Alana Neal

Professor Malcomb

UWRIT

29 April 2018

Immigration Laws: What Makes an American an American?

In my sophomore year of High School my best friend of five years, Manuela, came to me

with fear in her voice and tears in her eyes. She told me her family had lost their immigration

status. If her dad could not find a job soon, they would be forced to move back to

Canada. Manuela and I were sophomores in High School, everyone around us was talking about

the cutest guys in school, and what to wear to prom, but we were talking about finding lawyers

for her dad and if we could make calls from Raleigh to Canada. It did not make sense to me.

Manuela was a proud American citizen. She had lived in North Carolina for eight years. She was

a hardworking student, she worked a part time job and paid her

taxes. Manuela and her family were in America on a work permit. Her father unfairly lost his job

due to cultural differences and a language

barrier. One day Manuela was a deserving American citizen, and the next she was considered an

illegal alien Manuela had so much pride in a country that ultimately failed her family. One year

later, I said goodbye to Manuela and her family. Watching them leave left me with so many

questions, the main one being: why did I deserve to be in America any more than Manuela did?

Many Americans, specifically right-winged Americans argue that their only problem with

immigration is the immigrants who do not come legally. In an article written by the New York

Times, Vivian Yee writes that many liberal view undocumented immigrants as "productive, law-

abiding members of society, deeply rooted in communities all over the country, working hard,
Alana Neal

Professor Malcomb

UWRIT

29 April 2018

living quietly, paying taxes and raising families." With the new Trump administration, Trump

and many of his supporters have emphasized that solely being in America unauthorized is

breaking the law. While this is true, most undocumented immigrants and immigrant advocates do

not view it as being criminal, but rather it being necessary, Yee also writes that conservative

Americans tend to use the phrase "illegal aliens" while liberals tend to use the phrase

"undocumented immigrants." The phrasing of illegal aliens tends to be more dehumanizing, as

if implying immigrants are not people like them. At this point, you might be asking yourself

"why don't immigrants just come the legal way to avoid being labeled as an

alien. The answer to that is simple, the immigration process is long, tedious, and expensive. The

first step in the immigration process would be to find out whether you are even eligible for

citizenship. Eligibility for citizenship includes: having a green card for at least five years, living

in America for at least half of that time, having spent continuous time in America, meaning no

long vacations outside of America, having lived in the same state for at least three months before

applying, be at least eighteen years old, you have upheld good moral, you can speak, read, and

write English, and pass a brief test covering U.S. history. If you find that you are ineligible due

to any one of these reasons, your immigration process is already delayed, and you will need to

either wait longer or spend money on a lawyer. Once you are deemed as eligible you will need to

file a USCIS Form N-400. This is the form that will get your immigration process started. This

will cost you $640 to file and an added $85 for biometrics. The next step would be to get your

fingerprints taken to run a background check. After passing your background check you will

receive an appointment date and address for an interview with a UCSIC officer. During this
Alana Neal

Professor Malcomb

UWRIT

29 April 2018

interview you will be asked questions about your N-400 form and about your knowledge on

English and U.S. civics. If you are approved after all these steps, you will be called into a

ceremony, in which you will swear your loyalty to the United States. To obtain your green card

and residence in America can take a few years, after that it will take 5 years to be eligible to

apply for citizenship, and six to twelve months to obtain citizenship; If you add all of this up it

can typically take about seven to ten years and about $725 assuming you did not need to hire a

lawyer to become a citizen, those these are years that some immigrants do not think they have

time to waste, and money most do not have to spend.

Every year about 1,000 new immigrants come to America, the majority of these

immigrants are coming from Mexico. There are two categories of migration, voluntary and

involuntary. Voluntary migration is when an immigrant simply chooses to migrate to another

country because they want to. Involuntary immigration is when an immigrant has no other choice

but to migrate to another country, most likely because they would not survive in their home

country. It is important to understand why these immigrants are coming to America, because the

reasoning can influence how people view them. In an online study conducted in 2014 in the

Native Dutch population, results showed that when people had the perception that migrants were

voluntarily migrating there was a stronger association with anger towards them, but with the

perception of involuntary migration there was a stronger association with empathy. This shows

that people are more likely to empathize with the immigrants who are forced to leave their

country in order to survive rather than the immigrants who come for other

reasons. Many immigrants who come from Mexico claim they come to America to get away
Alana Neal

Professor Malcomb

UWRIT

29 April 2018

from the violent drug and gang activity in Mexico. They come to America in the hopes of a

better life. In an article written in April of last year, the CAP immigration team found that

compared to America, U.S. born children are more likely to go to college. Thirty-six percent of

immigrants are college graduates, which is five percent above the national average. Immigrants

are also less likely to commit crimes or be incarcerated than the U.S. born population. In 2017, a

study conducted by the CATO institute found that the 2014 incarceration rate for immigrants,

both legal and illegal, ages eighteen to fifty-four, was notably lower than that of the U.S. born

population. These statistics could be because immigrants sacrifice so much to come and have so

much to lose if they make a mistake. They come here for a better chance at education and a

world of less crime.

If so many Mexicans are coming to America, we must ask ourselves why. America must

have something that Mexico does not. Mexicans are coming to a country that consider them

aliens rather than human beings, so there has to be a good reason for them to leave a place that at

least sees them as human beings. In Mexico they have a similar education system as America,

starting with preschool and ending with college, however the quality of their school systems is

nowhere close to Americas. Mexico places last in education among the 35 Organization for

Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Schools in Mexico often cannot

afford proper meals or supplies for their students which makes it harder for students to focus and

feel motivated to stay. Mexico has an extremely low literacy rate and an extremely high dropout

rate, many students dropout because they need to start working to help their family survive. In

some areas schools let out early to let kids walk home safely because the crime rates are so
Alana Neal

Professor Malcomb

UWRIT

29 April 2018

high, and the police control is so low. In one Mexican city nearly ninety percent of residents

reported feeling unsafe doing something as simple as going to the atm. Seventy- three percent

said they felt it was unsafe to use public transportation and thirty percent reported feeling unsafe

in their own homes.

This helps explain why Mexican citizens are leaving Mexico, but why are they choosing to come

to America? In Mexico the murder rate is ninety percent more than the murder rate in America.

In 2017 alone, Mexico had 29,168 reported murders. Mexico's poverty rate is 44 percent while A

mericas is at about twelve percent. Many Mexican citizens find America appealing because of a

better healthcare system, better education system, the close proximity to Mexico gives it a homel

ier feeling and a large sense of Mexicans in America a better sense of community, Mexican citiz

ens also feel as though they have more job opportunities in America. All these positive qualificat

ions of America make it a good choice for Mexican citizens. In a Mexican's eyes leaving high cri

me rates, drug trafficking, unemployment, poverty, and climate hazards is worth coming to a

country that may not see them as equals. Living in a country that does not accept you is better

than living in a country that you might not survive in.

The question then remains, what makes an American and American? What made me

deserve a better life in America and Manuela

undeserving? America is a country that provides home to dangerous murders, malicious

rapists, and repulsive child predators, but draws the line at letting in immigrant families trying to

give their children a better life. Depending on who you

ask the question of what makes an American an American can have many different answers. A
Alana Neal

Professor Malcomb

UWRIT

29 April 2018

study conducted in June of 2015 by Public Religion Research Institute found that eighty-nine

percent of Americans found it important that to be considered American a person can speak

English. Sixty-nine percent said that believing in God was an important factor and fifty-eight

percent said being born in America was important. These are interesting results considering that

America is a country built on immigrants, where there is no national language and we practice

freedom of religion. In another study conducted by John Sides called the 2016 Voter Survey,

Sides found that a majority of the 8,000 people he surveyed also found Christianity and English

language an important role in being considered an American. However, in this

survey Democratic and Republican Americans both came to the same census that the most

important factor in determining if someone is a true American is if "they respected American

political institutions and laws and were accepting people of racial and

religious backgrounds." If you ask me, what makes someone an American is anyone willing to

help benefit America and abide by American laws. Manuela is a hardworking, law abiding,

English speaking, Christian immigrant who came to America to follow her dreams, but none of

that was enough for the Government to allow her and her family to stay.

Immigrants help the American economy more than people may think. Economists have

found that immigrants create a demand for small business and strengthen the economy.

Immigrants are an important part of the business community. Google was created by a man who

migrated from the Soviet Union, and the Microsoft CEO migrated from India. More than forty

percent of Fortune 500 companies were started by immigrants or their children. These companies

brought in more than 1.7 trillion dollars in revenue and helped employ 3.6 million people in
Alana Neal

Professor Malcomb

UWRIT

29 April 2018

America in just 2010. Immigrants also make up twenty-eight percent of small business owners

and are two times more likely to become entrepreneurs than the U.S. born population. Illegal

immigrants also play a part of American economy. Each year illegal immigrants pay about

eleven billion in state and local taxes. Making the immigration process shorter and easier for

immigrants to complete could potentially help the U.S. economy even more allowing the US to

collect more tax from them. When immigrants come illegally they sometimes are forced to work

"under the table" jobs, meaning they are typically paid in cash and do not file taxes due to them

being undocumented and scared of being deported. With a faster and more affordable

immigration process more immigrants would come the legal way and therefore more of them

would be paying

taxes. Without the help of immigrants, America would not be the America it is today and if we tu

rn away so many immigrants we could lose out on someone willing to continue help America gro

w in a positive direction.

Immigration is a complex topic because there are so many factors to think about. While

we simply cannot let everyone into America because of capacity and supply and demand issues,

we can make the process to become a citizen different. If the process was shorter and less

expensive more immigrants would obtain citizenship and ultimately help the U.S. government.

In the studies above many Americans pointed out the common factors they thought were

important to being considered an American were believing in God and speaking English, but one

thing people fail to realize is that no matter what country a person is born in, no matter what

language we speak, or what religion we practice, we are all human, and all deserving of a good,
Alana Neal

Professor Malcomb

UWRIT

29 April 2018

safe, life full of opportunities. Where someone is born, or their personal preferences should not

determine being American, but rather someone's morals and work ethic

should. This essay explores the different reasons immigrants are coming to America. It showed t

hat Americans feel more empathy towards immigrants who are coming because their life depend

s on it. I think it is important to realize that whether an immigrant is coming because they have n

other choice or if their coming because they want to, for the most part these immigrants have goo

d intentions when they come. America was built on immigrants and it is important to embrace ev

eryone's difference and come together as one to achieve the common goal of coexisting in this w

orld and making everyday a better day. Manuela's family may have been forced to leave, but I ho

pe in the future, no immigrant that has done no wrong if forced out of this county. America pride

s itself on equality, freedom, and love; turning our backs on our neighbors is not something Ame

rica should be proud of.