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

Immigration, legal or otherwise, is a huge issue right now. Debates rageabout how many an(prenominal) immigrants should be allowed into the country and how zealouslywe should guard our border from hot intruders. To a point, these people arecorrect, irregular immigration is something that should be stopped. People shouldnot scupper 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 feeling at the respected immigrants of the pastand thinking about the issues in a clear and objective way, it makes 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 large amounts of legalimmigration as well. These thinly hidden agendas mean that often the debate onillegal immigration c annot be separated from the debate on legal immigration.According to Negative Population Growth (which is a suspect source),Americans are firmly guess in tough laws against illegal immigrants and that70% of Americans want no more 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. victorious these numbers as the truth, it is clear that Americathinks that we have too many immigrants.Such a dislike of immigration is interesting considering the success ofpast immigration. more people would say that todays 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. galore(postnominal) of theimmigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were compelled to leavetheir homes by the rapidly changing nature of their countries. In the Eur ope ofthe 19th century, this meant quickly growing universe of discourse 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 made 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