The Statue Of Immigration: Grow Big Or Go Home?

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Recommended: Immigration in american history 1880 1914

Valeria Martinez
Mr. Lonnemann
AP Government
1/02/2014

Grow Big or Go Home?
In 1886, the Statue of Liberty was established and had included a poem by Emma Lazarus. She included a quote that said, “ Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. These engraved words gave hope to all immigrants that would enter the United States. Do we, as a nation, still uphold or follow what this statement says? Immigration has been occurring in the United States for a great amount of years, starting from when Christopher Columbus migrated here and “discovered” America or even before he “discovered”. As of January 2011, it was determined that there were 11.5 undocumented immigrants living in the United States, which was an increase of one-third since 2000, when there were 8.5 million undocumented immigrants living here. Every year since 2000, approximately 850,000 people have legally immigrated to the U.S., but 275,000 illegal immigrants have also come to the U.S. annually. America brags about the “freedom” that it contains and many immigrants from various countries may have the illusion of “making a better life for them and their families” in America. I use the word “illusion” because immigrants don’t have the opportunity to find a better life without a path to citizenship. Acts of aggressive investigation and deportation, for example, nullify the possibility of opportunities being created. The central debate in the U.S. government on immigration is whether or not to allow 11 million illegal immigrants to stay. People are divided on whether or not these immigrants should be given “a path to citizenship.” Democrats and Republicans, as federal governments, have different perspectives on this issue of i...

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...ll, the federal government, whether a House of Republicans or House of Democratic, has power over the immigration issue which is displayed in the Constitution of Article 1, in annotated terms, says: “That the government of the United States, through the action of the legislative department, can exclude aliens from its territory is a proposition which we do not think open to controversy. Jurisdiction over its own territory to that extent is an incident of every independent nation. It is a part of its independence. If it could not exclude aliens, it would be to that extent subject to the control of another power.” This basically says that the federal government has the right to either exclude any “illegal” immigrant from their land. The federal government has the power to answer the solve the problem of whether this nation will have immigrants “Grow Big or Go Home”.

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