Overton 1 Alec Overton English 1010 Kimberly Strickland Almost Home For my issue exploration I chose to take a closer

look into illegal immigration from foreign countries to the U.S. and how it is affecting not only the country, but how it is affecting the people as well. Through my research I have found some very interesting perspectives that I have honestly never taken the time to think about. I have been pretty one sided on the issue until I chose to look more in depth at the different articles that I have come across from different people explaining their thoughts in many different ways. I will attempt to explain that there is more than just one side to this issue that being stuck in your beliefs will leave you un-informed like I was. Illegal immigrants are not all here living off of the government, bringing the country down. There are plenty of immigrants that I personally think could help build this country to be a better place. From reading all the articles I have found over the past few weeks, I have learned so much more about what is really going on in our country related to immigration. Before, I made all of my judgments about the issue almost completely off of what I have heard from friends, family and all the other people I see often. By doing so I have been informed on what they all believe should be the outcome of the new immigration reform, and in doing so this is where my opinion has grown from. But I was wrong, I have since made some adjustments in my opinion. In reading the fifteen or more articles all from different point of views it has really opened my eyes

Overton 2 at all of the options that we could create from having these illegal immigrants in our country. President Obama has deported out as many as 400,000 immigrants per year and still isnt enough in some peoples eyes. Its not the time for meetings but the time for a bold action by the president to fix a problem that is central to the immigration community here said Kamal Essaheb. The envision of the president is to control the borders and create some type of pathway to citizenship for the more than 11 million immigrants here in the U.S. I think we need to send all of them back to where they came from, say most of the people I spend a lot of my time with. I agree with this statement to a certain extent, a lot of the people that have migrated here are most likely from our neighboring country Mexico. A lot of people just lump all 11 million immigrants together in the statement that I have previously mentioned, some of them do deserve to be deported back to their home country because they arent contributing to our economy or our country. But some of them are trying to make a better life for themselves and their families by contributing to the country and making an honest living. Some people may think that by stopping people from coming here from other countries and not letting them take jobs away from our citizens, that it will help put a dent in the national debt. Lauren Fox, a journalist for U.S. news believes that by letting them in to our country that it can help our deficit by 1.2 trillion dollars over the next 20 years. Immigrants becoming legal citizens will pay taxes and earn

Overton 3 money contributing to the economy and over the next two decades helping the nation pull its self together.

By recreating the immigration laws, I believe that we can create some type of program to influence the immigrants that are already here to work towards getting their citizenship. I dont think that all 11 million immigrants deserve to be a United States citizen, therefore I think that the program that we develop for them to become a citizen needs to include some kind of a sorting system. If they have any criminal back ground or have a bad record of doing anything here in the U.S., then they will have to be put through a more delicate program in order to determine if they are able to receive their citizenship. The big topic on this issue is recreating the outdated laws with an immigration reform. I believe that an immigration reform is very important and that definitely has to be done. Times have changed and the 11 million immigrants that live in our country illegally are not going to be leaving any time soon. So if we can secure the border and stop immigrants from coming here illegally or slow the rate tremendously, then I think we can move towards the new and improved reform. With our borders in the condition that they are in right now, studies show that as of now white is majority at 63% and Hispanic 17% as of now. In 36 years from now they are predicting with immigration and birthrates going up in Hispanic culture, the Hispanic percentage will raise to 29%, dropping white to 47%. If we were to reduce the illegal border crossings into the United States, the percentage

Overton 4 could raise to around 52% white by 2050 but will depend on how the immigration reform changes in the next few years. The Grand Old Party GOP is another phrase that most know as the Republican Party. In an article written by Brad Bannon, he explains his prediction that if the GOP does not step up their game and try to appeal to the Latino or Hispanic community more by reelection, that the GOP will be left in the dust. Predictions show that the white population is declining as the Hispanic community is inclining fairly rapidly with their rate of births being much higher than whites. If we the republicans or GOP still want to stick around we need to figure out a different approach and figure out how to be more appealing to the Hispanic community and the majority of all of the population in the United States. Vice President Joe Bidens gave a speech saying that he wants to take action with the immigration reform right now! He describes how he believes that by allowing immigrants to become citizens will help our economy and our country continue to grow and flourish. He is becoming impatient as we sit around and talk about what should be done in the reform and he says that he has heard for too damn long that it will bankrupt us, when he actually believes that it would be a great addition in helping our economy recover. When most people think of immigration they think of illegal immigrants coming here from Mexico, thats what I used to think until I learned more about the meaning and definition of immigration. I read an article by Gary Shapiro that explains, there are more foreigners studying in the U.S. every year, we went from 91,000 in 1990 to 149,000 foreign graduate students studying in the United States

Overton 5 in 2010. By this number continuing to increase its only hurting the nations defense in his eyes, because due to our out of date immigration laws, as soon as they are done with their studies and graduate with the education bought by our government they are deported out of our country. Foreign born graduates could be a crucial help in developing a potential design that could help build and defend this country from others around the world with their skills and knowledge. Surprisingly I have changed my mind, I am not dead set on the way I thought that we should handle the major issue. It is a crucial issue that needs to be resolved one way or the other. If we dont come up with a solution the United States will have some very big issues in the future, stemming from the mass amount of illegal immigrants in our country. I found that there have been studies on what the population percentages will be if the reform does or does not happen, it is very interesting to see what our country could potentially be in thirty or forty years from now. I had a few ideas of what I thought could help our nation before I started researching this topic, but after reading so many different opinions and ideas from other people, I have overlooked the ideas that I had once had. I do think that a new immigration reform needs to take place as soon as it can. I also think that we need to have a secure border before we try to recreate our overdue reform. Having a secure bored will allow us to focus on our new system put in place to aid the some 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. today so that soon we can all call this nation home.

Overton 6 Work Cited

"Top Republicans Support Immigration Reform, but Stress Border Security Must Come First." Fox News. FOX News Network, 02 Feb. 2014. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.

Fox, Lauren. "Immigration Reform Boosts Economic Recovery." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 29 Oct. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

Shapiro, Gary. "How Immigration Reform Could Boost Our National Defense." Www.Washingtonpost.com. The Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2014. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.

Matthews, Laura. "Immigration Reform Advocates To Obama: What Happened To 'Year Of Action?'" International Business Times. N.p., 22 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2014.

Gamm, Joe. "Forum Supports Immigration Reform." News-Record.com. N.p., 21 Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2014.

Bannon, Brad. "Hasta La Vista, GOP." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 10 Feb. 2014. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.

Overton 7 Taylor, Paul. "A Milestone En Route to a Majority Minority Nation." Pew Research Centers Social Demographic Trends Project RSS. Pew Research, 7 Nov. 2012. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.

Foley, Elise. "Joe Biden: Undocumented Immigrants Are 'Already Americans'" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Mar. 2014. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.