The future of immigration in the United States
America should remain
the land of opportunity
KATYA OVCHARENKO is a
freshman English major and a
Daily Nebraskan columnist
America is the country of immigrants. It
started allowing people to go to a new land
and settle down on it. The country of liberty
and equal opportunities was open to anyone.
But that was a long time ago. Since then
the situation has changed. Now there are
strict laws regulating immigration. The door
to the country of opportunities is closed.
The explanation is the political situation
of the United States. America needed a cer
tain number of people to get started as a
nation, as a new country.
“But why on earth,” you may ask me, “do
we need immigrants now?”
For some reason Americans forget that
their own ancestors were the same immi
grants on this foreign land, the same
strangers in the New World; they are not tol
erant and show no sympathy to the immi
grants.
This country should renew its population,
since immigrants contribute to population
growth. I’m talking about a “fresh flood”
that flows from abroad. America succeeded
partially because new, talented people were
coming here who wanted to change this place
of living to a better one.
Ut course, not every alien who comes to
this country is talented and makes valuable
contributions to its development. So is this a
reason to close the doors of immigration, just
because not everyone can succeed here?
The country must give opportunities of
living to the citizens of other countries. The
other question will be, should this opportuni
ty be given to all of them? To me, if the laws
of immigration allow just anyone to find asy
lum here, it will be nonsensical.
So who should be allowed to enter?
People who can contribute something (then
knowledge and themselves) into this society.
I would prefer immigrants who received
' good education and are able to bring new
ideas rather than those who just left schools
and all of a sudden decided that they certain
ly should live in America.
The power of the United States is in its
people. A multicultural society can’t exist
without new people from other cultures join
ing it. People come here legally and illegally.
The most painful is the procedure of getting
a visa.
1 here are a great variety of visas. Two
main types of visas are nonimmigrant and
immigrant. The latter is usually known as a
“green card.” People who have it are given
financial aid in the very beginning to help
start a new life in this country.
This country helps immigrants, people
who come and stay here, receive American
citizenship and stay in America for the rest of
their lives. Some educational programs,
which are different, sponsor international
students. Students who come here from other
countries are not necessarily staying here for
the rest of their lives.
Why should America care about people
from different countries while forgetting
about its own nation? There are a lot of com
plaints recently that Malaysian students in
our university receive financial aid. America
is helping them because of the economic cri
sis in Malaysia. The university pays for their
education here.
American students feel this is not fair that
some Malaysians are paid by the American
government. But is it so bad that the United
States should extend this helping hand to
other nations?
I am another example. It’s not a secret to
anyone that I’m an alien here. I’m an
exchange student for one year. My program
is sponsored by the Information Agency of
the United States. I was sent here to experi
ence life in a different society, with different
rules, people and, of course, a different edu
cational system.
The American government decided to
spend money on my cultural exchange pro
gram, because the participants of it - devel
oping in American society - want to bring
changes into their societies when they return
home. As they see the advantages of
American education,
they find things that
can be applied to other
countries. This way the
United States contributes
money to international
relations.
The only problem
with educational pro
grams, according to statis
tics, is that 25 to 30 percent of
legal residents in the
United States, who are
already in the country,
iena to aajusi or
change status from a fl
temporary visa to a
permanent visa. A stu- ^fl
dent visa is changed to a ^flr
green card. fl
There are so many
debates about immigration fl
and its effects these days. fl
Many people believe that
the number of immigrants ... 1
influences the number of fl
job opportunities in 'fl
America. The availability fl
of jobs decreases with fl
every immigrant coming to
the country; the labor mar- ll
ket is already overloaded with fl
immigrants, some say.
Americans are deprived of ^
work, others say. rj
But that’s not true. Most * 1
immigrants have few work
ing skills, especially those
who came recently. Do ijjfl
Americans need the same
jobs immigrants do? Hard
work for almost nothing - that’s J
what they do.
ror example, nearly an
workers in dining rooms on
our campus are interna
tional students. In part,
this is because we, aliens, are
not allowed to work off cam
pus. But mostly it’s because
this work is low-paying and
“dirty” and there’s no way
American students will do it.
Still, the number of legal
immigrants is reduced by
the government each year.
green
annually, instead of
55,000 per year as it is
now. '
We can only guess
at the consequences
of this reduction.
It will definitely
change both the
economic and
political standing
of the United
States.
Illegal aliens threaten
rights of legal citizens
JOSH MOENNING is a sopho
more advertising and political
science major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
You have no idea how much it pains me
to introduce a column with a President
. Clinton quote. But I think that the presi
& dent wasn’t too far off the mark when
he said, during his 1995 State of the
Union address, “We are a nation of
immigrants. But we are also a
nation of laws.
“It is wrong and ultimately
self-defeating for a nation of immi
grants to permit the kind of abuse of
our migration laws we have seen in
we must do more to
stop It.
We are undeniably a nation
M of immigrants. Many of us are
W the descendants of those tired,
poor and huddled masses that
came here to find the life they
couldn’t live in their native
IP— homelands. They came
from every continent, every
country and every land in search
of a more fulfilling life.
Many came here relatively
recently. Many of
our ancestors, my
own included,
arrived in this
country just a
few generations
problem, we must first know the extent of it.
According to the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service, there were about 5
million undocumented immigrants residing in
the United States as of October 1996. The
population of undocumented immigrants was
estimated to be growing by at least 275,000
each year. The two states with the largest
number of illegal aliens were California, with
an estimated 2 million, and Texas, with
700,000.
In Texas, the state most directly in contact
with the problems of illegal immigration, the
general sentiment of citizens confirm the fact
that illegal immigration has become a major
problem and that more needs to be done about
it.
A poll taken by the Austin American
Statesman in November 1997 showed that $2
percent of the 1,000 people surveyed coh^if
ered illegal immigration a serious or very^X
serious problem, and 64 percent sai3 tfie"ft^
eral government isn’t doing enough to cornet
the problem. , ^
Even when sorted by ethnic groups, the
respondents who believed that illegal immi
gration is a serious problem in the state and in
the rest of the country remained in the majori
ty
Eighty-six percent of non-Hispanic
whites, 72 percent of blacks and 69 percent of
Hispanics surveyed thought that illegal immi
gration had become a serious problem.
Now it isn’t that the Texans surveyed
belwvpthataU immigration
poll goes on.toTind thajt ^l^perceutqf |
respondents agreed that “there are -positive
benefits from legal or authorized immigra
tion.”
What the Texans seem to realize, as should
the rest of the nation, is that legal and illegal
immigration are completely separate entities,
and they should be viewed as such.
Immigration,, when authorized and pxecutr
ed legally, can be a positive and beneficial
experience for the immigrant and for all of
America. The United States offers legal immi
grants the land of opportunity, and legal
immigrants offer the United States additional
resources to the labor marketTmmigfanls;,
often provide labor in jobs that many
Americans refiise to take. Their help in these *
areas is necessary to keep many industries
alive.
Illegal immigration, on the other hand, can
lead to many negatives in society. One of the
biggest of these is the formation of prejudices
and stereotypes toward a dominant migrant
group, like Hispanics in the United States.
These stereotypes often carry over to nega
tively affect those immigrants who arrived in
the country legally.
Illegal immigrants, simply by their resi
dence in this country, show disregard for
American laws. This disrespect for the law
leads to another problem with illegal immi
gration, and that is the crimes that illegal
aliens often commit while they reside here.
Overcrowded prisons are often a com
plaint in areas With a high level of illegal
immigration. In addition, narcotics often find
their way to this country across the border,
smuggled in by aliens.
These problems, along with many others,
were a major reason that the Illegal
Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act
passed in 1996. This act was designed to
tighten controls on illegal immigration. It,
allows for significant additions to the border
patrol, greater work-site enforcement and ver
ification, increases in resources to combat
alien smuggling and aids in the removal of
deportable aliens.
It is a step in the right direction for effec
tively curbing illegal immigration in the
future.
As the president said, we are undoubtedly
a nation of immigrants. And it should be our
responsibility, as a nation of immigrants, to
ensure the right of others to legally migrate
here in the future by successfully terminating
die problem of illegal immigration today.