Summary: The Social Reality Of Immigration

Calvin O. Moore

Dr. Daniel Ponder

Policy Making and Evaluation (PLSC 490)

3 May 2015

“The Social Reality of Immigration”

From the moment Christopher Columbus set foot in the America’s, this hemisphere has been confronted with the battles and prosperities of immigration and its effects on individuals and society. In fact, most of our relatives undoubtedly came to this country from a foreign nation with the anticipation to make an enhanced life for themselves and future generations. The private struggles these individuals had to endure: the lengthy travel, personal expenditure, the notion of leaving their families behind, and yielding to screenings by government personnel, were the experiences which united into this melting pot of culture

In fact, this was one of the major apprehensions for the framers of the Constitution. Their belief a strong, dominant, federal government could become a tyrannical monster over the rights of the states helped to form the idea of federalism and created a framework for the separate branches of the federal government all the way to the creation of government organizations at the local level. It was intended most public activities would be performed at the state and local level; however, as local and state leaders turned to the federal government for assistance to their social issues, the activities of the federal government began to expand at all levels. As the federal government expanded, so did the bureaucracy. Unfortunately, these expansions lead to a lack of policy coherence and coordination among agencies and departments and in many cases caused the duplication of federal programs, increased the number of policy system actors who have competing desires, stimulated lack of policy oversight, and in some cases shaped the lack of ability for the federal government to accomplish anything. Nowhere today has the federal governments expansion had an effect on policy agenda more than in the area of immigration. “Whether the policymaking system is efficient or not, one principle result of the necessity to form coalitions across a number of institutions is the tendency to produce small, incremental changes rather than major revamping of policies” (Peters 30). With America’s immigration policy, this is no exception. The immigration policy network actors are not only vast but their motivations are different as well. Recent conflicts between the president and Congress over America’s immigration policy have helped to redefine the powers of both institutions. In some instances motivating the leaders of Congress to threaten to sue the president over his excessive or what they perceive as unconstitutional use of