Danny Rosas Salas

English 2010

Dr. Haslam

May 16, 2022

Draft of the Failing System

One of the most unresolved topics in the United States that has never found a solution or

come to an agreement is immigration, and over the past few decades there has been a recurring

problem with the immigration system that has caused many unsolved issues and problems for

immigrants. Where millons of undocumented immigrants are not provided legal status to remain

in the United States, yet most of them have lived and contributed many benefits to the country

for many years. There is a large number of immigrants that are trying to legally come and stay

into the United States, but the current legal process can be a long and difficult process for some

immigrants and limit the amount that can come. Each person's situation is different, and for the

most part some of them can’t wait for a long time. The only solution they have is to illegally go

through the U.S. southern border, for which causes other convertersial issues that involve risking

their lives and being separated from family members. There are still possible solutions that can

help improve the immigration system by providing legal status to undocumented immigrants, so

that they can be able to live and work in the United States. Also providing more opportunities for

migration, and reducing the restrictions on immigration because it could help lower the amount

of illegal migration.

Undocumented immigrants have been a major economic and social contribution to the

United States. According to the New American Economy they conducted a research to find the

tax contributions of undocumented immigrants in the United States, and they stated that they
have provided around $20.1 billion in federal taxes and $11.8 billion in state and local taxes.

Then there is the claim that a lot undocumented immigrants are “criminals'' who broke the law

by being in the United States without proper authroization, and are causing crime throughout the

nation. The Migration Policy Institute made a report in 2015 by collecting data from the

Department of Homeland Security on the population of undocumented immigrants that are

classified as criminals. “Based on it, we estimated in a 2015 report that 820,000 of the

approximately 11 million people living in the country illegally had criminal convictions. Of

these, we estimated 300,000 had a felony conviction and 390,000 were serious misdemeanants

(meaning they had been convicted of a misdemeanor in which they were sentenced to actual

custody of 90 days or more),” (Chishti and Mittelstadt). This statistc shows how portraying

undocumented immigrants based on their legal status as “criminals” is flawed because a few

amount of them are covicted of crimes, and less of them are conviced for felony convictions. All

of these sources demonstrate how undocumentd immigrants have been a productive and

beneficial group of people to the U.S., but they are still restricted by laws that prevent them from

being able to receive driver's licenses in certain states, they are not able to vote, and most

importantly they are not allowed to work in the United States. In an article called Three New

Ways for Congress to Legalize Illegal Immigrants by Alex Nowrasetch and David J. Bier they

said, “Because of labor market regulations that outlaw the employment of illegal immigrants,

they face an estimated wage penalty of 11.3 percent relative to legal immigrants,” (Nowrasetch

and Bier). This is unfair to the millions of undocmented immigrants that have benefited the

workforce, economy, and society of the United States, for they are not paid equally to other

immigrants because they are not considered as residents or even people in this country. Where
the immigration system has neglected them from society to not be able to seek legal residence to

live and work in the United States.

The other problem that I mentioned about the U.S. immigration system is the legal

process that immigrants have to go through to obtain legal authorization to come to the country.

The Cato Institute mentions that the United States is ranked bottom third for the amount of

foreign-born people in a country’s population, and also in the per capita rate of a wealthy

country's increase of their foreign-born population. The reason why the United States ranks low

in these two categories is because of their restrictive legal process that only allows a few

immigrants in the United States. For example, the Migration Policy Institute states that the

United States grants about 1 million green cards annually in a small number of pathways for

either permanent or short-term residency. These pathways include visas for green card holders or

U.S. citizens that can sponsor close family members, employers sponsor immigrants for visas,

and immigrants needing visas through refugee or asylum to seek safety and protection. They also

mention that about 80 percent of green cards that are issued each year are towards family and

employment sponsored visas, and the Immigration Act of 1990 limits the amount of family and

employment sponsored visas given in a year. Where each country can’t receive more than 7

percent of the total amount of visas that are given each year. This has caused problems where

there are long waiting times that have left a large amount of people to wait for visas. “As of

November 2018, there were 3.7 million people waiting in line abroad for a family-sponsored

green card, and 121,000 awaiting an employment-sponsored green card,” (Gelatt). While there

also is a huge amount of immigrants that are seeking asylum and refuge from the violence and

poverty of their home countries. The Council on Foreign Relations describes the definition of a

refugee that the United States follows by saying, “As defined by the U.S. law and the 1951
Refugee Convention, refugees are migrants seeking entry from a third country who are able to

demonstrate that they have been persecuted, or have reason to fear persecution, on the basis of

one of five “protected grounds”: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a

particular social group,” (Felter, McBride, Roy) This neglects other issues that current

immigrants are trying to leave their countries including increasing gang and drug violence,

poverty, corruption, natural disasters, and famines. With these reasons being ignored many

immigrants come to the United States illegally to avoid these problems especially Latin

American countries, for a lot of migrants go through the southern border. The article Less

Enforcement, More Compliance: Rethinking Unauthorized Migration by Emily Ryo expresses

that the heavy enforcement of the immigration system has increased many immigrants' deaths

because they have been migrating in dangerous regions near the southern border of the U.S.

Next, there has been an increase in the demand of human smugglers that are associated with drug

cartels and gangs. Lastly, there was an increase in the separation of family members between

both borders.

There are still solutions that can help with these issues. First, there should be

opportunities to proved legal status to the undocumented immigrants that have done a lot of great

things in the United States. The Cato Institute has provided a couple of alternatives for this issue

in a previous article that was mentioned called Three New Ways for Congress to Legalize Illegal

Immigrants by Alex Nowrasteh and David J. Bier. The authors proposed three ideas for

undocumented immigarnts to be legalized to stay in the United States “ 1. Legalizing immigrants

through a tiered system, whereby illegal immigrants can choose to either be legalized quickly

and cheaply without the ability to gain citizenship in the future or begin a lengthier and

expensive path toward citizenship; 2. Rolling legalization by allowing long-term immigrant

residents to legalize their status on an ongoing basis without an application cutoff date; and 3.

Slowing chain immigration by limiting legalized immigrants' ability to sponsor family members

from overseas for lawful permanent residency (LPR) or green cards,” (Nowrasteh and Bier).

According to both authors they claimed that past legalization reforms failed because they were

always similar to each other, but these options are different from past reforms because they have

a different approach for immigrants to become legal that could potentially come to an agreement

in Congress. For example, the first option would give undocumented immigrants the chance to

receive legal status or citizenship, and it would be based on what path they want to go with.

Based from past legalizations a lot of undocumented immigrants would go for the work permit

than citizenship, for the article mentions that in 2009 only 41 percent of the immigrants that were

legalized under the 1986 amensty were naturalized. Next, the second option would increase

immigration enforcement with recent undocumented immigrants. Where the immigration system

would focus on the undocumented immgrants that have recently arrived in the United States, but

also legalize the other immigrants that have been in the U.S. for a long time. This would decrease

the growth of undocumented immigrants that have lived in the U.S. for a long time, and it would

also decrease the arrival of undocumented immigrants. Lastly, the third option would help give

legal residency and work to undocumented immgrants that have been doing good in the U.S., for

it would restrict U.S. citizens to sponsor close relatives because it would decrease illegal

immigraion by giving an opportunity for those immigrants to sponsor their close family

members.

Next, the solution towards the second problem is mentioned in another article by the Cato

Institute called Reforming the Immigration System: A Brief Outline by David J. Bier. One of the

solutions that the author proposes is expanding the visas for low skilled workers. Bier argues that
these type of policies significantly reduces illegal immigration because it gives the opportunity

for foreign workers to legally work and have a job in the U.S. By granting this opportunity to

immigrants it could reduce the amount of immigrants applying for asylum and refugee in the

United States for poverty, for they are given the chance to find work and earn money that can

help their financial situation. Another solution that Bier mentions is guaranteeing asylum and

protecting refugees. People seeking asylum that are able to present and demonstrate their fear of

prosecution should be provided legal permanent residency, for they should not be prosecuted on

how they entered the United States because they had a proper reason to migrate into the country.

Congress should provide protection to refugees by having a certain amount of refugees that the

president has to accept, and also provide people and nonprofit organizations the opportunity to

sponsor refugees when there is a limit on the amount of refugees. All of these solutions

mentioned by Bier can reduce the problem of illegal immigration because it is givng multiple

opportunites for immigrants to the United States without having the need to overstay their visas

or migrate illegally into the country.

In conclusion, the current U.S. immigration system is failing the long-term

undocumented immigrants that have benfited the United States, and the multiple immigrants that

are trying to come to the United States but are heavily restricted by the limitations that set on

their cases. There should be a major change by providing opportunities for undocumented

immigrants to recieve legal status, and having less restrictions for immigrants trying to apply for

residency through various options that helps their situation. Not only does these changes benefit

the immigrants that are needing help, but it also benefits the United States with multiple people

from multiple backgrounds that can bring new ideas and assistance into the society and economy

of the country. The citizens of the U.S. should realize that neglecting and restricting immigrants
will not help the United States to advance to a better future, but instead leave the country into a

land filled with ignorance and isolation from the rest of the world.

Citations

Bier, D. J. (2020, November 11). Reforming the Immigration System: A Brief Outline.

Cato.org. Retrieved April 25, 2022, from

https://www.cato.org/study/reforming-immigration-system-brief-outline#protect-refugees

Felter, C., McBride, J., & Roy, D. (n.d.). How does the U.S. Refugee System Work?

Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved April 25, 2022, from

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-does-us-refugee-system-work-trump-biden-afghanistan

Gelatt, J. (2019, July 2). Explainer: How the U.S. Legal Immigration System Works.

migrationpolicy.org. Retrieved April 13, 2022, from

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/explainer-how-us-legal-immigration-system-works

Mittelstadt, M., & Chishti, M. (2016, December 19). Unauthorized immigrants with

criminal convictions: Who might be a priority for removal? migrationpolicy.org. Retrieved April

13, 2022, from

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/unauthorized-immigrants-criminal-convictions-who-migh

t-be-priority-removal

Nowrasteh, A., & Bier, D. J. (2019, April 10). Three New Ways for Congress to Legalize

Illegal Immigrants. Cato.org. Retrieved April 13, 2022, from

https://www.cato.org/immigration-research-policy-brief/three-new-ways-congress-legalize-illega

l-immigrants
 Ryo, Emily. “Less Enforcement, More Compliance: Rethinking Unauthorized

Migration.” UCLA Law Review, vol. 62, no. 3, Jan. 2015, pp. 622–71. EBSCOhost,

https://search-ebscohost-com.libprox1.slcc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edshol&AN=edshol.

hein.journals.uclalr62.16&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Undocumented immigrants: How immigration plays A critical role. New American

Economy. (2022, March 15). Retrieved April 28, 2022, from

https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/issues/undocumented-immigrants/

Yee, V., Davis, K., & Patel, J. K. (2017, March 6). Here's the reality about illegal

immigrants in the United States. The New York Times. Retrieved April 13, 2022, from

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/06/us/politics/undocumented-illegal-immigrants.ht

ml

Revision of The Failing System

The United States has never found a solution or come to an agreement towards the

current issues of the immigration system. Where there are millons of undocumented immigrants

are not provided legal status to remain in the United States, yet most of them have lived and

contributed to the country for many years. There are also a large number of immigrants that are

trying to legally come and stay in the United States, but the current legal process can be long and

difficult for some immigrants. Where it limits the amount of migrants that can come in the

country. Sometimes the only solution they have to come through the country is by illegally going

through the U.S. southern border. There are still possible solutions that can help improve the

immigration system by providing legal status to undocumented immigrants, so that they can be

able to live and work in the United States. Also by providing more opportunities for migration,

and reducing the restrictions on immigration could help lower the amount of illegal migration.
 Undocumented immigrants have been a major economic and social contribution to the

United States. Pew Research says, “There are 8 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S.

working or looking for work in 2014, making up 5% of the civilian labor force, according to new

Pew Research Center estimates using government data,” (Passel and Cohn). Where they also

mentioned that in 2014 undocumented immgrants accounted for 24% of the workers involved in

farming occupations in the U.S., 15% of the workers in construction occupations, and 9% of the

workers in production occupations. According to the New American Economy they conducted a

research to find the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants in the United States, and they

stated that they have provided around $20.1 billion in federal taxes and $11.8 billion in state and

local taxes. Where the American Immigration Council has said, “Undocumented immigrants in

Utah paid an estiamted $129.5 million in federal taxes and $81.4 million in state and local taxes

in 2018,” (American Immigration Council). This heavily demonstrates the economic benefits

that undocumented immigrants have in the United States. With a majority of them being

involved in the workforce by working in high demanding jobs, and also providing millions of

dollars to the state and federal taxes. The Migration Policy Institute made a report back in 2015

by collecting data from the Department of Homeland Security on the population of

undocumented immigrants that are classified as criminals. “Based on it, we estimated in a 2015

report that 820,000 of the approximately 11 million people living in the country illegally had

criminal convictions. Of these, we estimated 300,000 had a felony conviction and 390,000 were

serious misdemeanants (meaning they had been convicted of a misdemeanor in which they were

sentenced to actual custody of 90 days or more),” (Chishti and Mittelstadt). There is claims that

says a lot undocumented immigrants are “criminals'' who broke the law by being in the United

States without proper authroization, and they are causing crimes throughout the nation. The data
demonstrates that claasfying undocumented immigrants as “criminals” based on their legal

status is flawed because a few amount of them are covicted of crimes, and less of them are

conviced for felony convictions. Where the majority of them are trying to work and build an

adequate and noble lifestyle.

All of these sources demonstrate how undocumentd immigrants have been a productive

and beneficial group to the U.S., but they are still restricted by laws that prevent them from being

able to receive driver's licenses in certain states, not being able to vote, and not being allowed to

work in the United States. In an article called Three New Ways for Congress to Legalize Illegal

Immigrants by Alex Nowrasetch and David J. Bier they said, “Because of labor market

regulations that outlaw the employment of illegal immigrants, they face an estimated wage

penalty of 11.3 percent relative to legal immigrants,” (Nowrasetch and Bier). This is unfair to the

millions of undocmented immigrants that have benefited the workforce, economy, and society of

the United States, for they are not paid equally to other immigrants because they are not

considered as residents or even people in this country. Where the immigration system has

neglected them from society to not be able to seek legal residence to live and work in the United

States.

There is another problem with the U.S. immigration system’s legal process that

immigrants have to go through to obtain legal authorization to migrate. The Cato Institute

mentions that the United States is ranked bottom third for the amount of foreign-born people in a

country’s population, and also in the per capita rate of a wealthy country's increase of their

foreign-born population. The reason why the United States ranks low in these two categories is
because of their restrictive legal process that only allows a few immigrants in the United States.

For example, the Migration Policy Institute states that the United States grants about 1 million

green cards annually in a small number of pathways for permanent or short-term residency.

These pathways include visas for green card holders or U.S. citizens that can sponsor close

family members, employers that can sponsor immigrants for visas, and visas for refugees or

asylum seekers. About 80 percent of green cards that are issued each year are towards family and

employment sponsored visas.

The Immigration Act of 1990 limited the amount of family and employment sponsored visas

given in a year. Where each country can’t receive more than 7 percent of the total amount of

visas that are given each year. This has caused problems where there are long waiting times that

have left a large amount of people to wait for visas. “As of November 2018, there were 3.7

million people waiting in line abroad for a family-sponsored green card, and 121,000 awaiting an

employment-sponsored green card,” (Gelatt). While there also is a huge amount of immigrants

that are seeking asylum and refuge from the violence and poverty of their home countries. The

Council on Foreign Relations describes the definition of a refugee by saying, “As defined by the

U.S. law and the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees are migrants seeking entry from a third

country who are able to demonstrate that they have been persecuted, or have reason to fear

persecution, on the basis of one of five “protected grounds”: race, religion, nationality, political

opinion, or membership in a particular social group,” (Felter, McBride, Roy). This has neglected

other issues that current immigrants are trying to leave their countries that include increasing

gang and drug violence, poverty, corruption, natural disasters, and famines. With these reasons

being ignored many immigrants come to the United States illegally to avoid these problems
especially Latin American countries, for a lot of migrants go through the southern border. The

article Less Enforcement, More Compliance: Rethinking Unauthorized Migration by Emily Ryo

expresses that the heavy enforcement of the immigration system has increased many immigrants'

deaths because they have been migrating in dangerous regions near the southern border of the

U.S. The restrictions have increased the demand of human smugglers that are associated with

drug cartels and gangs, and there has been an increase in the separation of family members

between both borders.

There are still solutions that can help with these issues. First, there should be

opportunities to proved legal status to the undocumented immigrants that have benfited the

United States. The Cato Institute has provided a couple of alternatives for this issue in a previous

article that was mentioned called Three New Ways for Congress to Legalize Illegal Immigrants

by Alex Nowrasteh and David J. Bier. The authors proposed three ideas for undocumented

immigarnts to be legalized to stay in the United States “ 1. Legalizing immigrants through a

tiered system, whereby illegal immigrants can choose to either be legalized quickly and cheaply

without the ability to gain citizenship in the future or begin a lengthier and expensive path

toward citizenship; 2. Rolling legalization by allowing long-term immigrant residents to legalize

their status on an ongoing basis without an application cutoff date; and 3. Slowing chain

immigration by limiting legalized immigrants' ability to sponsor family members from overseas

for lawful permanent residency (LPR) or green cards,” (Nowrasteh and Bier). According to both

authors they claimed that past legalization reforms failed because they were always similar to

each other, but these options are different from past reforms because they have a different

approach for immigrants to become legal that could potentially come to an agreement in

Congress. For example, the first option would give undocumented immigrants the chance to
receive legal status or citizenship, and it would be based on what path they want to go with.

Based from past legalizations a lot of undocumented immigrants would go for the work permit

than citizenship, for the article mentions that in 2009 only 41 percent of the immigrants that were

legalized under the 1986 Amensty were naturalized. Next, the second option would increase

immigration enforcement with recent undocumented immigrants. Where the immigration system

would focus on the undocumented immgrants that have recently arrived in the United States, but

also legalize the other immigrants that have been in the U.S. for a long time. This would decrease

the amount of undocumented immigrants that have lived in the U.S. for a long time, and it would

also decrease the arrival of undocumented immigrants. Lastly, the third option would prioritize

legal residency and work to undocumented immgrants that have been benefited the U.S., for it

would restrict U.S. citizens to sponsor close relatives. This decreases illegal immigraion by

giving an opportunity for those immigrants to sponsor their close family members only.

Next, the solution towards the second problem is mentioned in another article by the Cato

Institute called Reforming the Immigration System: A Brief Outline by David J. Bier. One of the

solutions that the author proposes is expanding the visas for low skilled workers. Bier argues that

these type of policies significantly reduces illegal immigration because it gives the opportunity

for foreign workers to legally work and have a job in the U.S. By granting this opportunity to

immigrants it could reduce the amount of immigrants applying for asylum and refugee in the

United States for poverty, famines, and natural disasters. Where they are given the chance to find

work and earn money that can help their financial situation. Another solution that Bier mentions

is guaranteeing asylum and protecting refugees. People seeking asylum that are able to fully

present and demonstrate their fear of prosecution should be provided legal permanent residency
immediately, for they should not be prosecuted on how they entered the United States because

they had a proper reason to migrate into the country. Congress should provide protection to

refugees by having a certain amount of refugees that the president has to accept, and also provide

people and nonprofit organizations the opportunity to sponsor refugees when there is a limit on

the amount of refugees. All of these solutions mentioned by Bier can reduce the problem of

illegal immigration because it is givng multiple opportunites for immigrants to the United States

without having the need to overstay their visas or migrate illegally into the country.

In conclusion, the current U.S. immigration system is failing the long-term

undocumented immigrants that have benfited the United States, and the multiple immigrants that

are trying to come to the United States. There should be a major change by providing

opportunities for undocumented immigrants to recieve legal status, and to have less restrictions

for immigrants trying to apply for residency through various options that helps their situation.

Not only does these changes benefit the immigrants that are needing help, but it also benefits the

United States with multiple people from multiple backgrounds that can bring new ideas and

assistance into the society and economy of the country. The citizens of the U.S. should realize

that neglecting and restricting immigrants will not help the United States to advance to a better

future, but instead leave the country into a land filled with ignorance and isolation from the rest

of the world.

Citations:
 Bier, D. J. (2020, November 11). Reforming the Immigration System: A Brief Outline.

Cato.org. Retrieved April 25, 2022, from

https://www.cato.org/study/reforming-immigration-system-brief-outline#protect-refugees

Immigrants in Utah. American Immigration Council. (2020, August 7). Retrieved May

16, 2022, from https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/immigrants-in-utah

Felter, C., McBride, J., & Roy, D. (n.d.). How does the U.S. Refugee System Work?

Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved April 25, 2022, from

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-does-us-refugee-system-work-trump-biden-afghanistan

Gelatt, J. (2019, July 2). Explainer: How the U.S. Legal Immigration System Works.

migrationpolicy.org. Retrieved April 13, 2022, from

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/explainer-how-us-legal-immigration-system-works

Mittelstadt, M., & Chishti, M. (2016, December 19). Unauthorized immigrants with

criminal convictions: Who might be a priority for removal? migrationpolicy.org. Retrieved April

13, 2022, from

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/unauthorized-immigrants-criminal-convictions-who-migh

t-be-priority-removal

Nowrasteh, A., & Bier, D. J. (2019, April 10). Three New Ways for Congress to Legalize

Illegal Immigrants. Cato.org. Retrieved April 13, 2022, from

https://www.cato.org/immigration-research-policy-brief/three-new-ways-congress-legalize-illega

l-immigrants
 ​Passel, J. S., & Cohn, D. V. (2020, May 30). 1. industries of unauthorized immigrant

workers. Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends Project. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from

https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2016/11/03/industries-of-unauthorized-immigrant-worker

s/

Ryo, Emily. “Less Enforcement, More Compliance: Rethinking Unauthorized

Migration.” UCLA Law Review, vol. 62, no. 3, Jan. 2015, pp. 622–71. EBSCOhost,

https://search-ebscohost-com.libprox1.slcc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edshol&AN=edshol.

hein.journals.uclalr62.16&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Undocumented immigrants: How immigration plays A critical role. New American

Economy. (2022, March 15). Retrieved April 28, 2022, from

https://www.newamericaneconomy.org/issues/undocumented-immigrants/

Yee, V., Davis, K., & Patel, J. K. (2017, March 6). Here's the reality about illegal

immigrants in the United States. The New York Times. Retrieved April 13, 2022, from

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/06/us/politics/undocumented-illegal-immigrants.ht

ml

Explanation:

What I did in my revisons is add two more sources into my project to make my main

ideas stronger and well supported. Then I also condensed some sentences and words to make my

project less wordy. Lastly I changed the wording to some sentences that I felt needed

improvement, and that would express my ideas clearly.