Authors: Nessim Azizo, Saul Esses, Borys Shturman

I. Background

In our current political, economic and social landscape, one of the most pressing issues is the status of undocumented immigrants (and their status).  Your verb “is” needs singular noun. There has been much rhetoric concerning how we should restrict the flow of undocumented immigrants into the United States. While ideas such as building a border wall (and having Mexico pay for it) and ‘extreme vetting’ might stem the flow of undocumented immigrants, they do not address the current population of immigrants already living and working in the United States.

According to the most recent data collected by Pew Research, 3.4% of the total population of the United States or, eleven million people, are living here illegally. Over eight million of these undocumented immigrants currently work here illegally. According to the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, about 850,000 unauthorized immigrants live in New York. The population is a significant part of our society and economy, and ignoring them or threatening a mass deportation is not only unwise but would also harm our society.

Most Americans believe that our issue with undocumented immigrants is caused by an influx of Mexican immigrants crossing over our southern border. However, this stereotype could not be further from the truth. While many undocumented immigrants do cross over our border, the majority simply overstay a visa. In New York alone around half a million undocumented immigrants are visa overstays. Secondly, many of our undocumented immigrants are not even from Mexico at all. There is a large population of Asian and Central American immigrants that enter and stay in America illegally. Just in New York over seventy thousand undocumented immigrants are from China. Over half of the US population believes that a border wall with Mexico would reduce at least some illegal immigration. This shows that our citizens are not educated on the topic and are unaware of where and how our illegal immigrants enter our country. Those that are making the decisions regarding undocumented immigrants and their status might not actually know the whole story.

Many solutions have been raised regarding what should be done to address the undocumented immigrant population. Some have suggested widescale deportation while others have suggested a one-time amnesty. Some of these plans have even been enacted to with low success. For example President Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty bill into law in the early 1980’s. However, this bill was not as successful as it was touted and less than three million immigrants came forward for amnesty. While widespread Federal law might have failed, there is a growing belief that state, local and municipal law might better address this issue. Each city and state has its “Each” requries singular noun (their) own unique undocumented immigrant population that needs to be addressed. By allowing the cities to handle their own population, the issue may be better combated.

Some cities have tried to address the issue by becoming so called “sanctuary cities.” While there is no blanket definition, according to CNN, “ a sanctuary city is a broad term applied to jurisdictions that have policies in place designed to limit cooperation with or involvement in federal immigration enforcement actions.” In this case, the cities are limiting cooperation with federal immigration laws and agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These cities understand that immigrants, even undocumented ones, are part of the framework of their city. They allow these immigrants to live in the city without fear of deportation or racial discrimination by law enforcement. However, these cities and municipalities, which number over 300, take a large risk by risking losing much needed federal funding. President Trump has vowed to defund sanctuary cities and even signed an executive order during his first week as President attesting to it. However, the defunding might not be as easy as one would think for a few reasons. First and foremost, due to the fact that there is no explicit definition of a sanctuary city, there is no way to know which municipalities should be defunded. Secondly, according to federal law, the federal government can push a municipality to follow its laws by withholding funding but it can not be coercive. This left me wondering what the fed govt can and cannot do. What is more coercive than withholding funds? Do you mean prosecuting state officials not allowed?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FKI65Oj2bM]

Source: Fox News Channel

Cities, such as San Francisco and New York have gotten creative with making up for the shortfall created by the withheld federal funding by crowdfunding. New York City’s Mayor Bill deBlasio has vowed to protect undocumented immigrants at all costs. He’s stated that he will ignore the new federal laws that the Trump Administration plans on enacting.The current trend is showing that dealing with the issue of undocumented immigrants might be best handled by municipalities. Their loss of federal funding will most probably be minimal and they will be better equipped to handle their specific immigrant population and their specific needs.   

According to the most recent polling conducted by CNN, a majority of Americans favor a path to legalization for the current undocumented immigrant population. A vast majority of those polled do not support any form of mass deportation because they believe deportation methods will go too far and not address any of the underlying issues. However, a large portion of Americans support deportation of convicted felons and criminals. 90% of Americans would favor a bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to stay here.

The trends show that majority of Americans believe that the status quo is not working. They believe something must be done to legalize these immigrants or at least integrate them into society. This is a stark contrast to the policies of the Trump Administration. President Trump might claim that he’s a populist but the numbers do not support it. If the current administration and therefore the Federal  doesn’t agree with the will of the people, something must be done on the state and local level to help the undocumented immigrant population. Leaving them in limbo as we have for the last  three decades is not only inhumane to them but also unfair to ourselves.

II. The Truth About Undocumented Immigrants

 

The difficulty of acquiring permission from the U.S. government to become a legal permanent resident has led many immigrants to overstay their visas long past their expirations dates and even illegally cross into American soil. The problem with this is that there is a substantial population of undocumented people who are always at a disadvantage in their communities and are barred from many opportunities. A study done for the Center for American Progress “found that between 2003 and 2009, the average hourly wage of Mexican immigrants legally in the United States was 28.3 percent greater than it was for undocumented Mexican immigrants” (Lynch and Oakford). In addition to significant wage disparities, most illegal immigrants aren’t able to pursue a higher education, vote in the elections, receive social security, or apply for Medicare” (Lynch and Oakford). Even worse, these people have to live in constant fear of being caught and deported; essentially being kidnapped from their families and shipped off back to where they came from. It is often the case that an undocumented family will not even know what actually happened until the deportee contacts them from his native country. There were 662,483 returns and deportations in 2013, so it is safe to assume that deportation is very much a serious concern for many illegal residents (Zong).  Explain difference between returns and deportations to reader

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69CXSLCN948]

Video Source: ABC News

 

        According to Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS), an estimated 11.4 million unauthorized immigrants resided in the United States as of January 2012; with almost 40% having overstayed their visas (Zong and Batalova). That’s a significant number considering it’s almost 4% of the U.S population and makes up a significant portion of our labor force. These “unauthorized aliens” do much of the brutal physical work required to keep this country operating. According to the Washington Post, an estimated 29% work in service related fields, 24% construction fields, 15% at production/repair fields, 10% in transportation, 5% in farming and the rest operate in business/office related fields (Bumps). It would be irrational to assume they are “stealing” jobs from actual citizens for many reasons comma not semicolon here; with the most potent one being that the positions many of them are employed in are exceedingly under compensated and in hazardous health-conditions.

        Many researchers and journalists tend to agree that immigrants don’t take American jobs, Adam Davidson being the most vocal. A New York Times writer and key figure in business and economics issues for National Public Radio, Davidson has adequate experience dealing with the financials of immigration. In his article, “Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant,” he attempts to refute the common misconception most Americans have about immigrants. Ever since he was a child, he had always noticed how most people believed that “foreigners” were coming to the U.S. to steal their jobs. He labeled the misunderstanding as the “Lump of Labor Fallacy: the erroneous notion that there is only so much work to be done and that no one can get a job without taking one from someone else” (Davidson). Although through conventional wisdom this might have made sense, Davidson believed that there was more to the issue than what met the eye. Taking an economic approach to the issue in his article, he was able to demonstrate not only that immigrants weren’t “stealing” anyone’s jobs, but they were actually helping by increasing their salaries significantly. The studies he cited calculated “an inflow of immigrants equal to 1 percent of the increase in employment helps boost overall incomes by 0.6 percent to 0.9 percent. That means that immigration pushed wages up by $5,100 on average from 1990 to 2007 after adjusting for inflation, accounting for 20 percent to 25 percent of the gain during those years” (Davidson). He used several studies, conducted by prestigious universities, as evidence to prove his initial claim that “immigrants expand the U.S. economy’s production capacity, encourage investment, and promote specialization that boosts productivity in the long-run.”

It is also important to keep in mind that a majority of illegal immigrants still pay their taxes just like any other citizen, but without receiving most of the benefits such as social security, health insurance, and the feeling of safety. They do pay sales taxes, but may not pay income taxes, right, if paid “under the table?”  A study from the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that they paid more than $11.8 billion in state and local taxes in 2012 (Pianin). A little ironic considering the fact that a portion of those funds would be allocated to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, which is responsible for locating and deporting those same exact immigrants. With the ICR’s 2012 fiscal budget being $5.8 billion, “unauthorized alien’s” tax payments had actually exceeded the U.S.’ expenditures on attempting to remove them (Zong and Batalova).

Some experts believe that illegal immigrants have much more potential to the U.S. economy than the tax revenues they provide. In particular, Patrick Oakford, professor and chair of the Department of Economics at Washington College, and Robert Lynch, a (the) research assistant at the Center for American Progress, came up with multiple scenarios where all immigrants in the U.S. would be given full citizenship and calculated the potential outcomes of such events in their research paper, “The Economic Effects of Granting Legal Status and Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants”. Considering both specialize in public policy, public finance, international economics and economic development, they have the expertise to provide accurate statistics. The main argument Lynch and Oakford attempt to make is that providing both legal and illegal immigrants with full citizen status will not only boost (boast) their prosperity, but the whole U.S economy as well. They believe(d) that “unauthorized immigrants are currently earning far less than their potential, paying much less in taxes, and contributing significantly less to the U.S. economy than they potentially could.”

Oakford and Lynch mathematically analyze scenarios where all immigrants would be given citizen status and semi-citizen status, and calculated their effects on the economy. From their results, they had a fair amount of numerical evidence that portrayed a statistically significant boost to the American economy if said immigration reforms were passed.  According to the data, if immigrants were granted legal status in 2013, the economy would see an increase of 1.5 trillion dollars in GDP and an annual increase of 203 thousand jobs over the next 10 years (Lynch and Oakford). On top of economic benefits, the authors also cited legal protections, better jobs, investment in education, and entrepreneurship that the immigrants would be able to achieve through this reform. With respect to legal protections, Lynch and Oakford stated “newly legal immigrants will be better equipped to contest an unlawful termination of employment, to negotiate for fair compensation or a promotion, and to file a complaint if they believe they are being mistreated or abused.” With all their insightful estimations and statistics, the authors make a potent argument in favor of (pro-argument) for the passing of new immigration reforms.

The final and seemingly most potent concern that many Americans have about immigrants is that they bring crime and terrorism with them. As one publically renowned figure put it, “They’re bringing crime, they’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people” (Trump, 2015). But when many critics and politicians are asked where they got this information from, they tend to cite inconsistent and misleading data. In Trump’s case, the article where he got this information from “actually said 80 percent of women and girls from Central America are raped by human smugglers, gang members other migrants or government authorities while immigrating to the U.S.” (Moreno). Yes, I remember when Trump said “But who is doing the raping?” When faced with the truth, these people often dismiss it. In reality according to the National Institute of Correction, foreign-born people in America, no matter whether they were naturalized, permeant, or undocumented, are incarcerated at significantly lower rates than native-born Americans (Nowrasteh). This could be seen in the national crimes which from 1995 to 2010 have declined by over 44%, while the number of undocumented immigrants has almost tripled (Nowrasteh).

III. Solution:

Our proposed solution to the illegal immigration issue present today. Now that we understand the issue, we can begin to create a solution. There is a lot of talk today surrounding illegal immigration and how we are going to prevent it in the future. However, with so many undocumented immigrants already present in our cities, we are proposing a solution in which these individuals will be given the opportunity to work their way into becoming full American citizens. We are looking to tackle the issue faced by those who are already here.

According to a new Pew research study, U.S. cities including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago are home to roughly 20% of all undocumented immigrants in the US. At such a large number of people, it would be almost impossible, and incredibly inefficient to try and deport all of them. First off the cost to physically remove everyone would place a huge burden on taxpayers. Second, these people are so heavily intertwined into our economy that removing them would have very strong implications in regards to our economic health. Research places undocumented employees somewhere around 5% when looking at the makeup of the New York City workforce (fiscalpolicy.org).

We are proposing to implement a new state of citizenship, one which would be in between no-citizenship and full citizenship. Such a state could be viewed as a gateway into citizenship, acting as a transition from the state of undocumented to full American citizen. It is important to note that as pointed out earlier, not everyone who is here illegally snuck into the country, many of these immigrants are individuals who simply overstayed their visas. This means that most of them have already been vetted when they applied for a visa.  This would make applying for citizenship out of the temporary semi-citizenship state a lot easier for everyone, as they have already been checked out and approved.

Similar ideas to ours can be found currently implemented in other areas around the world, such as England and Latvia. The British Protected Person, BPP for short, is an individual who is stateless in the UK. They are given a passport, as well as some protection from UK diplomatic posts. At the same time they are given some restrictions to differentiate them from normal citizens. While that is designed for individuals who are stateless, we believe it can apply well to our current immigration situation in the United States. In Latvia there is the “Non-Citizen” status, a temporary status for former members of the USSR who still do not have Latvian citizenship. These individuals were given equal protection under the law, are allowed to travel out of the country and return, and they are given certain work benefits. Just like the British Protected Person, the Latvian “non-citizen” faces restrictions while under this status. One example would be the inability to vote. However, at the end of the day it is designed to integrate undocumented immigrants into society and is only a temporary status. The Latvian non-citizen is given the opportunity to become a citizen through a “naturalization process”. The naturalization process is comprised of a series of exams testing Latvian language and history. Since its inception, the naturalization process has shifted 17% of non-citizens into citizens. Similar to the Latvian non-citizen, our proposal is strictly a temporary state which is designed to merge currently illegal immigrants into our society (MFA.gov).

Here are some of the main points included in our proposal:

First, individuals of this program will be given a special ID. This will allow for the local, state, and federal governments to finally account for and identify the people living in the country. It is important for us to know who is in our country, we simply cannot have people running around unidentified and unaccounted for.

Second, these individuals will be allowed to work legally. With certain restrictions and checks in place, in order to ensure fair wages and protection under the law.

Third, these individuals will be required to pay certain taxes. This will now be possible as they are accounted for and working legally. The idea here is that these people are already here and already working, we should at least make it legal for them to work, have them pay taxes, and give them certain protections.

Lastly, individuals will be given equal protection under the law, in order to prevent them from being taken advantage of or exploited. For example, the H2-A work visa, which allows U.S. employers to hire foreign nationals for seasonal agricultural jobs. This area is heavily regulated in order to prevent exploitation and to ensure the protection of these employees. We hope to ensure similar protection and wage distributions in our plan, and we feel that will allow everyone to benefit the most out of the current situation.

 

“The rationale for the linking of legalization and permanent residency is straightforward. Legalization recognizes that the undocumented have become part of our society — by working, paying taxes, raising families, owning property and the like. In other words, we recognize their de facto inclusion and we adjust their status to align with that reality.

Not all immigrants wish to naturalize, of course, and none should be forced to do so. But since the nation’s founding, we have always recognized that access to citizenship is the best way to promote social and economic integration, democratic participation and political equality (MAE M. NGAi).”

We want to stress the importance of the fact that this solution is a temporary state of semi-citizenship. We want to make it clear that we are not proposing a permanent group of second-class citizens. Looking at American history and the various times immigrants were excluded from natural citizenship, we can clearly see why it so important for immigrants to be given the ability to so (think Asian exclusion acts for example).  Currently, there are 4 paths for undocumented immigrants to obtain green cards. 1. Green Card through Marriage to a U.S. Citizen or LPR, 2. DREAMers Green Card through Employment with LIFE Act Protection 3. Asylum Status 4. U Visa for Victims of Crime (citizenpath.com). It is easy to see how difficult it can be to be for one to fall under one of these categories. While in the temporary state of semi-citizenship, individuals will be able to apply for citizenship similar to the way the Latvian non-citizen does. Through a process of naturalization, and background checks. Assuming that everything checks out, the individual will then become a citizen. However if for whatever reason (for example crime history) they are not given citizenship only then should deportation be considered a viable option.

An argument that some brought up as we presented them with this solution was that “undocumented immigrants would be hesitant (at best) to come forward and join this program”. Well, while looking at some data from the Institute of taxation and economy policy, we can see that close to 50% of undocumented actually pay taxes. Paying taxes, to me would seem just as risky, if not even more risky, than joining our proposal – especially given the fact the no one is guaranteeing any form of citizenship for those who come forward and pay taxes. Yet, 11 million of these people went through the process and submitted their tax forms, in hopes that one day it’ll benefit their case for citizenship. I think it is safe to say that if people are willing to take the chance and do that, they would be willing to trust our proposal even more and take the chance as well.

People come to the U.S. seeking freedom. Many of the workers who are here illegally are here fleeing persecution and conditions we can not even imagine. They like all American ancestors are coming to this country for the American dream, for the idea of social mobility. Rather than denying them this dream that our country was founded on, we should work with them to make the dream a possible reality. While they did choose to come here illegally, it is often times extremely difficult to and timely to come here legally and many people do not have that luxury. Many bill proposals have been brought in attempt to solve the issue. With the new Trump administration opposing illegal immigration, it does not look like a federal solution will happen anytime soon. We can not sit around and wait another 4-8 years to tackle this problem. By implementing our solution on the municipal scale we give these people the freedom they deserve to live without the constant fear of deportation and to pursue the American dream immigrants of the past and present all yearn for.

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