Lyceum of the Philippine University

Intramuros, Manila

“ILLEGAL”
IMMIGRATION ON THE
U.S.–MEXICO BORDER
(PROPOSAL)

Submitted by:

Estiller, Shaira Mae S.

Ollamina, Angela Ann G.

HT125

Submitted to:

Mr. Jefferson R. Mendez

Subject Teacher
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In recent months, print and television journalists have presented the American public
with a “crisis” of illegal immigration on the U.S.–Mexico border. Much of this recent
discussion has centered on Central American children traveling alone and on allegations
that they are responding to motivations created by the Obama administration’s Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrival policy. The word “crisis,” however, can have alternative
meanings. If a “crisis” of undocumented immigration means a historically large or very
rapidly growing flow of undocumented immigrations, the overall national evidence shows
today that there is no such crisis. Border Patrol apprehensions of undocumented
immigrants attempting to cross the U.S. – Mexico border have in fact plummeted and
remain far below levels a decade earlier

Nevertheless, apprehensions of children traveling alone have indeed surged. Many of

these child immigrants are traveling alone from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.
This flow of children from Central America requires careful examination, especially if
compared to Mexico’s numbers. Although Mexico’s population is eight times Guatemala’s,
15 times Honduras and 19 times El Salvador’s, for example, the most recent partial-year
apprehensions of unaccompanied children from each one of these countries have exceeded
such apprehensions of children from Mexico. All this points to a surge of unaccompanied
Central American children. But even this has to be qualified as a true crisis or not. While
references to a record of apprehensions of unaccompanied child immigrants are correct,
publicly available data for this category only go back to 2010. Thus, it may be preliminary
to draw definitive conclusions about record numbers of unaccompanied children based on
four full-fiscal-year observations plus monthly observations into a fifth year. Other data,
including total apprehensions for any undocumented child immigrants, accompanied or
otherwise, extend more than a decade. Preliminary estimates for fiscal year 2014 suggest
that these apprehensions have remained below levels a decade earlier.

The specter of a “crisis” has often been invoked to describe the U.S.-Mexico border
region. This narrative is strategically employed to paint the border as a threat to national
security, which in turn allows issues around human rights and dignity at the border to be
ignored. Using this language, President Trump and his anti-immigrant allies have taken
steps to “build the wall,” increase the use of military-style technology on the border, raise
the number of law enforcement agents patrolling the region, and harshly punish
undocumented border-crossers. The “border crisis” narrative justifies such policies, while
in reality, issues at the border call for a nuanced understanding of history, politics, and
people.
 The importance of Border crisis is that, the United States rightly places a high priority on
securing its borders, and its partnership with Mexico is essential to achieving U.S.
objectives. Mexico has been a transit country for many migrants from El Salvador,
Guatemala and Honduras who have fled violence or lack of jobs. However, Mexico has
worked to strengthen security on its southern border, and it has seized billions of dollars in
illicit drugs and currency. In our view, Mexico’s leadership in these areas has been vital,
and Mexico has shown itself to be a dependable, committed U.S. security partner. Although
we can improve our cooperation to combat corruption, modernize border technology and
energy infrastructure, and better support human rights, in the days ahead, we believe the
United States should do more to prioritize its security partnership with Mexico and
together build on efforts that are achieving results.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

According to ( Orrenius and Zavodny, 2012). That tighter border enforcement also induces
more families of undocumented immigrants to settle permanently in the United States,
instead of relying on male family members to migrate back and forth between the United
States and, for example, Mexico. It relates to our topic because Mexicans are the largest
group of immigrants living in the U.S. They've been under pressure since President Donald
Trump called for construction of a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and said Mexico
wasn't sending its "best people." So why don’t Mexicans and other immigrants just get in
line for their green cards so they can later apply for citizenship? The immigrants and
Mexican Americans could not produce proper documentation are going to be detained

According to Mumme, Stephen P. “US-Mexico borderlands studies”. The emergence of US-

Mexican borderlands studies as an accepted and legitimate field of scholarly Endeavour has
not come easy, however, nor has it developed evenly across disciplinary areas or in subject-
linear fashion.

According to Montorio, Nicholas R. (2007) "The Issue of Mexican Immigration: Where Do

We Go From Here?," Journal of International Business and Law: Vol. 6: Iss. 1, Article 8.
xamine the issue of Mexican immigration into the U.S. from three different perspectives:
historical, economical, and political.' Analyzing this issue from these three perspectives will
illustrate its multifaceted nature and each perspective is critical to understanding the
delicacy of the Mexican immigration debate.