Would more humane immigration laws in the US mean less illegal immigrants?
CAUTION: Before answering, please think for at least 90 seconds. I don’t want sound bites and I don’t want sourceless claims (ie, “More immigrants means more poor people which means more taxpayer dollars going toward welfare. Our economy can’t take that!” — how MANY more taxpayer dollars? In numbers, how BIG of an impact would that have on our economy?).
According to Canada’s statistics database, it takes approx. 180 days to immigrate to Canada. According to England’s counterpart database, it takes on average 6 months to immigrate there. According to New Zealand’s Immigration Services webpage, immigration to NZ takes 6-9 months.
The US doesn’t publish straightforward immigration statistics. But according to the website, the waiting list for Mexico, India and the Philippines is 21-25 years. After that, a prospective immigrant must learn English, pay thousands of dollars in lawyers’ fees, wait at least 7 more years, and pass a US history test that most natural-born US high schoolers can’t pass. His/her application is then at the discretion of immigration officers.
There are plenty of very good people in very bad situations who simply can’t afford that kind of investment (and by can’t afford, I mean they’d literally DIE while waiting to be legally naturalized). Maybe, just maybe, if we made this process a bit more realistic instead of building more walls, we’d be able to aid many needy people without criminalizing them.
And yes, there are some arguments against making immigration laws in the US more humane:
1) Those people should work to change their own governments and improve the quality of life in their own countries.
This argument is naive because it assumes that poor, oppressed individuals who live in absolutely desolate conditions can put together a militia and overthrow their often wealthy, corrupt government without starving to death or being shot down by a more powerful government army. Sure, this is not ALWAYS the exact case in third world nations, but there are always SOME factors stopping the oppressed from having any political influence in their respective nations.
2) We already have too many people in the US.
This is not true. According to the CIA World Factbook, the US has the 180th largest population density out of 241 countries.
3) Many Mexican immigrants are just criminals.
According to the Minnesota Human Rights Group, whose data is used in public middle school curricula, less than one percent of illegal Mexican immigrants will go on to commit any other crime in the US.
A translated quote from the song Frijolero by Mexican band Molotov:
“From the outside, it’s easy to imagine being a Mexican crossing the border, thinking of your family while you cross, and leaving everything you know behind. If YOU had to escape from under the heals of a few elite gringo ranchers, would you keep calling me a good-for-nothing wetback? If it was YOU who had to start from zero.”
