ISSUE:  Immigration

 

Education and economy, prime reasons for immigration

by Sneha Pradhan '08

 

Children of some immigrant families in America are having problems adjusting to a new culture, while some are thankful to get quality education.

 

Monica Areola, a senior at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, said getting a U.S. citizenship four years ago has opened a lot of doors for her. She entered the country at age 10.

 

“In my country, there is not a lot of opportunity to go to school especially where I was from. It was a village with 200 people; the highest education was middle school,” she said. “I’ve been able to go to college, which is a big thing for my family because most of my family members haven’t had that opportunity.”

 

The reason for Areola’s family to migrate was poor economy in Mexico, which resonates with most of the legal and illegal Hispanic immigrants. The current immigration flow started with the 1982 economic crisis in Mexico. The number of immigrants grew with the economic development in the U.S. in the 1990s.

 

Census Bureau data estimates about 12 million illegal immigrants reside in America. Most illegal immigrants come from Mexico and Central America.

 

Nonprofit organizations help immigrant children adjust

 

Refugees from other countries also add to the number of immigrants in America. Lutheran Services in Iowa, a social ministry organization of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, helps refugees to enter and settle in America. Hatidza Mujakic, employment specialist at Lutheran Services, said 3,000 to 5,000 Bosnian refugees live in Waterloo, Iowa.

 

Bosnia was in a civil war in 1991. Refugees who received an affidavit of relationship from their family in the United States and approved by an American officer in the camp are allowed to enter the country.

 

“Tyson, meat company, they went to recruit refugees from other states like Chicago, New York and California,” Mujakic said.

“Everybody after they went through services, we had more and more family who want to bring them here. We could see people are happy and satisfied after coming from refugee camp.”

 

Lutheran Services did receive complaints about the Bosnian refugees making a lot of noise and listening to the music loudly, but nothing major.

“Many people needed couple of years to realize this is a different culture,” Mujakic said. “They started to realize they have to change, to adjust and to see how other people in the community are dealing.”

 

However, Four Oaks, a non-for-profit child welfare and juvenile justice organization in Iowa, have dealt with a Bosnian teenager who violated laws.

 

“He was having issues in the community,” Patrick Johnson, care manager of Four Oaks said. “Pretty much teach him social skills, anger management skills. He was in our Supervised Community Treatment (SCT) program until he moved to different facility.”

 

Reactions on migration to U.S. depend on age groups

 

Children of different ages have different reactions when moving to another country. Teenagers have a difficult time than younger children.

 

“They miss so much years not being in school and in the war. For smaller kids, everything was much better,” Mujakic said. “They adjust really fast. For the older kids, it was hard to adjust.”

 

However, illegal immigrants, between ages 16 and 29 resort to crimes such as identity theft, fraudulent green cards, tax evasion and driving without license and sex crimes. Illegal immigrants make up over 25 percent of federal prison population. In some areas of the country, illegal aliens commit 25 percent of burglaries and 34 percent of thefts.

 

Johnson said he has also supervised a few Latino teenagers, who also violated laws and had probation expectation. The teenagers also went through the three months long SCT program.

 

“Some come in and react very well and others have issues and they may not make it through our program,” Johnson said.

“Some they need higher need of care. They’re not responding to our program appropriately and need to go somewhere a little more structured and strict. Maybe it’s just the struggle they have. They’re just trying to fit in.”

 

Politicians discuss immigration, border security

 

The government has made attempts to strengthen border security with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Border Patrol agents, a primary federal law enforcement organization. Border Patrol has a workforce of over 12,700 employees, among whom 11,120 are agents assigned to patrol more than 6,000 miles of America's land borders.

 

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 43 states enacted 182 immigration-related laws this year. Some U.S. citizens have started to form their own forces against illegal immigrants with volunteers to patrol borders. One organization is the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which has some form of representation in nearly every state with more than 9,000 members.

 

The Department of Labor determined undocumented immigrants made up over one half of all agricultural workers in 2001, which is increasing as most of them take low wages. However, a record $20 billion from migrant workers was sent back to Mexico last year.

 

State Senator Bill Heckroth says some employers hire many illegal immigrants because it is cheap slave labor. “What’s happening now from a political standpoint, there is a group of people out there that are pitying the illegal immigrants against the poor white and poor black community,” Heckroth said.

 

“In essence saying these immigrants are taking your jobs. So, what they’re trying to do is to bring these parties head to head. When what ought to be done is poor white, poor black, poor Hispanic should be coming together and saying we’re all getting treated pretty poorly.”

 

The 2008 presidential candidates have different views on immigration

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Personally, I believe it’s too broad of a spectrum to lump legal and illegal immigrants together,” Johnson said. “I disagree with the candidates and we have to sit down and talk instead of lumping into one category.”