Arizona and Illegal Immigration

Arizona is often portrayed has having a lot of racists etc. due to their frustration with all the illegal immigrants from Mexico.  This is an assessment of the illegal immigrant situation in Arizona, by someone who lives there:

Mexico is a country of the few very rich and the very poor masses.  If we hope to create change within Mexico, keeping the citizens there can become a catalyst for change, rather than of allowing them to come here to become second class citizens.  Those Mexican immigrants who have come here legally, are the most vocal about keeping illegal border crossers out.  Tensions are already created here in Arizona because of the constant drug and human trafficking which has led to high car insurance policy costs (due to uninsured motorists), high law enforcement costs, and high costs of education.  You only need to see the challenges/costs to our schools with students who come from rural parts of Mexico, where they have had no literacy, and whom we are supposed to help become literate--despite them often being only willing to speak Spanish and hang out with their Spanish speaking families.  Arizona citizens become especially bull headed when the federal government will not acknowledge the extent of problems that the state has faced and continues to face, and then acts like a bully.

Our Arizona life boat was doing well when construction was booming and illegal immigrants from Mexico were supporting this industry.  Then when the housing bubble popped, the life boat began to hit rough water, and jobs were gone for many of the immigrants. Resentment began to build again against those who were here and causing problems, and against those who were continuing to flood into Arizona.

Many illegal immigrants had already flooded into Arizona, with moms giving birth in our hospital emergency rooms so that their babies would be United States citizens.  As these children began school and as immigrant families began to make some money, they would sent it back home to help their relatives begin the trip to America.  By the time the housing bubble burst, more and more illegal immigrants had already put down roots.  After the economy took a downturn, Arizona citizens began to feel resentful of illegal immigrants that were taking resources and continuing to come to Arizona.  Laws then were passed or current laws enforced, to make it easier to send illegal immigrants back across the border.    Big public relations trouble began when some of the illegal immigrants were sent back that had already become rooted in Arizona, and no longer had ties in Mexico.  One can only imagine the pain, fear and anger that was then shared with their family and friends upon finding that they were going to be sent back to Mexico.

I have one personal experience to share.  As a teacher of students with visual impairments, I began serving a cute little girl in preschool, who was blind and quite smart.  Her family was from Mexico and her father had a permit to work here in a factory.  Then one day, this little girl did not return to school.  I was told that her father was picked up at work one day and sent back to Mexico for not checking in at the immigration office when required.  Dad thought that his lawyer was supposed to tell him when he needed to talk to the immigration people, but he never did.  The company this dad worked for, tried to advocate for him, but to no avail.  Since the mother was expecting her second child, she had to return to Mexico to be with her husband.  This was a fine family, and I still feel bad for this little girl, as I know that there are little or no services for the blind in Mexico.

 What to do about Illegal Immigration

"The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." - Albert Einstein

I believe that there will be no easy or comprehensive fix for illegal immigration, just as we have never found easy or comprehensive fixes for many of our other social problems.   I believe that our federal government can be very helpful in assisting in containing our borders and dealing with costs of prisoner incarceration.  Beyond these issues, I feel that the individual States should be given the freedom to create their own solutions to illegal immigration. 

One lesson that is sometimes ignored is that solutions no longer seem to work when created either as large comprehensive packages, or when hidden in other bills.  It seems that the American people have an interest in how their money is being spent, and in how issues, including illegal immigration, are addressed.  This means that the process used to address illegal immigration is just as important as the steps needed to alleviate the problem.  This process needs to be transparent and straightforward!

I have some ideas that could help with the illegal immigration issue: 

   1.  Key to this issue is to determine at what point the border is leaking slowly enough to begin the next step.  I believe that we now may be close.  Between making it harder to get here and more difficult to find work here, I believe illegal immigration has slowed down at least in Arizona.  For immigrants who have been here for some time, it may be time for step 2.

   2.  States may need to create a system where there is a review board that will create rubrics based on things like: 

Length of time spent in the state

Crimes committed

Community support

English Language learned

Employment

This board could then either recommend:

a.      Citizenship and quickly provide the individual with the needed paperwork.

b.    A path to citizenship with an agency set up to track, much like probation.  If steps are not followed within the specified timeline, review can recommend changes or immediate deportation.

c.      Immediate deportation.

  3.  The United Nations needs to work with the government of Mexico to encourage a gradual transition to a more democratic system of government.  We may also want to do more to help with education within Mexico, and to step up our efforts to assist Mexican law enforcement to help fight their drug cartels. 
  
  Update 2018 - In America, Canadians and people from other countries who come here on green cards to work or through DACA can expect to always have a cloud hanging over them.  They never know if their green card will be renewed or not or if they will be sent back to the country that they came from.  Often they go through college and graduate and then can only work of they have a sponsor or or can get their green card renewed again.  If this doesn't happen, they have to go back to a country where they often no longer know anyone and sometimes not even the language, or where they can expect renewed poverty and violence.  When the legal immigration process often takes ten years, Americans expect these children to live in anxiety for years.  What a great country...