Immigration reform Submitted by: Russ Zesiger Salt Lake Community College Criminal Justice 1010-F13 December 5, 2013

I decided that I wanted to write my term paper on immigration reform, because it is such a huge issue facing us here in America. It seems as though you cant turn on the news and not here about some new bill congress is trying to pass. I thought I would start by looking at how big of an issue illegal immigration is and if there is a real need to spend so much time and energy on it, as it seems that our government is. As I started to research this I found that the illegal immigration into the United States is massive in scale. It is reported that more than 10 million undocumented illegal aliens currently reside in the U.S., and that population is growing by 700,000 per year. To me these are staggering numbers. I think this is a sign of how dangerously open our borders are. This is a little concerning to me, after the terrorist attacks of 9-11 it makes me look at things a little differently. Typical illegal aliens come to America for work and a better life. However, they also take away value by weakening the legal and national security environment. It has been reported that three out of every 100 people in America are undocumented. Even though they pose no direct security threat, the presence of millions of undocumented immigrants distorts the law, distracts resources, and effectively creates a cover for terrorists and criminals. This is something that I think we need to take very seriously. Now that we can see that we definitely have a large number of illegal immigrants here in the US, lets look at the some of the positives and negatives that this brings with it.

2|Page

I first looked at the crime rates reported for illegal immigrants. In one report it said that in Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide target illegal aliens, as do approximately two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants. More than 60 percent of the Hispanic gangs in Southern Californiawhose membership is in the tens of thousandsis illegal. These gangs were involved with drug-distribution, drive-by shootings, assaults, and robberies. In a study by Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta estimated conservatively, that 240,000 illegal aliens had committed about 960,000 sex offenses in the United States. I then wanted to find out how much of a problem this was for us here in Utah. An article I found in the Deseret News was quite interesting it reported that Seth Ure, of the Utah Attorney General's Office, gave the commission copies of a BYU research paper on the impacts of undocumented immigrants on crime in Utah. The paper concluded that violent crime rates are at their lowest level in 30 years. This period coincides with a demographic shift of Hispanics making up 3 percent of the state population in 1978 compared to 11 percent in 2008. I found this to be quite interesting. I then looked at crime rates for the United States as a whole. New government data indicate that immigrants have high rates of criminality. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that immigrants (legal and illegal) comprise 20 percent of inmates in prisons and jails. The foreign-born are 15.4 percent of the nations adult population. In 2009, 57 percent of the 76 fugitive murderers most wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were foreign-born.
3|Page

Now lets look at some of the positives, one article I found in the Los Angeles times reported that, as of 2011, census data show that 35% of all California workers were foreign-born; 42% of the state's PhDs as well as 62% of its agricultural workers were born abroad. In analyzing the inflow of farmworkers as well as high-tech workers in local economies, researchers have identified what's called the "local job-multiplier effect" of foreign labor. It means that one job attracts other related jobs. In agriculture, immigrant labor in the fields and in processing plants has generated jobs for farm managers, sales representatives and supervisors and has helped the food and restaurant industries thrive. In an article found in Market Watch, in the Wall Street Journal it stated that Immigration increases the efficiency of the U.S. economy. Immigrants make the economy more efficient by reducing bottlenecks caused by labor shortages, both in the high- and low-skill areas. This, in turn, creates more jobs for native-born Americans. I think that there is many more pros and cons to immigration, but as I have done this research I definitely see a need for reform. So lets look at what is currently being done and what is being proposed as possible solutions, both individual states level and also the federal government level. To start with we will look at the state of Arizona; they seem to be a state that we hear about a lot right now in the news and their aggressive approach to illegal immigration. Being one of the border states, Arizona has many issues relating to immigration. I recently watched two different TV programs that looked at some of these issues. One was on the ranching communities that are close to the Mexican border. They interviewed some of the local ranchers, and the ranchers showed how they feel the need to pack guns with them at all times because of the amount of illegal drug smuggling that is coming up from Mexico. And how they feel their lives are at risk
4|Page

every day. They also talked about how hard it is to keep their ranches going as they are being robbed, fences cut, and gates pulled down etc. The other was a hunting program where it showed a couple of guys out hunting and as they were watching a water hole for game, some illegal immigrants came to the water hole and it appeared they were smuggling drugs so the guys hunting felt that they needed to get out of there because their lives were in danger. There was a story run on Fox news that told about a local rancher that was murdered by illegal immigrants. The story said that theft, robbery, vandalism and drug smuggling have always been part of illegal immigration in Cochise County, but murder is not something the cattle ranchers along the Arizona-Mexico border expected to happen to Robert Krentz.

Police say Krentz, whose family has been ranching in southern Arizona since 1907, was gunned down early Saturday morning, by an illegal immigrant while out on his ATV tending to fences and water lines on the family's 34,000-acre cattle ranch.

Andy Krentz, Krentz's oldest son, said his father was a churchgoing man who routinely went out of his way to help those in need. "My father was a very good family man". "He supported his kids, supported his family. He went out of his way to help anybody he could without regard to who they were. It didn't matter who they were." Locally, the 58-year-old Krentz was known as a good Samaritan who often brought water and helped injured illegal immigrants who tried to cross the desert in an area where summer temperatures often hit 120 degrees. From this incident and many others, Arizona has tried to really crack down on illegal immigration. Some feel that they have gone too far and others feel that they havent done enough. Arizonas Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, introduced in the state legislature as SB 1070, was signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer in April 2010. At the time of its passage, it was the
5|Page

strictest anti-immigration law in the country. The bill was scheduled to go into effect on July 29, 2010, but a federal judge issued an injunction that blocked many of the bills provisions the day before it was supposed to become law. The Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of SB 1070 in Arizona v. United States. SB 1070 is intended as an attrition through enforcement doctrine. SB 1070 mandates the carrying of proper documentation for any alien in Arizona, and it levies a misdemeanor on any person who is found without such documentation. It also requires state law enforcement officials to determine an individuals immigration status during any routine stop, detention or arrest when the official has a reasonable suspicion that an individual might be in Arizona illegally. Additionally, SB 1070 strengthens penalties for hiring, sheltering, and transporting illegal immigrants. From a national stand point I found that there are many different opinions on how to accomplish this whether you are Democrat or Republican. I went to the official White House web page to see what the current administration is proposing and this is what I found. It started out by saying that Americas immigration system is broken. Too many employers game the system by hiring undocumented workers and there are 11 million people living in the shadows. Neither is good for the economy or the country. It went on to say that the Presidents plan builds a smart effective immigration system that continues efforts to secure our borders and cracks down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants. Its a plan that requires anyone whos undocumented to get right with the law by paying their taxes and a penalty, learning English, and undergoing background checks before they can be eligible to earn citizenship. It requires every business and every worker to play by the same set of rules. Just like with Arizonas proposed law, there is many for and many against the Presidents plan. I really enjoyed writing this report and learned a
6|Page

ton. I now feel that no matter what political party you belong to or what your beliefs or feelings might be relating to immigration reform, I truly believe that something must be done to help this situation. Continuing down the same road we are on is not going to help anybody on either side of this issue.

7|Page

Works Cited
(n.d.). Retrieved November 14, 2013, from The White House: www.whitehouse.gov (n.d.). Retrieved November 14, 2013, from Department of Homeland Security: www.dhs.gov Cortez, M. (2012, August 13). Commission Studying Illegal Immagration Impact. Deseret News. Feere, J. (2012, April 13). Is Arizona's SB1070 Immigration Law Constitutional? U.S. News. Parker, A. (2012, June 19). Immagration Law change seen cutting billions deficit. The New York Times. Peri, G. (2013, June 9). Effects of immagration on the U.S. economy. Los Angeles Times. Roth-Furchtgott, D. (2013, August 16). 4 benifits of immigration reform. Market Watch The Wall Street Journal.

8|Page