The United States of America has been believed to be the land of milk and honey for most of the individuals from the other countries, and especially the third world countries such as those in Latin America. Each year, a significant number of people immigrate into the US with the hope of bettering their lives, such as by escaping the abject poverty in their home countries. Nonetheless, the US has had to handle the increase in the cases of illegal immigration, which have affected the country in the recent past. The illegal immigrants are undocumented and in the past, have mostly come from Mexico, which neighbors the US to the south. The American government, under President Donald Trump, has been at the forefront in handling the menace with most of the undocumented individuals brought to the books of the law to return them to their home countries. However, undocumented immigrants have not had a walk in the park in the US. Most of them have been harassed by police, separated from their family members, and treated inhumanely in prisons as they await return to their homes.
The State of Illegal Immigration into the US
BBC (2019) explains that amidst the 2020 presidential elections campaign in the United States of America, president trump has relentlessly continued to push for the end of the illegal immigration issue in the country. The president has insisted that the immigration across the southern border of the US, which is mostly illegal, is a national crisis. The president also believes that the southern border allows Mexicans to immigrate into the US illegally, and unless the border is closed, the issue will exacerbate. BBC (2019) has observed that the unsanitary and filthy detention facilities that the undocumented immigrants are being held have fueled the interest of the world in illegal immigration into the US.
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The Democratic lawmakers have visited the facilities and reported that some of the detainees are forced to drink water out of toilets, thus exposing them to the likelihood of contracting waterborne diseases such as cholera (BBC, 2019). Oblivious of the appalling conditions that the detainees were subjected to, the congress passed a bill in June 2019 to send around $ 4.6 billion to address the crisis taking place at the southern border. Nonetheless, the number of undocumented immigrants in the US has been observed to reduce in 2017 compared to 1990 (BBC, 2019). The decreasing number of Mexican illegal immigrants who are leaving the US has contributed to that. A more in-depth insight into the trend indicates that more Mexicans are leaving the US compared to those entering illegally.
Frum (2019) agrees with BBC (2019) that the rates of illegal immigration into the US have decreased in the twenty-first century. Frum (2019) infers that in the twentieth century, most of the people migrated from the global south to the global north with the hopes of establishing new homes. Most of the immigrants came from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The target destinations for the immigrants were majorly the US and Europe. Out of the foreign-born living in the US now, nearly a quarter of them are illegal immigrants into the country (Frum, 2019). Therefore, if the undocumented immigration into the country is accelerated, there will be adverse effects both to the immigrants and to the locals where they are settled.
While the illegal border crossings by the Mexicans into the US are declining, there is a notable increase in illegal immigration by the Central American nationals. Frum (2019) states that the projected number of immigrants into the US may increase after the year 2027, when it is expected to settle at 14.8% of the population. Immigration has been observed to have many benefits to the US, including the startup of businesses. Notwithstanding, illegal immigration has been found to lead to an increase in the supply of labor, which has led to the lowering of salaries. With the availability of cheap labor, Americans are disadvantaged regarding their job market.
In July 2019, President Trump's administration kicked off the plan to arrest the illegal immigrants in the various parts of the US, starting from New York City and the other nine cities (Xiaoqing, 2019). According to Xiaoqing (2019), the issue of illegal immigration has, for a long time in the United States of America, been viewed as a matter of right or wrong. The weight of the human lives seems to be an issue of no concern to the president and his administration (Xiaoqing, 2019). From a legal perspective, it is wrong for the immigrants to cross the borders into the US without the appropriate documents to prove the permission to stay or work in the country. Agreeably, the US government is right to take action against illegal immigrants in a bid to end the crisis.
Nonetheless, Xiaoqing (2019) argues that the American government ought to have taken action on illegal immigrants immediately after arriving in the US. It is rather unfair for the US government under president trump's administration to drive out the immigrants after they have settled in the country for decades and established families (Xiaoqing, 2019). From a humanitarian point of view, the arrest of the illegal immigrants who have settled into the US for many years is a move to break up the families that they have established over time.
President trump's crackdown on the illegal immigrants is by itself a national crisis to the undocumented immigrants living in the various parts of the US (Goldbaum, 2019). Indubitably, some of the farms across America heavily depend on the undocumented labor force. For a long time, illegal immigrants, such as those from Mexico, have provided affordable labor to the farmers, such as those in the upstate New York. Undoubtedly, the crackdown planned by the president is a crisis for the farmers and may lead to an expected decline of the agricultural sector in the country (Goldbaum, 2019). Therefore, the crackdown is expected to adversely affect the farmers just as it will affect the undocumented immigrants.
Just as Xiaoqing (2019) observes, Goldbaum (2019) believes that the Trump administration has been overtaken by the time that the government needed to initiate a crackdown on undocumented immigrants. That is because most of the undocumented workforce serving the farmers have been around the US for decades. For the entire time, the immigrants have been living and working in the United States of America without notice by the government. Hence, Goldbaum (2019) suggests that while illegal immigration is a force that needs to be stopped, it is pointless to target the immigrants who have been in the US for decades. Such individuals and their families could be documented to continue living and working in the US legally.
The plight of the illegal immigrants reached its peak in June 2019 when a photo of a man and his daughter who were in the Rio Grande made headlines (Ahmed & Semple, 2019). Allegedly, the man and his daughter were on their way to the US from Mexico with the hopes of living better lives in the states. According to the newspaper, most of the undocumented immigrants into the US risk their all in the hopes of settling in the land of opportunities. The photo is said to have reawakened the pathos of the illegal immigrants in their quest to escape Mexico on their way to the United States of America.
Ahmed and Semple (2019) tackle the issue of illegal immigration with a focus on the possibilities of harm to individuals seeking to enter the US. Concerning the photo of the man and his daughter who drowned, the authors focus on physical threats of illegal immigration. The Rio Grande separates Mexico from the US. Many illegal immigrants from Mexico have crossed the river into the US at different points, with some of them drowning and others being attacked by animals living in the water (Ahmed & Semple, 2019). Illegal immigration into the US ends up creating more problems for the immigrants than if they stayed in their home countries or sought the appropriate documents to be allowed to settle in the US.
Contreras (2019) illuminates the issue of undocumented immigration into the US with a reference on "Living Undocumented," a documentary series that aired on Netflix. The series focused on the story of Alejandra Juarez, who was an illegal immigrant into the US from Mexico after having fled violence in her country. Alejandra was married to a retired U.S. Marine who is said to have voted for trump. The federal immigration authorities gained an interest in her case after trump became president, and eventually, she was deported to Mexico. Besides Alejandra's case, the documentary series focused on eight different families with similar cases from Israel, Laos, Africa, and Latin America. The families have tried to live their normal lives despite their family members' illegal immigration status.
Therefore, Contreras (2019) believes that the life of an undocumented immigrant in the United States of America is characterized by fear and uncertainty. The co-directors of the Netflix documentary series stated that they wanted to create a platform through which the undocumented immigrants could speak for themselves and air their issues faced in the US. The co-directors wanted the immigrants to be in a setting where they were comfortable to share their stories. The documentary series gained the trust of the immigrants and filmed them in their daily lives. Contreras (2019) infers that the illegal immigrants are like everyone else in America.
Bredemeier (2018) describes the contention that president trump has that the illegal immigrants from Mexico and the Central American countries are stealing the US. The president went on and complained about the thousands of illegal immigrants from Central America who move northwards through Mexico into the US. The immigrants bid at long shots to apply for asylum in the US, which most of them are denied (Bredemeier, 2018). On twitter, president trump insisted that Mexico had the power to stop the illegal immigrants from passing through the country into the US. The president further claimed that since the Mexican northern border works, the country should be able to reduce illegal immigration into the US.
Bredemeier (2018) provides more light on the plight of illegal immigrants to the US by describing some of the challenges that they face before they can get to their dream destination. Most of the Central American immigrants are from Honduras. The Hondurans go through the border with the intention of slipping into the US or turning themselves to the border patrol officers in case they are not successful. The immigrants walk through areas where the organized criminal gangs based in Mexico rob them of their possessions.
Stevenson and Perez (2019) add on to the challenges that the illegal immigrants face, as described by Bredemeier (2018). The Hondurans who travel past Mexico in their quest to immigrate into the US not only face the threat of being robbed by criminal gangs but also are vulnerable to police raids in Mexico. In a bid to prevent the police raids, the immigrants hop onto the infamous "The Beast," which is a freight train that connects Central America to the north of Mexico. The train is known to have caused the death of many people as they fall off their grip. Others have lost their limbs.
Stevenson and Perez (2019), therefore, argue that the illegal immigrants face many setbacks before they can even slip through the southern border of the US and hopefully become immigrants into the US, where they are set to face even more pitfalls. According to the newspaper, however, there might be hope for the US in the future regarding the reduction of illegal immigrants from Honduras who walk or take buses through Mexico. That is because of the federal police crackdown that has led to the raid of caravans of Hondurans going through Mexico in an attempt to reach the US border towards the north of the country.
The immigration of individuals into the United States of America from Central America is a crisis. Buncombe (2019) describes the struggle that the deported Hondurans go through both in the US and when they get back home. At the US border, many immigrants who have gone through Mexico are forced to stay in detention facilities where they are overcrowded, and sanitation is unobserved. Once the deportees get back to Honduras, which is often after being separated from their families, they are forced to readapt to the life they once tried to escape. Their struggle starts right at the airport, such as In San Pedro Sula, where they alight.
Just as president trump is in a visceral war to reduce the rate of illegal immigration, the immigrants detained back to Honduras claimed to want to try to enter the US illegally in a few months (Buncombe, 2019). Therefore, the US president has to think critically of a lasting solution that will keep his country free from the immigrants from Honduras, whose numbers in the united states of America are increasing day by day. In countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, not even the picture of the man and his daughter who got swept away by the water in the Rio Grande on their way into the US will deter them, leave alone president trump's active crackdown on the illegal immigrants.
It is agreeable that president trump cannot win the war against illegal immigration into his country from Central America alone. The president has been faced with the need to make allies with the president of Mexico in a bid to work together towards reducing the Honduran immigrants along with other Central American nationals. Semple (2019) talks about the pressure that President Donald Trump has placed on his Mexican counterpart regarding the illegal immigration issue. Mexico has, for a long time, been a throughway for illegal immigrants, mostly from South America, to migrate illegally into the US. With thousands of people walking through the country, others taking buses, and the rest boarding "The Beast," the country has primarily indicated its inability to control illegal immigration into the US.
Gone are the days when Mexican immigrants into the US used to be in large numbers, Guatemala and El Salvador, among other Central American countries, are now making headlines (Semple, 2019). Mexico is currently on an active raid on illegal immigrants with a target on those who migrate from the southern border of the country. Planned police raids have been taking place on the highways of the country and the towns that are known to host the illegal immigrants as they await their train rides or they walk through Mexico and northward into the US. With Mexico's aid in the war against illegal immigration into the US, president trump might be on his way towards achieving his reelection objective.
Thousands of people migrate illegally into the US every year, an issue that has been approached differently by the US federal government, the United Nations, American citizens, and the other nations across the world. While the American government under the administration of president trump is in an ongoing fight against illegal immigration into the US, farmers such as those in upstate New York have cried foul over the loss of cheap undocumented workforce. Various activists and the UN have argued that arresting the immigrants who have settled in the US illegally for decades is inhumane, given that more people have been slipping through the southern border every year. Oblivious of the massive criticism from within and without the US, president trump has continued with his crackdown on the illegal immigrants. However, the primary question remains on what the various authorities will do to end the plight of illegal immigrants into the US.
References
Ahmed, A., & Semple, K. (2019, June 25). Photo of Drowned Migrants Captures Pathos of Those Who Risk It All. The New York Times . Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/us/father-daughter-border-drowning-picture-mexico.html
BBC. (2019, July 7). What's the state of illegal immigration in US? BBC News . Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48629658
Bredemeier, K. (2018, April 2). Trump Contends US 'Being Stolen' by Illegal Migrants. VOA News . Retrieved from https://www.voanews.com/usa/trump-contends-us-being-stolen-illegal-migrants
Buncombe, A. (2019, July 16). Honduras: Inside ground zero of the Central American migrant crisis. Independent . Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/honduras-migrant-crisis-trump-us-mexico-border-immigration-a9006116.html
Contreras, R. (2019, October 4). Netflix’s ‘Living Undocumented’ probes plight of migrants. AP News . Retrieved from https://www.apnews.com/47de21f8c87948b4a9e21c33c3cbcfbd
Frum, D. (2019, April). If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will. The Atlantic . Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/david-frum-how-much-immigration-is-too-much/583252/
Goldbaum, C. (2019, March 18). Trump Crackdown Unnerves Immigrants, and the Farmers Who Rely on Them. The New York Times . Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/nyregion/ny-farmers-undocumented-workers-trump-immigration.html
Semple, K. (2019, June 3). Mexico Cracks Down on Migrants, After Pressure from Trump to Act. The New York Times . Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/americas/mexico-migration-crackdown.html
Stevenson, M., & Perez, S. (2019, April 24). Migrant caravan on the 'Beast' train to avoid Mexican police raids and make it to U.S. border. USA Today . Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/04/24/migrant-caravan-central-america-riding-beast-train-mexico/3563922002/
Xiaoqing, R. (2019, July 18). The perilous plight of illegal immigrants in US. Global Times . Retrieved from http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1158350.shtml
