Social Work Policy
The issue of immigration has raised waging debates among lawmakers in the United States. For a long time, United States lawmakers have failed to develop a comprehensive policy to solve the problem of immigrants in the United States. This, in turn, led the executive and judicial to make major policy decisions concerning immigrants. Immigrants have also fueled many debates in the house of states and municipal governments. Immigrants comprise about fourteen percent of the state population in the United States. This is about forty-three million people. Together with children born in the United States by immigrants’ their population stands at 27% of the United States population (Ramakrishnan & Gulasekaram, 2012). The figures have risen steadily since 1970 but leveled since 2008 after the economic crisis. Undocumented immigrants comprise about 12 million people of the American population (Ramakrishnan & Gulasekaram, 2012). Over half of the undocumented immigrants have lived in the United States for over decades. The increase of illegal immigrants in the United States has increased due to unlawful immigration across the United States borders, legal migrant with overstayed visa and asylum of war from neighboring countries. Various states have enacted various policies to protect and curb the increase of illegal immigrants.
California is one of the states that have a contrary policy of undocumented immigrant to that of the federal government. More than 2 million undocumented immigrants live in California. About 1.75 million of the workforces are from undocumented immigrants who are about 9% of the workforce (Ramakrishnan & Gulasekaram, 2012). Although California State complies with federal government policy of immigrates, it has “Sanctuary State” Law under California value act to protect its undocumented immigrant. The policy prohibits states law enforces and agency from; detaining a person on hold as requested by the federal government unless the person has committed a crime. Transferring illegal immigrants to federal jail unless the person has committed a crime listed in California trust act, or is a substantial sex offender. Law enforcers are not sharing the immigration status of a person with a federal immigration agency (Ramakrishnan & Gulasekaram, 2012).
New York City has more than 500,000 undocumented immigrates who are about an eighth of the immigrants found in New York. City regulations have developed a policy that hinders the public and law enforcers from inquiring more about the immigration status of immigrates in New York. The immigrant Rights and Service Manual reviewed 2018 has a section concerning undocumented immigrants’ rights (Chen, 2018). The manual has guidance to undocumented immigrants on how to reports hatred crimes and benefits and limitation of living in New York City. It also has resources for an emergency report for those fearing deportation.
Arizona is the states that have one of the toughest policies concerning immigrants in the United States. Example of such policy is Arizona Senate Bill 1070 passed into law in 2007 (Archibold, 2010). The law allows the law enforcers to do an immigration check up to any person who is suspected to be illegal immigrants. Learning institution and employers are supposed to do E-verification before admitting an immigrant in their institution. Illegal immigrants are denied benefits such as driving license and voter ID in Arizona. Illegal immigrants in Arizona are transferred to federal custody awaiting deportation or detention (Archibold, 2010).
Canada for many years has been a hospitable country to many of its immigrants across the globe. However, its policy such as Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, 2001 concerning undocumented immigrants is not different to those of United States after the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States (Adelman, 2002). Canada conducts biometric screening to the fingerprints in its entire borders to ensure that there are few cases of the undocumented individual. Employers are not supposed to employ undocumented personnel in Canada. Staying in Canada with a legal visa that is outdated is illegal. Children born in Canada from an undocumented parent are granted Canada citizenship except those from diplomatic families.
References
Adelman, H. (2002). Canadian Borders and Immigration Post 9/11 1. International Migration Review, 36(1), 15-28.
Archibold, R. C. (2010). Arizona enacts stringent law on immigration. New York Times, 23, 42.
Chen, H. S. (2018). Chinatown no more: Taiwan immigrants in contemporary New York. Cornell University Press.
Ramakrishnan, S. K., & Gulasekaram, P. (2012). The importance of the political in immigration federalism. Ariz. St. LJ, 44, 1431.
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