Illegal Immigration In The U.S Essay, Research Paper

Illegal immigration in the U.S. is a major concern to the government to the government and it s citizens. This was not a major concern until lately in the past twenty years. There has been an alarming increase of illegal immigrants in the U.S. A debate has arisen over the amount of action that has been exerted on the behalf of the national government to control the amount of illegal immigrants in the country. This debate has brought up a controversial topic about if the national government or the state government should be in charge of controlling illegal immigration. Most of the illegal immigrants at this time are coming from Mexico, which means the bordering states are the major concern. Some of the illegal immigrants are not people that sneak into the country, but rather those that overstay their visa limit. Most of the visas over stays are for work purposes. The greatest concern at this time is Mexico. Smuggling aliens has become more frequent every year. The smugglers are willing to go to great steps to smuggle people across and are escaping before they get caught. Very few are actually caught and the illegal immigrants enter this country and disappear.

Some people believe that the state government should have the control to limit their own immigration. This could be positive or negative depending on the case. If the state had control many things would get done that are not getting done by the national government. The citizens of that state would deal with problems and more control would probably be had by the border patrol in those states. Another topic in favor is that the constitution does not say who should be controlling illegal immigration.

A few positives of the state controlling illegal immigration are the guaranteed effort put in to control the amount of illegal immigrants that enter their state. They could guarantee more power to the border patrol. Unlike, the national government that does not have much control from all the way in Washington and are not hiring more border control to bring the flood of illegal immigrants under control. Citizens and companies within a state plagued by a high number of illegal immigrants should not have to pay extra taxes and fees to support essential social services provided by the state to the illegal immigrants. This expense should be borne by the federal government as it is the government s responsibility to prevent illegal entrance by anyone into this country. (Daniels 206)

Some negatives of the state limiting it s own illegal immigration are because ofevents that have happened in the past and are happening now. One of these examples are of major factories hiring illegal aliens to work in the factories for less pay. Some government officials were paid off to let illegal immigrants into the country. Along with that this would open a door for prejudices if any state decided as a whole that the majority did not like certain people then they would not be allowed into that state from another country.

Other people believe it is better to have the national government in charge of illegal immigration. Since this is an issue effecting the whole country the national government should be the one to handle this problem. The constitution say that any disagreement between the national government and the state sides in favor of the national government.

A few positives are that the government has the funding to carry out the plans for border patrol. If the money was given to the states they may not spend all of it on the illegal immigration problem. There are problems with some of the people being allowed over now as cheap labor for factories by big factories paying off state governors and such. If the government did not control the illegal immigrants might over run a state and shut it down economically.

A few negatives of the national government involving illegal immigration are the processes it takes for anything to get through with the three branches. If a state were to write a letter to the government requesting more funds to help with the border patrol they would be denied by one of the three at least. Another problem would be that the taxes would be raised in the states where there was the problem of overpopulation due to the great amounts of illegal immigrants.

I believe that the government should be in charge of controlling the illegal immigrants in this country. I believe this because there is less chance of corruption to go on due to the many branches of government. They will check each other and determine if this is the best idea.

In conclusion, the debate over either the state government or the national government controlling immigration in their states is very controversial. Both sides have their positives and their weaknesses. The best one will end up being the one with the least amount of negatives. Whichever way there needs to be action taken to stop the great increase in illegal immigrants in this country.

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