Immigration Lawyers: Find the Right One for You

Introduction 

Immigration policy has been a predominant theme in the political discourse of the United States. In recent years, the debate on immigration policy has focused on the United States claiming that terrorists pose as immigrants or refugees in order to gain entry into the U.S. and the large-scale illegal migration from Latin America (Champlin & Knoedler, 2020) . Immigration has been an unavoidable and essential aspect of American society throughout its history and a controversial political issue (Champlin & Knoedler, 2020) . For years, Congress has been unable to reach a consensus on comprehensive reforms and, thus, delegated some of the significant policy decisions to the judicial and executive branches of the government (Filindra & Goodman, 2019) . Immigration laws have direct and indirect effects on state and local governments in the form of the structure of their citizenry, their budgets, the quality and utilization of their services, and the general political, economic, and social aspects of their communities (Champlin & Knoedler, 2020) . Since 1990, the immigrant population has more than doubled from 20 million to 45 million, representing the largest migration of immigrant population into the United States (Filindra & Goodman, 2019) . During the same period, the number of illegal immigrants tripled from 3.5 million to 10.7 million (Champlin & Knoedler, 2020) . The core question in immigration policy is whether the general public and lawmakers should support less migration through restrictive policies, or should they support more migration more immigration into the country through the relaxation of laws and the flawed perception that immigrants want to harm the American economy in addition to being terrorists. 

On the relationship between immigration and crime, there are two different assumptions. The first assumption is based on the premise that many of the immigrant population are young adults and researchers refer to this demographic as a "violence-prone" age profile (Filindra & Goodman, 2019) . The second assumption is based on the social disorganization theory that claims that an increase in ethnically and linguistically diverse populations may undermine social cohesion, increase residential instability, and weaken social ties resulting in crime (Djajić & Vinogradova, 2017) . Economic marginalization may also lead to higher crime rates. This is mostly related to undocumented immigrants because of their exclusion from the labor market compounded with low-level literacy levels and high poverty rates (Kevin, 2016) . From the above, immigrants may have fewer legal opportunities and may turn crime and illegal drug markets. 

On the other hand, rather than adversely stressing local communities, immigrant populations may revive local economies by starting new businesses, filling employment gaps, and increasing tax revenue (Kevin, 2016) . Immigrant populations may also strengthen rather than weaken processes of social control and reinforcing community institutions that are vital to fighting crime. 

The primary problem with restrictive immigration policies is that they are used to determine who is qualified to American and who is not. At its core, restrictive immigration policies are discriminatory as people who are deemed not eligible must be prohibited based on specific criteria (Djajić & Vinogradova, 2017) . It is without a doubt that various immigration laws in the United States have targeted individuals based on their race, national origin, religion, or sexual orientation (Kevin, 2016) . The main problem with immigration laws is whether the United States can exclude individuals based on legitimate grounds or rely on detrimental distinctions. 

Political, Legal, and Regulatory Requirements 

The United States is undoubtedly facing a humanitarian crisis at its southern border. As vast amounts of immigrant and asylum seekers attempt to gain entry into the United States, thousands of them are being detained by Border Patrol (Bean, 2019) . These numbers have exceeded the minimum holding capacity of Border Patrol facilities as immigrants have been forced to go for weeks without basic necessities (Bean, 2019) . The Trump administration has continued to make adverse changes to the immigration policies of the United States. As the world fights to avert the coronavirus pandemic's impact, the Trump administration continues to exploit it to implement its anti-immigrant agenda (Kevin, 2016) . This is a clear indication that the American immigration system is broken, and the federal government is undermining the rule of law by breaking the law (Bean, 2019) . It is also evident that the government's response to immigration policy issues has been insufficient. 

In Trump vs. Hawaii, the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed the travel ban policy by the Trump administration that prohibited the entry of Muslims into the United States from Muslim-majority countries (Bean, 2019) . The Supreme Court upheld the decision in spite of the overwhelming evidence showing the intention behind the travel ban was religious bigotry targeting Muslims. No evidence supported the security rationale for the travel ban (Kevin, 2016) . The travel ban issued by President Trump is racist and discriminatory as immigrants should be judged based on their merits and not based on their religious or ethnic affiliations. 

In 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced implementing the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy (Bean, 2019) . Under the policy, undocumented immigrants asylum seekers were imprisoned, and any children under the age of eighteen were handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services and distributed them among the 100 shelters of the Office of Refugee Resettlement and other care arrangements across the United States (Kevin, 2016) . Despite a court ruling that the separation of families was unconstitutional, the Trump administration used this strategy as a deliberate policy choice. 

A federal appeals court in the United States allowed the Trump administration to end the temporary protected status of more than 400,000 immigrants legally living and working in the United States (Filindra & Goodman, 2019) . The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was a designation created by the U.S. Congress in 1990 to give individuals from countries struck by armed conflict or any other temporary conditions the ability to live in the United States without the fear of being deported (Filindra & Goodman, 2019) . The ruling by the appeals courts means that immigrants will be required to find other methods to remain legally in the United States or depart after at least six months. However, the appellate court lifted the preliminary injunction that blocked the federal government from ending the TPS for immigrants from Sudan, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. 

In 2019, the Trump administration passed a new policy called the Inadmissibility on Public Charge grounds, commonly known as the wealth test, where immigrants must prove that they are self-sufficient before being granted permanent residency in the United States (Champlin & Knoedler, 2020) . The wealth test prohibits immigrants from entering the U.S. if they are deemed unable to financially support themselves as they would need government safety programs or becoming a burden to the government (Champlin & Knoedler, 2020) . The wealth test also punishes immigrants living in the United States who are working on becoming lawful residents if they use the government's safety net programs. Local officials and doctors allege that immigrants across the United States reported that they feared they feared that they could endanger their immigration status by seeking medical treatment and government aid during the pandemic (Champlin & Knoedler, 2020) . However, this decision was blocked by the courts of appeals for the duration of the national COVID-19 emergency. The wealth test is another immigration policy by the Trump administration to establish an immigration system that is based on money and education rather than humanitarianism (Champlin & Knoedler, 2020) . The wealth tests advocated by the federal government devalues people by reducing them to economic resources and their legal residency into the United States as transactions. 

Over the past three years, the Trump administration has made numerous changes to the immigration system to prohibit immigrants from entering the United State from gaining lawful status (Orozco-Aleman & Gonzalez-Lozano, 2018) . During the same period, the Trump administration has employed restrictive policies to maximize enforcement. Since he was inaugurated into office, President Trump has used immigration laws to prohibit the entry of immigrants in the United States, which has made the process less reliable, transparent, consistent, and shielded from public scrutiny ((Blake, 2017) . Lawmakers and the American population should recognize that the current immigration system and laws are dysfunctional. A significant gap exists between how the laws have been drafted on the books and the reality that precedes in immigrant households, schools, communities, and workplaces across the nation (Orozco-Aleman & Gonzalez-Lozano, 2018) . The country must strive to build a system that meets the American people's actual needs and operate as designed. 

The nation should re-establish its promise to protecting immigrants and asylum seekers in the United States. However, the country's asylum laws should be used to meet the legal obligations of the U.S. and international humanitarian law to protect individuals fleeing their countries for fear of torture, death, and persecution (Blake, 2017) . However, this does not mean that every person requesting entry to the United States must be given permanent entry, nor does it mean that the response to the extreme poverty and violence happening in other countries should be solved through the country's immigration system (Blake, 2017) . Nevertheless, the premise of the U.S. immigration laws should offer adequate protection to individuals who need it without sacrificing due process. 

Policy Overview and Historical Background 

For centuries, the United States has been the predominant destination for millions of men, women, children around the world. Immigration has been key to shaping the U.S. as a country since the arrival of the first colonist 400 years in the past through to today (Kevin, 2016) . Other than being a formidable demographic force that shaped the nation and its populace to become what they are today, immigration has wide-ranging impacts on the social, economic, and political practices that are foundational to America as a country. While immigration happened throughout the history of the U.S., the nation has experienced four peak eras of large-scale immigration -the westward development in the mid-19 th century, the peopling of the original colonies, the rise of the towns in the 20 th century, and the period at the start of the 1970s up until today (Kevin, 2016) . These peak migrations had fundamental impacts on the U.S. economy. The first migration welcomed the European settlement into the United States. The second migration enabled the country to transform from a colonial into an agrarian economy. The third highest migration was the industrial revolution that established a manufacturing economy precipitating the U.S. to become the world's leading power. Today's expansive migration corresponds with globalization that has transformed the country into a knowledge-based economy. This indicates that immigration has propelled the U.S. to new economic certainties. 

Before the 1880s, immigration into the Americas was predominantly European, driven by the Irish potato famine and industrialization in Western Europe (Kevin, 2016) . The first Chinese immigrants came to the United States in the 1850s after gold was located in California in 1848 (Kevin, 2016) . The led to the legislation of the Immigrations Act in 1882 by Congress (Blake, 2017) . The Immigration Act instituted a collection free to regulate the arrival of immigrants. The act also allowed the screening of immigrants and deemed incapable of taking care of themselves without being a liability to the public was banned (Kevin, 2016) . In 1882, Congress instituted the Chinese Exclusion Act that forbade Chinese immigration into the U.S. for ten years because of the animosity by the natives towards Chinese laborers (Blake, 2017) . In 1924, Congress enacted the Immigration and Naturalization Act that founded the national origins quota system that defined a maximum number of refugees allowed in the U.S. from individual countries (Blake, 2017) . In 1965, the national-origins system was revoked by the Immigration and Nationality Act that set aside a seven-category structure founded on family integration (Blake, 2017) . 

More than 5 million immigrants entered the United States illegally in the mid-1980s. To address this anomaly, Congress ratified the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 (Djajić & Vinogradova, 2017) . After its passing, the IRCA failed because illegal immigrants were already in the United States, and employer sanctions required by the law had weak implementation provisions that were ineffective in establishing the employment processes of illegal immigrants. During the economic expansion of the 1990s, undocumented immigration grew in the United States (Glynn, 2019) . Due to this, immigration created a negative public opinion that led Congress to pass stricter laws in 1996 – The Welfare Reforms Act that denied immigrants public welfare such as food stamps, Medicaid and Supplementary Security Income; the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that allowed the removal of illegal citizens, and prohibited illegal immigrants more extended re-entry periods, and the Anti-Terrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act that allowed the U.S. to arrest, detain, and deport illegal citizens (Djajić & Vinogradova, 2017) . 

The extremist incident of September 11, 2001 had long-lasting impacts on the United States immigration policy (Glynn, 2019) . The 9/11 attacks led to the unification of 22 state agencies to establish the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2003 (Glynn, 2019) . Within DHS, three agencies were formed – the Customs and Border Protection that governs the admission of people and goods into the U.S., Immigrations and Customs Enforcement that enforce the immigration and customs requirements, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that oversees refugee requests such as asylum and refugee requests, visa petitions, and naturalization applications (Orozco-Aleman & Gonzalez-Lozano, 2018) . Data sharing and heightened security measures post 9/11 allowed the federal government to stop illegal migration and counter those who posed a threat to the country (Orozco-Aleman & Gonzalez-Lozano, 2018) . The immediate achievement of these measures was the decline in the number of visas the federal government issues to people requesting to live, work, and visit the U.S. 

Impacts of Immigration in the United States 

Over the past decade, immigration has become a political and social issue, not only in the United States but globally. (Filindra & Goodman, 2019) This is reflected in the rise of right-wing and anti-immigrant political parties that paint the assimilation of immigrants as a threat to host societies. Controlling immigration in the United States was one of President Trump's arguments during his election campaign in 2016 and his proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Bean, 2019) The United States public has persistently been opposed to the high levels of immigration and placed immigration as a highly contentious issue. Based on public opinion, Americans appreciate the presence of immigrants and the role they have played in the development of the nations (Street, 2017) . These positive feelings are about immigrants who came into the United States earlier but exhibit negative feelings towards immigrants who came later. The American public views new immigrants as a threat to their economic well-being and as a challenge to the American identity (Filindra & Goodman, 2019) . After the 9/11 attacks, the American public stopped seeing the importance of immigration, and they changed their thinking of viewing migration as a national problem. In addition, the issue of immigration brought divisiveness in political parties, and Americans started using immigration as a criterion for voting. 

The issue of immigration is not only restricted to national policies but also at the state and local levels. In response to immigrants, cities were forced to cut on public spending and taxes. This reduction indicated that tax revenues were driven by declining tax rates (Bean, 2019) . The fall in public spending revealed that immigrants were perceived as a financial burden as they reduced the demand for the redistribution of sources from Americans. This resulted in political divisions among the American general public. Americans believe that immigration increases the labor market competition, resulting in low wages and raising the unemployment rates among American workers (Bean, 2019). Immigration policies focus on addressing the promotion of equal opportunities between immigrant and native populations as economic betterment is the only reason why people migrate into the United States. 

Undocumented immigrants in the United States are a fiscal burden on American taxpayers. Mass migrations have adverse effects on hospitals and schools (Champlin & Knoedler, 2020) . Educating and treating illegal immigrants costs taxpayers millions of dollars annually. This is in addition to the deportation and imprisonment of illegal immigrants. On the other hand, Americans must also bear the full costs in the administration of justice. Welfare benefits and other services such as assisted housing is paid to the children of illegal immigrants, which further burdens American taxpayers (Street, 2017) . Illegal immigration also results in overcrowded housing and problems related to hygiene and safety, which adversely impacts the property market in the United States. 

Other than the aforementioned negative impacts of immigration in the United States, there are positive impacts of having immigrant populations in the U.S. Analysts and experts concur that immigration increases the total economic output of the United States. An increase in the number of human capital in the form of labor force – in terms of immigrant workers enhances the productive capacity of the economy (Orozco-Aleman & Gonzalez-Lozano, 2018) . A study conducted by Street (2017) shows that the total contribution of immigrant workers in the United States is about 10 percent of the annual gross domestic product, and that of undocumented immigrants is estimated to be about 2.6 percent of the gross domestic product. Thus, Street (2017) alleges that providing legal status to illegal immigrants in the United States and allowing more immigration into the country would lead to an increase in the annual GDP by 0.33 percent in the next decade and removing all current undocumented immigrants would decrease the annual GPD by 0.29 percent during the same period. On the other hand, an increase or decrease in the number of immigrant workers in the United States would cause a disruption in the economy – an increase can overwhelm the current infrastructure or result in low wages for native Americans (Street, 2017) . In contrast, a decrease could harm businesses or result in the underutilization of housing and other similar capital. 

Researchers and analysts posit that that increase in immigration could harm the wages of low-skilled native employees. It remains undisputed that immigration leads to an increase in economic output and labor supply (Orozco-Aleman & Gonzalez-Lozano, 2018) . However, low-wage native American employees could be negatively impacted due to an increase in low-skilled labor from migrant workers as they tend to have lower skills than the overall American population. This impact can be adjusted if organizations adjust their operations to accommodate more workers based on immigration and the local population's skill mix (Street, 2017) . Analysts and researchers on this issue also claim that American- and foreign-born workers are imperfect substitutes even when they possess similar skills and educational backgrounds. 

Conclusion 

Given the ongoing immigration crisis, how does the United States decide who should be allowed and not allowed to enter the United States? Based on the premise that immigrants are terrorists and violent criminals, and there is factual evidence, the answer would be not to admit immigrant criminals who would harm the natives. Based on the premise that immigrant workers harm the economy, the answer would be not to grant entry to immigrants who will adversely affect the country's economy. The implementation of this would require the appropriate safeguards to be put in place to ascertain which immigrants fall into these categories and also designed to avoid racial biases. The redesigned immigration system must get approval from the general public to promote a system that is fair and consistent. 

References 

Bean, F. (2019). Why the united states must renew opportunities to achieve the American dream in order to reform immigration policy. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management , 39 (1), 274-279. doi: 10.1002/pam.22186 

Blake, G. (2017). Using changes in U.S. immigration laws to estimate the effect of deportations on crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. Social Science Quarterly , 98 (5), 1554-1570. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12385 

Champlin, D., & Knoedler, J. (2020). Dualistic discourse and immigration policy. Journal of Economic Issues , 54 (1), 38-53. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.2020.1720562 

Djajić, S., & Vinogradova, A. (2017). Immigration policies and the choice between documented and undocumented migration. Economica , 86 (341), 201-228. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12255 

Filindra, A., & Goodman, S. (2019). Studying public policy through immigration policy: advances in theory and measurement. Policy Studies Journal , 47 (3), 498-516. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12358 

Glynn, M. (2019). 2018 Presidential address—The mission of community and the promise of collective action. Academy of Management Review , 44 (2), 244-253. doi: 10.5465/amr.2019.0016 

Kevin, J. (2016). A political explanation of the popularity of unconstitutional state immigration enforcement laws. Journal of American Ethnic History , 35 (3), 68. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jamerethnhist.35.3.0068 

Orozco-Aleman, S., & Gonzalez-Lozano, H. (2018). Labor Market Effects of Immigration Policies Border Enforcement and Amnesty. Journal of Labor Research , 39 (2), 150-177. doi: 10.1007/s12122-018-9266-yStreet, A. (2017). The political effects of immigrant naturalization. International Migration Review , 51 (2), 323-343. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12229