America Must Cooperate with Other Nations in Regulating Immigration

This article, by Saskia Sassen, describes how immigration can’t be regulated solely by increased police enforcement and government policies and how these responses are not the only ways to deal with most of the country wanting immigrants out. “When the object of stronger police action is a broad spectrum of people – immigrant women, men, and children- sooner or later it will get caught in the expanding web of civil and human rights, it will violate those rights and interfere with the functioning of civil society.” In this quote, she brings this problem to a place that mostly everyone can connect with. Basically, eventually this problem will not just affect immigrants and those living near them. It could end up touching everyone and will disrupt the balance of all American society. “Sooner or later, this type of police action will touch us, the documented.” Immigrant migration to America is almost unavoidable. As a country, we need the relationships we have developed with other countries for goods, services, technology, and more. Instead of trying to get people out of our country, we should welcome them in, especially those coming from countries that we are often communicating with. Must more could get achieved for both countries if they worked together. Not only this, but because of how seriously violations of human and civil rights are taken recently, it wouldn’t be beneficial for anyone. “Whatever the control achieved, the trade-offs are too costly both for the immigrants themselves but also especially for the receiving societies in terms of violations of civil and human rights and the threats to the fabric of civil society.” From this, it doesn’t really seem worth it to me all that is being done to prevent immigration. Also, how far is America going to go? Through the efforts made to regulate and maintain immigration, we are setting ourselves up for chaos. From everything that can be learned from history, the fact that those who are oppressed won’t allow themselves to stay oppressed forever is something that seems to keep repeating. Another point that Sassen makes is that the periods of mass immigration don’t last forever and are patterned. Just like in America, every country changes and goes through good and bad periods of time, and bad times are not the only reasons that people migrate or immigrate to other countries. She ends saying that people eventually will need to “adopt a more international understanding of subjects such as immigration that used to be regarded in purely domestic terms.”

"America Must Cooperate with Other Nations in Regulating Immigration." Opposing Viewpoints: Illegal Immigration. William Dudley. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 8 Feb. 2010