United States Immigration Policy Essay

Immigration has been a prevalent topic in the United States since before our founding. The United States has even been referred to as a melting pot because of the diversity of immigrants. Immigrants have come from Europe, Asia, Africa, or even other countries in the Americas. Immigration is a topic that has been debated during the presidential election season, especially recently when Trump as a candidate brought up building a border wall and, therefore, immigration is prevalent issue for political parties. It is constantly brought up in court cases because there is disagreement over whether national, state, or local government has the final control. Immigration policy is highlighted almost every day because of its prevalence in elections for

The Republicans have generally, but not always believed in stronger border control, harsh punishments for immigrants trying to cross the border illegally, and harsher punishments for business that employ illegal immigrants labor while “25 percent more Democrats than Republicans believe that immigrants strengthen the U.S.” (On the Issue). What I have found through my research is that for political parties, it is easy to examine the policies regarding immigration of each party; however, a better way of understanding the issue of immigration is to examine the feelings of those people from different parties. The Washington Post published a study citing how people from our two major parties felt about immigration through the years. In the past, a majority of both Republicans and Democrats felt the same way: “As recently as 1994, 63 percent of all Americans viewed immigrants as ‘a burden’ to society” (Ehrenfreund), but both until recently have had these views change. As of 2015, only 25% of all Democrats and 57% of Republicans still view immigrations as a burden on society (Ehrenfreund). It is interesting to note that these feelings would seem to explain the differences in proposed policy, and, perhaps, why the Republican’s immigration policy is to minimize illegal and legal immigration and have strict policies for legal immigration and