Immigration and Asylum

People who break immigration laws are doing things that are perfectly legal for other people to do, yet they are denied the right to do them (such as crossing a border). Many even cross borders legally and become "illegal" after visas expire. Are undocumented immigrants harming our country with their "illegal" activity?

While it sounds simple to just immigrate "the right way" to avoid problems, U.S. immigration law is designed to be difficult for certain groups of people to adhere to. It may be impossible for some people to immigrate legally. US immigration laws have historically been like this. For example, citizenship and naturalization used to be limited explicitly to white people. The reason that when people think of illegal immigrants they think of Latin American immigrants and not the multitudes of European immigrants who came into the United States in the early 20th century is because there were no laws restricting European immigration until 1924. They immigrated the same way, however it was not considered illegal because there was no law making it illegal.

There are many different reasons immigrants might choose to come to the United States, and any answer you picked in the third question could be correct. It is certainly true that many people come to the United States for new opportunities and a higher standard of living. Additionally, there are more resources available in the U.S. than in some countries, which is visible in hospitals, for example. Other reasons for immigration to the United States even include the fact that "empire spawns migration:" Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, sees a higher percentage of emigrants to the mainland United States than any other country. The U.S. has projected an image of "wealth and omnipotence," encouraging people in historically colonial countries with ties to the U.S. to go there. Still, many immigrants to the United States come from countries like Haiti, where people fled violence because of a dictatorship during the 1960's, or from Cuba, where they fled a communist regime as political refugees.

The United States has struggled with refugee policies since before World War II. In the U.S., on a legal level, the term refugee has almost always historically been understood as meaning refugee from communism. It was only in 1980 that the U.S. even had any refugee policies that applied to refugees from countries that were not communist. The Refugee Act of 1980 began a large stream of Haitian and Cuban refugees coming into the country. Just one year later, President Ronald Reagan announced that Haitian refugees were "detrimental to the interests of the United States." He allowed the Coast Guard to patrol Haitian waters and block ships trying to reach the US. In 1991, President Bush ignored the order of a federal judge to accept Haitian refugees, and instead of sending them back to Haiti, sent refugee ships to Guantanamo Bay. In 1994, President Clinton announced that Cubans too, when intercepted at sea, would be sent to Guantánamo Bay. The United States also effectively ignored refugees from countries with right-wing governments in Central America. While the United States approved 26% of requests for asylum from Nicaragua, which had a left-wing government that the US opposed, they only accepted 2.6% of Salvadoran requests and 1.8% of Guatemalan requests. Both El Salvador and Guatemala had right-wing governments. The United States from then on actively imposed laws that acted as deterrents to immigration, such as new laws in 1996 that imposed a one-year time limit on filing an application inside the country. For asylum seekers at the border, they were either to be immediately denied or placed in detention while their request was processed.