Granting Legal Status to Illegal Immigrants

Introduction

There is a total of 11.6 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, with a large population living in the state of California (Hoefer, Rytina, & Baker, p. 23). It is estimated that, 8.8 million unauthorized immigrants come from the North America region which includes Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America (U.S. Census Bureau, p 19). The next leading region of origin is Asia with an estimated of 1.2 million immigrants, followed by about 850,000 immigrants from South America (U.S. Census Bureau, p. 22). Mexico has become the leading source of unauthorized immigration to the United States with an increase from 4.7 million in 2000 to 7.0 million in 2008 (Hoefer et al., p. 25). According to Rivera-Batiz, Latinos, specifically Mexicans, continue to migrate to the United States in large numbers and it is projected that by the year 2030, Latinos will total more than 73 million. They will constitute 20.1% of the U.S. population, and this will make them the fastest growing ethnic group (p. 489).

Immigrants live in an underground world where their needs go undetected and protects their identity from the society, it is crucial that social workers advocate for social justice and the worth and dignity of the person. In the paper, we would favor Bush's point of view to document the illegal immigrants.

Arguments

Immigration laws in the United States were established as early as the 1900s with a goal of controlling and regulating the numbers of immigration waves into this country. The Immigration Act of 1917 (39 Stat. 874) was the first restrictive immigration law passed in this country, followed by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1924 which had one basic purpose; to preserve the ideal American homogeneity. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (No. 82-414) collected and codified many existing provisions and reorganized the structure of immigration law. The INA of 1965 created the foundation of today's immigration law which resulted in one of the greatest immigration waves between the 1960s and the 1990s and resulted in more than 18 million immigrants arriving in the United States since the Act was passed (Maddux, p. 196). United States before January 1, 1982, and, who had resided there continuously.

Granting legal status would give temporary legal status to certain children brought to the United States by parents who entered the country illegally. Under the bill, if these kids go to college ...