying to work, then even more would be with citizenship. The United States needs immigration policy reform to allow these people to gain citizenship and to allow immigrants to fully function in

However, the temporary work visas are not easy to obtain and require a specific skill set. Usually a specific employer wants the individual who meets their needs extraordinarily well would seek out the immigrant and the immigrant would not find the employer ("Green Card Through a Job"). For the immigrants seeking lifetime employment in the United States there is a limited number of immigrants per category per year totaling one hundred forty thousand ("How the United States Immigration System Works: A Fact Sheet"). Eighty thousand visas are reserved for people with advanced degrees and are not for average immigrants seeking employment. Thirty-five thousand are reserved for immigrants who have a minimum of a two-year degree and the other twenty thousand are for special purposes such as investors and religious purposes ("Green Card Through a Job"). This leaves only five thousand job visas for immigrants without any specific skills, even if they are hard