The issue of immigration in America is a serious one because it touches on the illegality of the phenomenon. With the advent of globalization, this problem became prevalent as unlike other developed worlds, America became more receptive of immigrants through more open borders. The country started to witness global immigration from the early twentieth century following the end of World War I when European immigrants entered in great numbers (Laud, 2015). Further, according to Laud (2015), in the twenty-first century, more immigrants have been entering the country from many parts of the world including Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Currently, more than 10 million illegal immigrants are residing in the country, and the number is increasing rapidly, with more than 700,000 undocumented aliens entering the country on a yearly basis. Illegal immigration poses a security threat to the US, as a more significant problem compared to the economic risk. This problem is compounded by the fact that the country lacks a comprehensive system that can identify all the foreign persons living within its borders to know the legal and illegal immigrants present.
Symbolic Interactionism Approach to Immigration
Immigration is one of the issues that arouse a touchy debate in the USA. There are different sociological perspectives to this question including the functionalist, conflict as well as symbolic interactions theories. A symbolic interaction theory tends to evaluate how face-to-face interactions form the social world. It argues that people’s actions are driven by shared meanings, orientations as well as assumptions. Immigrants elicit certain perceptions of the natives and in turn, the same immigrants from different perceptions about themselves in consideration of how they are being perceived. In America, natives have had negative perceptions of immigrants following bad publicity by the media, existing legislation and perceived group threat. In the early twentieth century when European immigrants flocked into the US, they were perceived as “job takers” and criminals who negatively disrupted the economic prosperity of the natives and jeopardized peace (Lee, 2009).
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The influx of other nationalities from the twenty-first century into the U.S. has also resulted in at the same negative attitudes. For example, Latino Americans face racism as a result of natives considering them as a threat to the economy through the provision of cheaper unskilled labor which takes away jobs that would be done by natives at higher labor rates. They are also considered a security threat, and these negative perceptions lead them to develop a lower perception of themselves among Americans. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre, many Americans developed Islamaphobia, perceiving every Muslim, Arab and other people who look like them regarding skin color, facial hair or dressing as a potential terrorist (Lee, 2009).
In retaliation, there have been many cases of hate violence committed against these people and in places of worship. According to Lee (2009), opponents for immigration argue that immigration takes away jobs from the natives leaving them jobless, as it is cheaper for companies to higher low-skilled immigrants. There is also the fear that the increasing immigrant population threatens to alter the native culture by introducing new cultures in the society. The ethical and moral dilemmas of immigration arise from the perceived group threat that leads to racism and backlash violence on innocent individuals.
Intervention
The world is full of poor people, and millions of them are motivated to change their situations and become rich. Coming from developing countries, they believe that moving to developed countries like America will make their dreams come true. According to Bauder (2015), many people got rich by moving from their poverty-stricken country to the US, and this has motivated many to seek greener pasture in the country. People would want to flee harsh living conditions where they cannot afford even the basic needs such as water, electricity and simplified working conditions. Their countries have poor infrastructure that does not support productivity. In developed countries, they become more productive due to better facilities. Currently, the problem of immigration raises various political, economic and political challenges and there is a need for long-term solutions. If these immigrants found better opportunities back home, immigration would be less attractive. It is thus necessary that developing countries be helped to get rich so that they can contain their citizens.
Conclusion
Immigration presents economic, political as well as cultural debates in America. It is a phenomenon that started in the early twentieth century and has continued since. Illegal immigration poses a security threat to the country, and there are no systematic measures in place to identify legal and illegal immigrants. The sociological perspective attempts to explain this problem by presenting three dominant views including social conflict, structural functionalism, and symbolic interactions. Symbolic interactions focus on how face-to-face interactions create meanings, orientations as well as assumptions. The long-term solution to this problem is to make developing countries rich so that their people would have no motivation to migrate.
Reference
Bauder, H. (2015). Migration policy and practice: Interventions and solutions (6 th ed.).
Palgrave Macmillan.
Lee, C. (2009). Sociological theories of immigration: Pathways to integration for the U.S.
Immigrants. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment , 19 (6), 730-744. doi: 10.1080/10911350902910906 .
Laud, D. (2015). The problem with immigrants (6 th ed.). Biteback Publishing.
