Illegal Immigration into The United States of America :: Immigration Immigrants Persuasive Essays

Immigration, legal or otherwise, is a coarse issue right now. Debates rageabout how many immigrants should be allowed into the body politic and how zealouslywe should guard our besidest from hot intruders. To a point, these lot becorrect, unlawful in-migration is some social function that should be stopped. People should non cross the border illegally or overstay on visits. The important question is,however, does illegal immigration deserve the massive amount of attention itreceives? No, it does not. By face at the respected immigrants of the pastand thinking about the issues in a clear and objective way, it becomes apparentthat illegal immigration (and legal immigration, for that matter) is not asvital an issue as many consider it to be.A key point in this discussion is that many of those who are vehementlyopposed to illegal immigration are also opposed to tremendous amounts of legalimmigration as well. These thinly hidden agendas mean that ofttimes the upset onillegal im migration cannot be separated from the debate on legal immigration.According to Negative Population Growth (which is a suspect source),Americans are firmly believe in tough laws against illegal immigrants and that70% of Americans want no more than than 300,000 legal immigrants to enter the U.S.per year. In fact, N.P.G. says that 20% of Americans want immigrationcompletely stopped. Taking these numbers as the truth, it is clear that Americathinks that we have too many immigrants.Such a dis want of immigration is interesting considering the success ofpast immigration. some people would say that straightaways immigrants are somehowdifferent than those of the past. However, the truth is that thesimilarities between the immigrants of today and those of the past are numerous.Their reasons for coming to this country are often similar. Many of theimmigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were compelled to leavetheir homes by the apace changing nature of their countries. In th e Europe ofthe 19th century, this meant quickly emergence population and a rapidlyindustrializing economy. In nations like Mexico and Vietnam, the same thing ishappening today, they are undergoing the same convulsive demographic andeconomic disruptions that do migrants out of so many nineteenth centuryEuropeans (Kennedy p.64).Those who are against the immigration of the 1990s also say that theEuropean immigrants of the past were culturally similar to Americans, and thatthey were more willing to assimilate and become American. Neither of thesethings are true. Old immigrant groups like the Italians and may be seen asgenerically white and American now, but when they first began moving to the