Immigration+Rights

toc =Immigration Rights=

Historical
Our view of illegal immigrants throughout history can help explain why we need to protect illegal immigrant’s rights today. History has demonstrated a negative perception of immigrants for over 50 years. The United States has restricted immigration by implementing quota systems limiting the ability of certain groups to immigrate to the United States. The quota system was established in 1921 when Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act. Its purpose was to slow down the flood of immigrants that had been pouring into the US. Based off this act, a more thorough law was signed by President Coolidge called the Immigration Act of 1924. The quota system prohibited no more than 2% of the total of any given nation’s residents in the US as reported in the 1890 census from immigrating. Although it was clear that this law was to limit the number of people immigrating to the United States, it also explicitly aimed to allow people of certain nationalities easier access for immigration than others. Within the immigration service, the US Border Control was also created by Congress in 1924 to maintain US borders to keep illegal immigrants out. These laws provide us with an idea of how the government viewed immigration, and that they obviously didn’t want more people that they’d have to support; rather, they wanted skilled immigrants that would help to strengthen our economy and country.

As for the citizens of the US and the public, support for immigrants has increasingly declined since 1965 when the US eased up on immigration laws, therefore allowing once again more immigrants into the country. The percent of the country that wanted fewer immigrants in 1965 was 33%. This percent slowly increased and in 1993, it had risen to 65%. This distaste for immigrants most likely took root in the idea that many were illegally living in the US and gained access to the benefits of welfare coverage and sustainable jobs through forged documents and ID cards while they didn’t have to pay taxes. The fact that some people do this is wrong, illegal, and they should be penalized for that in a rational manner, but not by denying them their Constitutional rights. Many people justify this argument by saying they don’t see illegal immigrants as entitled to any of the rights stated in the Constitution as they are not citizens. This has much to do with an ethnocentric attitude of people viewing outsiders and foreigners as lesser people than themselves. This attitude originated in the 1840’s along with the rise of what is known as nativism; a term created to describe the hostilities native-born people had towards foreign-born people, otherwise known as immigrants. This prejudice towards immigrants—common to that of which they had of African Americans—caused tensions and fear among the people. People assumed that all immigrants were socially unfit, lacked potential abilities or skills, stole jobs from the labor force and they feared the role they would play in the new American government. Therefore, due to these fears, they desired to stop or slow down the number of people immigrating and determined that the rights they have don’t apply to immigrants. Nativism was, and still is in some cases, a force that led to the development of human rights movements, working to disable this harbored hatred that people have and establish immigrant's rights that are being ignored due to this negative attitude. Along with being a historical force, nativism is also a huge obstacle that reformers face--trying to create a bill that will both please a majority of the people, keep things fair and safe while still granting immigrant's their natural rights.

Click the link below to learn more about the rise of nativism. [|Immigration and the Rise of Nativism]

Arizona Immigration Bill
 The new Arizona Immigration Bill, SB 1070, which allows police to pull over and suspect any one who might look like an illegal immigrant for inspection, is unconstitutional racial profiling. The only way to stop it from spreading to other states, like Ohio who is trying to mimic it, is to demonstrate complete rejection and to challenge this new law. As Americans, we need to practice what we preach; and we preach fairness, freedom and equality. This new law has been called "racist" and "unnecessary" for the terms that it allows. Constitutional rights were stated for all human beings. And we, Americans, should take pride in the fact that we have a Bill of Rights that protects our freedom by applying itself to not only natural born citizens, but to immigrants and everyone else as well. Therefore, immigrants encompass the same natural rights as natural-born citizens, which makes this law look unconstitutional. Yet other states are trying to mimic this bill based off the oppressed hatred many Americans feel towards immigrants because of our past. This bill is one of the challenges that reformers are facing.

Reactions To Immigration Bill
The Phoenix Suns expressed their opposition to the new Arizona Bill in a semifinals game by wearing jerseys that support Arizona's Latino community. The New Jersey Spurs coach proposed he wanted to do the same idea, yet he didn't have the time to plan it. An article also reported that the NBA supported the idea 100%. These are some examples of groups that are expressing protest to this new law.

This proves that there are still groups of people standing up for the rights of immigrants--people who have disregarded the popular assumptions and negative attitude most have towards immigrants. These people are using their renowned status to raise awareness of the obstacles this movement is involved with, which has worked as an effective method to overcome obstacles and enforce the rights immigrants are entitled to.

Click the links below to watch satire clips from "Colbert Nation" about the newly signed Arizona Immigration Bill. [|Colbert Nation "Docu-Drama"] [|Colbert Nation "No Problemo"]

Major Figure in Immigration Rights
Throughout history our nation has been changed a great deal by a few great men. One of these great men was born on May 29, 1917 in Brookline, MA to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald. Throughout his early years he was a rebellious boy, always jumping at the chance to cause a little bit of mischief. He once planted a powerful firecracker in a toilet and made it explode. He soon grew out of this phase and enrolled at Harvard College in 1936. In 1940, he graduated Cum Laude with a degree in International Affairs and joined the U.S. Navy. He quickly took command of Patrol Torpedo Boat and was patrolling near New Georgia when it was rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. For his valiance in saving his crewmen, (despite his injured back he helped them swim to a nearby island to be rescued) he earned various high honors and medals, including a purple heart.

After leaving the military, John decided to become a politician and married Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. He soon grew very popular in the political world until, in 1960, he announced that he intended to run for the office of the President of the United States. He won the election and at 12:00 PM, January 20th, 1961, John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States of America.

Kennedy made sure that reform of America's immigration policy was a priority of his administration. He first suggested an overhaul with the Immigration and Nationality Act. Tragically, he was assassinated before he could sign any large amount of reform into law, however the sadness over his death gave serious momentum to his policies. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was passed by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Without men such as President John F. Kennedy, the America that we live in today would not be the on the one that we have come to know and love. He did so much to make immigration a fair and equal opportunity. He shaped the world that we live in today.



Nativism
According to the dictionary, Nativism is defined as: 1) A policy favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants 2) The revival or perpetuation of an indigenous culture especially in opposition to acculturation

In simple terms, nativism is the discrimination against immigrants. It has reared it's ugly head many times throughout history in the United States as early as the 1800's. Many nativists have a tendency to look down upon the newest immigrant to the US (ironic because many have a fairly short American pedigree themselves).

This attitude and prejudice causes problems when reformers are trying to grant immigrants their natural-born rights. Also, the history of nativism explains where the present common view of immigrants came from, which is helpful when thinking about why this issue is still provoking thought today.

===Anti-Irish Feelings===

Perhaps the earliest obvious form of Nativism was the anti-Irish feeling in the 18040's. Many Irish were forced to leave their homeland during the 1840's because of the disastrous potato famine that left many dead. When they arrived in the U.S. they were poor, and many of them were catholic in a predominantly protestant country. This led to extremely unfair and malignant feelings towards the Irish that manifested in rioting and hate-fueled violence against the Irish.

Anti-European Feelings
The second major outbreak of Nativism occurred just after the civil war. The United States was entering a period of rapid expansion and industrialization, and more westward expansion, which fueled the demand for cheap, skilled labor. This labor was not easy to find in the U.S. so many Europeans seized their chance and immigrated to the U.S. in order to find good, steady jobs. This inflow included about 4 million Italians, 3 million Slavs, and 2 million Jews. This massive immigration over a 40 year period brought out rampant anti-immigrant feelings in the non immigrant population. This Nativism created groups such as the Klu Klux Klan and the American Protective Association.

[[image:http://farm1.static.flickr.com/6/5627136_180e829f5d.jpg?v=0 width="214" height="280" align="left" caption="A piece of propoganda put in place against Asians"]]Anti-Asian Feelings
Mostly on the west coast, thousands and thousands of Chinese immigrants began to appear who soon became the unlucky victims of nativist hate. The gold rush and the building of the transcontinental railroad had brought upwards of 40,000 Chinese during the 1850's. Not more than 30 years later, there were 300,000 living on the west coast. People felt threatened by their presence because they were willing to work for a very small salary and therefore could keep jobs and take jobs from Americans. This bred unbridled hatred for the Chinese in the 1800's. The Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882, was the first anti-immigration legislation. This act was implemented to suspend Chinese immigration for ten years.

Anti-Hispanic Feelings
Today, many Americans feel resentment towards Hispanic immigrants for a variety of reasons. Hispanic immigrants are the newcomers in America so they get looked down upon by the nativists just as the Irish, Europeans, and Asians did. Many illegal immigrants came to America to find jobs to support their families which also breeds bad feelings towards them because they can make money in the U.S. without paying taxes. Many U.S. citizens find this unfair and therefore are racist against Hispanics in general.

Anti-Immigration Feelings
These feelings are a major obstacle reformers face, and the fear that it draws from citizens causes citizens to feel threatened and often leads to immigrant's rights being denied. People fear that if immigration continues at present rates, there won’t be enough Americans to stand up for America, or they fear that illegal immigration induces terrorism. But the truth of the matter is that America is the most diverse country, where practically //everyone// is a relative of an immigrant—it’s how our country was formed! People come to America hoping to receive freedoms that everyone should have, but are often restricted in their former countries. If we deny them the rights that they immigrated here for, we’re denying ourselves of our freedom, as well. Therefore, there are organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who work to make sure that immigrant's maintain the rights entitled to them and to gradually diminish the negative attitudes many Americans feel towards immigration.

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The ACLU
"The ACLU is our nation's guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country." This organization was created to protect the freedoms granted to every person in our nation and to ensure that the vulnerable members of our nation, like immigrants, aren't being denied their rights.

Past
//**Immigration Act of 1924**//--Quota system that prohibited large numbers of people from immigrating to the United States and that allowed favoring of people of a certain race or with certain qualifications for easier access into the US. This bill exhibited and encouraged the anti-immigration feelings of this time period.

//**Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965**//--This act was created to end what was looked upon by many as discriminatory distribution of U.S. visas to European and Asian nations. Where previously there had been unfair distribution, the 1965 bill stated that there would be an overall quota (170,000 people for the Eastern Hemisphere) rather than singular quotas from each country that could be easily manipulated to allow for racism and anti-immigrant feelings. The only provision to this 170,000 person quota was that no more than 20,000 people could immigrate from one country per year, essentially making sure that no one country annexed too much of the quota. ​

//**Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986**//--The immigration reform bill enacted in 1986 limited immigration, granted amnesty to some aliens in the United States, refused employment to illegal aliens, and sought to restrain illegal immigration as much as possible.

//**Immigration Act of 1990**//--This act increased the number of legal immigrants allowed into the United States each year, but limited the number of unskilled workers to 10,000 per year. It randomly assigned a number of visas in a lottery program that was created to help the diversification of immigration from countries with usually few emigrants. The major goals of this act were to bring in people with skilled labor requirements and to reunite families.

With new presidents and new decades comes different immigration policy. The issue of immigration is still provoking thought today because many people are not satisfied with existing policies; therefore, policies are constantly changing. It's tough to enact an immigration policy that will please even a majority of the people because of the multitude of differing opinions on this issue. If we reflect on the history of immigration reform and policy, most movements have not been successful in the long-term. Even after several attempts at immigration reform, controversy and problems still linger today. This deals with some of the challenges reformers face when trying to grant immigrants their rights. Immigration policy in the US often interferes with immigrant's ability to attain their rights.

Present
Our government had to stop dodging the immigration problems and face it to calm down the lawsuits and protests developing throughout the nation.

The Bush administration tried to create a compromise immigration bill discussing policies connected to immigration. Its purpose was to cool down the heated debates on immigration through bipartisan reform. Republicans want to limit the entry of family members and give preferences to those who could become skilled employees, while democrats believe priority should be family reunification.

Now immigration reform moves up Obama's agenda. US Immigration reform is a raging issue in the US right now that has caught many people's attention. This has forced President Obama to take the matter into his own hands as he tries to find a bipartisan solution to the complex issue ahead. The reform includes tougher border controls, enforcement within the US, framework for temporary workers, and a path to amnesty and legal citizenship for illegal immigrants. This is a tough issue to deal with because this reform movement impacts a variety of different, and many, people. Obama and his legislation are going to play a big role in this reform movement.



1) What historical forces led to the rise of the movement?

 * Nativism
 * A growing nation with increasing opportunity

2) What methods/tactics were used to lead the movement?

 * Various types of governmental legislation/restrictions
 * Organizations working hard to raise awareness or protest for immigrant's rights

3) What major figures were involved in the movement?

 * John F. Kennedy
 * Barack Obama
 * Presidents who passed new immigration policy
 * Phoenix Suns
 * Other organizations that raise awareness like the ACLU

4) Was/is the movement successful in achieving it's goals?

 * The movement for immigrant rights in the United States has been an issue for over 100 years. It is still in the front of the minds of today's generation and the issue is changing every day. Due to the the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act adopted in 1996, there have been instances in which the U.S is not granting the rights that immigrants are entitled to. Because of these laws in place and the underlying resentment America channels towards immigration, immigrants are being denied due process and the level of harshness for punishments that they are subject to is unjust. These laws are obstacles reformers must face in order to obtain a sense of equality between immigrants and citizens. As of now, the movement has not been successful in achieving it's goals for the long-term.