Problem Of Immigration

Addressing the Problem of:

Immigration

Intro

Immigration, as of right now is a huge problem in the United States. It has been dubbed the "nation of immigrants" by sources like huffingtonpost and heritage.org. One side of the equation will tell you "people are merely trying to get a better life" among other things along those lines, and the other side would tell you "allowing just anyone into the country opens up risk of terroism and carrying of disease and such." As big of an issue as it is, it hasn't recieved much attention until recent years because "it's expensive" and "not of immediate essence" says presidents and politicians alike. But the real problem with solving the issue of immigration is "distinguishing illusory immigration problems

from real problems." (www.heritage.org) Trying to come up with a law that 1.) morally exceptabe 2.) Directly addresses the issue of immigration and 3.) is actually practical is something that's really complicated for policymakers such as he senate that are actually at work at fixing the issue. Immigration truly became taken into consideration in around 1921 and 95 years later in 2016, we still don't have any sufficient laws that fully address the topic. This goes to show how big of an issue it is and today, I will attempt to come up with something that puts this problem in it's place.
Criterion A:
Reasearch Plan
1.) Identify Need for solution
The first step is to find out why Immigration is such a huge problem. This is neccessary because you cannot solve an equation when you don't even know what the equation is. Look for reasons and create a list, then address all problems on the list and condense it into one solution.
2.) Identify Already Existing attempts to solve the problem
The second step is key. You need to first gain an understanding of the mind frame you'll need when solving this issue. This will help you come up with your own solution, prevent you from making a solution that has already been tried and give a deeper understanding on the issue.
3.) Identify why Existing solutions did not work.
This is the followup of step 2. The fact that immigration is still an issue is a fact because there have been attempts made, but none worked, or atleast none worked fully. And their must be a reason why they didn't work too. If this reason can be identified, pointed out, and understood, then it will give you insight on what NOT to do when creating your own solution and will help prevents mistakes that will make the solution just another attempt.
4.) Identify different ways of solving the problem
They're many different ways to go about this. Use 6 thinking hats and do reasearch to try and find out ways that the problem has been looked at and try to find out why they worked/didn't work. Compile knowkedge learnt to act on the best solution possible. Or put together the good parts of all the solutions into one of the best solutions to make an even better solution. Or better yet, make an entirely new solution that addresses the problem.
5.) Pick a solution
Gather the info found from step 4 and pick the solution that will work best.
6.) Do reasearch on solution; found out how to get it done
Lets say the solution is a letter. Identify why letters are so affective in solving problems. Find examples of letters that changed laws and made differences and learn from them. Find out what those letters did wrong and don't do that; find out what they did right and do that. Reasearch how to get a letter in the consideration of the government and how to actually get them to appeal it.

What is Immigration Anyways?
Immigration, or the very definition of immigration atleast, "is the action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country." And unbeknownst to most people this doesn't just include mexicans coiming to America. Immigration can occur from many other places whether it's the middle easterns, Asians, or south Americans moving starting and ending anywhere at all, even though in this Design cycle I will be focusing on them ending up in America. (www.google.com) But there is more to it than that. Immigration is a chance to a new life. Immigration is a new start;an oppurtunity. It gives hope and is 100% a good thing....at least to some people. To the rest of us it is a problem. And understanding what it is, what type of problem it is, is the first step to addressing it.
Why a Solution is Needed
"Illegal immigration into the United States is massive in scale. More than 10 million undocumented aliens currently reside in the U.S., and that population is growing by 700,000 per year." (www.heritage.org) "The main problems caused by illegal immigration are lost jobs, depreciated wages, stolen taxpayer resources, and increased numbers of crimes and domestic terrorism. Each of these problems harms Americans in many ways.
Millions of American citizens are out of work or unable to find a job because we have 12-20 million illegal aliens in America due to politicians like Obama supporting illegal immigration instead of protecting Americans." (www.alipac.us) "As the world globalizes in terms of nations’ economies, trade and investment, borders are opened up more easily for “freer” flow of goods and products." (www.globalissues.org) These are many crediabl sources pointing out facts and reasons as to why we need to take action on immigration.

The people coming from all around the world, are a detriment to the economy in some places, but help it in others. We need a comprimise, an inbetween solution that fixes this. Immigrants bring health issues and risks into the equation bringing deadly dieseases like swine flu, dengue fever, and (possibly) Ebola virus and tuberculosis (www.judicialwatch.org) Money is being spent health care, insurance, Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation which is money coming out of our tax dollars. Not to mention the dangerous side of things that are connected to the mexican drug trade and terroism among other things. These are health, safety, finacial and all around problems on every end of the spectrum being caused by immigration on a huge scale and absolutely needs to be solved.

Target Audience

The target Audience that this law is trying to appeal to, at least from my understanding is to the American audience. Some might say "well

what about the immigrants that are actually coming into the country?'' No. They are the problem, not the solution. Yes, our goal is to somewhat come to a comprimise but we put our people first.
Primary Reasearch Needed
On the topic of Immigration, you would need an opinion on the matter from our target audience. Since the solution is supposed to address the needs and wants of the target audience, their opinion and input on the matter would be neccessary in order to come up with a solution that would meet that comprimise whilst still solving the issue. For this I, went around my neighborhood and asked (Insert number of people asked) for their opinions on whether they thought it was a good thing, what they would take into consideration if they were solving a solution, and their advice to the people who are trying to solve the problem in the first place. Here are the results:
1.) "If it's done the right way, it's a good thing. You need to be really careful about it beacause it's a sensitive topic and if you screw it up, you got a big problem on your hands."
2.)
Secondary Reasearch Needed
Secondary reasearch needed in order to solve the issue of immigration would be used to cover 1.)What problems immigration is causing. 2.) How would the solution solve these problems 3.) How do you create/act upon the solutuion; how do you make it work.
Answers
1.)
2.)
3.)
Existing Solutions to Problem
Immigration was only ever really fully taken into consideration around 1921 in the Quota Act. Though that might seem like a long time ago, it's been 95 years since and there have been alot of suggestions and attempts at solutions to the problem since then. Here are a few:
1.) The OG immigration law: 1921 Quota Act
Limited the number of immigrants from any country to 3% of those already in the US from that country as per the 1910 census (http://library.uwb.edu/)
What this act did, or even tried to do, was impose quotas based on countries birth rates that temporarily limited the amount of people that could enter the country.

The quotas were calculated in 1910, 11 years before the law itself was passed, and found about 3% of Americas births were of immigrants, so it limited entry by 3% to counteract the already present immigrants due to birth rates. It was one of the very first laws to address immigration and thus naturaly had a very big impact even though, frankly, it wasn't that good. Keyword temporarily, the 1921 Quota Act failed because it was a temporal thing. You could make the arguement that they inteded it to be that way but that doesn't change the fact that it didn't work. And to add to that, the quota did not apply to immigrant minors, government official and their families, aliens who were passing through the US or visiting as tourists or temporary workers, immigrants from countries in the Western hemisphere, to countries with bilateral agreements with the US on immigration, or to countries in the Asiatic Barred Zone (http://library.uwb.edu/) which was where the bulk of alot of immigrants were coming from. Lesson Learned: Try and make a solution that is not temporary, and has no loop holes that allows for immigrants to enter regardless

of the law.
2.) Real ID Act
Required use of IDs meeting certain security standards to enter government buildings, board planes, open bank accounts.Created more restrictions on political asylum.Severely curtailed habeas corpus relief for immigrants.Increased immigration enforcement mechanisms.Altered judicial review.Established national standards for state driver licenses.Cleared the way for the building of border barriers. (www.dhs.gov summary found in download on website)
This is one of the most recent out of all the notable immigration laws in the United States. It basically made it so that you would need a real ID to be able to live comfortably in the US. Unless you had a real ID, opening bank accounts, boarding planes and especially getting a drivers licesnce would be near impossible for the immigrants that couldn't get their ID in the first place because they aren't real citizens. Though this did make it harder for illegal immigrants that made it here, which is something we want to do so it is easier to point out and get rid of them, it only addressed half of the problem because it didn't take into consideration how to stop immigrants from coming here in the first place. Lesson Learned: Address both halfs of the problem: Dealing with them while they are here AND stopping them from getting here in the first place.
3.)1924 Johnson Reed Act
Limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. (https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act)
What this Act did was actually smart and worked wonders at the time. Though years have passed, it would be foolish to not acknowledge and skim over the fact that this act did some of the best things at the time and made significant progress on the immigration issue. Basically what it did was put an actual, numerical cap on how many immigrants could enter the US at one time. With one time the time span of a year, and the cap being 150,000. This worked because it had a quantifiable, measurable number on what should happen from the get go, and not establishing a rule, and changing it based on the results of the law after it had been appealed. Lesson Learned: Be specific when creating the solution. Use real numbers and words that make sense that leave no room for misinterpretation and get the job done from the get go.
4.) Equality Nationality Act of 1934
Allowed foreign-born children of American mothers and alien fathers who had entered America before age 18 and lived in America for five years to apply for American citizenship for the first time. (details on http://www.americanlaw.com summary found on wikipedia)
This law made an attempt to solve and address the more moral side of the arguement. What it did was approach the problem with a "meet me half way" type of attitude in letting children that aren't fully illegal stay in the US. This is feel is important step to take because the arguement on immigration isn't just a problem of money and danger it is a problem of emotion and real peoples' real struggles. Just as the results from the Primary reasearch said, peoples feelings on the issue matter as you could very easily cause utter catastrophe if you screw such a big issue up. So making these moves to try and be fair whilst still addressing the problem is key. Lesson Learned: Try and comprimise.
5.) Immigration Reform and Control Act
Gave Official Pardons to immigrants that conflicted political offenses. Started sanctions for knowingly informed hiring of illegal immigrants.