Immigration to the United States

Introduction

The exact number of illegal aliens entering the United States every year is unknown. Estimates of the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States range from 7 million to more than 9 million (Reyes, Johnson, & Swearingen, 2002). While the exact number is elusive, during 1999 the INS and its patrol division, the U.S. Border Patrol, apprehended more than 1.7 million aliens who entered the country without inspection or had overstayed the term of their visa. Of those apprehensions, 90% were made along the U.S.-Mexico border (Cornelius, 76).

Most apprehended aliens are deported to their country of origin voluntarily, while others are detained temporarily until their fate can be determined. Some, particularly those claiming political asylum, are processed then released into the United States pending immigration proceedings if they do not threaten national security or pose a risk of absconding.

Discussion

Migrants managed by the U.S. correctional system are held in a variety of types of facility. Most detainees are held in federal and state prisons and local jails along with other criminal offenders. A smaller proportion are housed in INS-operated facilities specifically constructed for those charged with immigration-related offenses. Still others are held in privately managed facilities under exclusive contract with the INS (Weissbrodt, 37).

Article IV of the Articles of Confederation denied “paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice” the privileges and immunities of citizenship. It was also standard practice for states to quarantine ships bearing passengers with infectious diseases. Other state concerns were the regulating of the movement of criminals in an effort to protect citizens from crime, persons with diseases in relation to public health, and those likely to become public charges.

Every major immigrant wave since the mid-19th century has brought with it a serious increase in crime, including organized crime. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (Simpson Act) are both intended to discourage poverty-stricken aliens from coming into the country illegally. They accomplish this by restricting the eligibility of noncitizens for public benefit programs. The Personal Responsibility Act emphasizes that self-sufficiency has been a basic principle of U.S. immigration law since the earliest immigration statutes. Prior to 1965 there were very few opportunities even for legal immigrants, but with the vast expansion of welfare, since then things have changed. Prior to 1965, immigrants either relied on their own capabilities and the resources of their families, their sponsors, and private organizations or they returned to their country of origin (Cornelius, 96).

According to a study done by the Urban Institute in 1994, the greatest impact of the presence of undocumented immigrants is on the states' public education systems, not the federal benefit programs that were always off-limits to them. The estimated expenditure for providing public education to undocumented aliens across seven states for fiscal year 1993 was $3.1 billion (as compared with $1.9 billion estimated to have been collected in taxes from these same “illegal immigrants”).

The current grounds for exclusion are the following: communicable diseases, ...