Website

The website fairus.org is as a great website to learn more about why illegal immigration is bad because it gives a lot of statistics and it is accurate. This site is very easy to navigate because of the drop down box on the left side of the website. The site is visually appealing because it is simple and does not have any advertisements or animations that distract the reader. This site is accurate because it use has the correct amount of people living in the United States, the correct amount of people that are illegal immigrants, and other statistics such like that. The websites also uses charts and graphs to give the reader some visuals. The site is also credible because it is updated constantly (the most resent being September 25, 2008) and has contributors from Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm and Representative Brian Bilbray, Chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. Fairus.org is good at only telling why illegal immigration is bad, it does not say anything about why illegal immigration can be good and it does not do a very good job telling the other side of the story. When it comes to credibility fairus.org has an apparent bias to proving that illegal immigrants are bad. For example fairus.org has a section dedicated to showing the illegal crimes that illegal immigrants have committed (http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_seriouscrime). Overall this is a great website to find information to prove that illegal immigration is wrong.

Modern Day

In today’s world most people see illegal immigrants as bad people. They think that immigrants are just in this country to sell drugs or to break laws. What they don’t know is that all immigrants came to this country to live the life that most people take for granted. What I mean by that is most people in America do not realize how lucky to live in a country where they can earn a decent pay and are free to say and practice any religion they would like. Why people think illegal immigrants are bad is because they think immigrants don’t pay their taxes and because they didn’t enter the country legally.

How the government is proposing to fix the immigration problem is by passing an Immigration Reform. In 2006 an immigration reform was proposed that would allow immigrants that have been in the country for five or more years to obtain their citizenship by paying back taxes and fines. It would also allow immigrants that have been in the country for two to five years to stay in the country without being deported but after three years they would have to leave the country and would have to apply for citizenship at the border. For immigrants that have been in the country for less than two years they would have to leave the country, but with some waiting they would be allowed to apply for citizenship. It would also allow employers to bring workers from other countries into the country for six years, but after the six years the employee would have to stay in the country from where they came from for a minimum of a year.

Some people that support the Immigration Reform are John McCain, Barack Obama, and George Bush. They support it because they want to see the immigration system fixed and want to see the stop of the exploitation of illegal immigrants. People that oppose the Immigration Reform oppose it because they see it as illegal immigrants being absolved from their crimes.

Sources:"Illegal Immigration." CQ Researcher 15 (2006): 393-420.

DeFrank, Thomas M. "Immigration Politics 2006." World Book. 19 Sept. 2008 .

Background

Immigration is known as the voluntary movement of people. Most people come to a new country to find greater opportunities. Some reason people leave their country of origin are because war, political and religious persecution, and because economic reasons.

Some people believe that the first immigrants to America were Christopher Columbus and the people aboard his ships. In reality the first immigrants were people from northeastern Asia that came to the continent of North America by a land bridge thousands of years earlier. The people that would be known as the first Americans came in the 1600’s came to make quick fortunes or escape religious persecution. Many of those people were ordinary people and many of them were too poor to pay for their voyage so they came as servants. Like many immigrants today they came to a new country for better economic opportunities. Like today many immigrants in the 1800’s faced animosity from white people and were seen as antagonist because immigrants got paid lower wages and took most of the jobs.

Why many people are tempted to enter the country illegally is because of the Quota Act. The Quota Act was designed to limit the number of immigrants entering the United States from any country by using a base year and allowing a certain percentage of people to enter the country based on how many people from that country were living in the United States in that base year. When congress first passed the Quota Act in 1921, they first set the quota at three percent and the base year at 1910. Then in 1924 congress lowered the quota to two percent and set the base year at 1890.

Sources: Reimers, David M. "Immigration." The New Book Of Knowledge. 2002.

"Illegal Immigration." CQ Researcher 15 (2006): 393-420.