In my opinion, the amount of progress I made between my first and second draft of my Advocacy Project was mind-blowing. If you pay special attention to the first few introductory paragraphs, you will see that I added six new introductory paragraphs as I sought to provide readers with much more background on the topic before jumping in. I also wanted to heighten my tone as an advocate and personalize the story in a way I could evoke a few emotions from the audience. Although I still had some work to do in improving my stance as an advocate, it was a huge improvement from my first draft. The multimodality also improved, as I began to get into the groove of things and slowly learned where it would be appropriate to add items. I also added a conclusion appropriate to the changes I made throughout my essay.

 

Ukwa Akkum

Professor Ramirez

Writing 39C

July 26, 2018

Solutions to Mexico-U.S. immigration

            In a country of poverty, corruption, and empty promises, residents of Mexico have grown tired of relying on their government for improvement. Each year hundreds of thousands of these residents take matters into their own hands as they immigrate into the United States in search of improved conditions and greater opportunity.[1]Although the numbers have fluctuated as conditions in Mexico improve, the United States has continued to implement new policies and devote more money towards stopping this problem proving that these improvements are not occurring fast enough. As overpopulation of the United States becomes a glooming problem and the expenses of government programs that support both legal and illegal immigrants continue to fall on taxpayers, it is time for the United States to try a new approach that costs less for all and has a more proven chance of success.

 

President Trump’s Opinion

Since his announcement of presidential candidacy, President Trump has strongly argued for the construction of a massive border wall under claims that it should be enough to stop the ongoing mass immigration and solve the nation’s drug trafficking crisis. The main drawback of this plan has been its cost, with the wall’s initial value being estimated at $20 billion and its annual maintenance cost of around $150 million according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security.[2]As for who will foot the cost, Republicans in Congress have stated a reliance on taxpayers for the funds.[3]Before this knowledge was even made public, polls already showed around six in ten Americans being unsupportive of these plans. In regard to effectiveness, many experts have many differing opinions on the topic.

In a commentary “Why the Wall Won’t Work” written by David Bier, an immigration policy analyst and border security expert, Trump’s wall is criticized in terms of its present obstacles, environmental consequences, alternative options for immigrants, and unforeseen consequences. The wall’s biggest obstacle seems to be its legal barriers as the author discusses Indian tribes and private individuals who control over two-thirds of the land intended to be used for the border. Indian tribes in particular are very unlikely to give up their land given its dark past of collaboration with the United States left by the Bush administration, who destroyed Indian burial grounds and dug up human remains in the process of establishing their vehicle barriers. In the unlikely event that the wall is successfully built, the possibility of environmental damage also exists as walls may erode into beaches and rivers and pollute the environment. Additionally, tunnels may also be built under the wall and are difficult to detect without expensive costs. Lastly, the decrease in illegal immigration may likely lead to an increase in legal immigration based on past trends. Using illegal methods such as overstaying visas, these immigrants may easily avoid the troubles of the border. The practice has already begun recently as the number of work visas increase as more immigrants continue to be deported. In 2016, the number of work visas doubled from 2012 as immigrants sought an easier method of entrance after the increase of security on the border.[4]In fact, the Pew Research Center calculated more than a third of illegal immigrants in the country at the time to have entered legally then overstayed their visa.  

Paul Sperry, a writer for the New York Post, takes a different path in proving why President Trump’s wall would be effective. In his article “This town is proof that Trump’s wall can work,” he offers insight on the history of a town in Texas known as El Paso. Analysis from 2006 shows a 90% decrease in illegal crossings over a four-year period. The city’s ranking skyrocketed into being among the nation’s safest cities of the time, citing increased border security as a main driver. The increase in border security came from adding on length to the existing wall to reach a height of twenty-one feet and more border patrol. The only problem lies in the limited effectiveness of this wall, as numbers have doubled this past year to reach over twenty-five thousand illegal crossings. This increase raises the question of how much more money needs to be spent and how much more border security needs to be applied to keep numbers low.

For such a large-scale solution with limited proof of effectiveness, too much is at stake for this solution to be considered appropriate. With the size of this solution, citizens cannot afford to have the taxes of their hard-earned wages go towards a policy that may only work temporarily or move the problem elsewhere. Now that President Trump has propelled this issue to be an important concern for the American people, it is important that another solution is found promptly that is more effective. Instead of taking an isolationist approach and trying to do too much on their own, the United States should work with Mexico to get rid of this expensive problem and should target the problem at its roots to rid of it effectively.

As mentioned earlier, many Mexican immigrants flee their home country because of factors brought on by the poor condition of its economy. In 2016 alone, the government estimated the proportion of its population living under the national poverty line to be forty-three percent.[5]This widespread poverty has been maintained through

Figure 1A family of four squeezed into one room

the nation’s poor infrastructure, underemployment, extremely low wages that violate the Constitution, and persistent housing crisis that has forced many to either build homes themselves out of whatever material they can get their hands on or occupy tiny spaces in existing properties. With the lengthy process of acquiring legal entry, and the limited timespan provided to most of those who do receive it, it is quite difficult for some to resist the temptation to immigrate illegally. In order to influence these immigrants to stay in their home countries, the same factors that pull them to the U.S. need to be brought to their home countries as well to provide them with less reasons for leaving. In doing so, the cons of leaving home such as family separation, which would be avoided by any means as seen from the outrage sparked from Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, will be enough to influence these immigrants to stay home.

            So, now the question lies in what resources(positives) does the United States have that Mexico does not. Higher quality education, widespread availability of jobs, and a minimum wage high enough to survive on are just a few of the qualities Mexicans emigrate for. Most of the factors that attract immigrants to the United States are attached to the country’s strong economic status, which implies that improving Mexico’s economy should bring similar benefits that allow the country to gradually improve itself. As for why Mexico has not been able to bring improvement on itself, a look into the country’s past may offer insight.

 

History of Mexico’s Economic Status

            Mexico’s annual per-capita growth has remained relatively unchanged as it averages out at 2.5% per year, a number much worse than its developing nation counterparts.[6]The nation has made many attempts to improve its growth rate, the most promising of such being their entrance into a free trade agreement with a world power. The most significant benefit was expected to be a major increase in foreign direct investment. Sadly, analysis has shown that the country may not have been ready for such a large responsibility at its time of signing.

 

 

The effects of NAFTA

Mexico originally signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in hopes that it would help stabilize the national economy, promote economic development through more foreign direct investment, and create more jobs for the working class. The country’s ongoing debt crisis also played a large role in influencing the nation to sign as the government was aware it would be unable to pay its debts without first improving the economy. Mexico’s working class was expected to see be the bearer of prosperity as high expectations of improved economic conditions and increased availability of jobs were had, yet quite the opposite occurred.

            While the agreement did benefit Mexico’s economy in some ways, it was very specific in who it chose to benefit. The working class was surely not one, being hit the hardest through widespread job loss. As protective tariffs formed around U.S. subsidized crops and erased space for competition, millions of farmers were forced out of their farms and thousands of businesses were displaced. Although NAFTA was not fully responsible for the events that followed, the disappearance of the nation’s dominant sector was a large contributor towards the nation’s subsequent decline in wages, increased unemployment rates, and stagnant change in annual per-capita growth.[7]As conditions continued to worsen, many workers gave up hope in their home country and felt their next closest chance for better opportunity was migration to the U.S.[8]

 

Past Solutions

Figure 2The effects of popular legislation on immigration rates

If the past has revealed anything, the history of this immigration problem should be enough to show that border control is not a “one size fits all” solution. The problem with controlling illegal immigration dates back to 1954 when the United States launched “Operation Wetback” and deported more than one million undocumented immigrants. While some stayed out for good, many sought employments in Texas through a law that allowed for illegal immigrants to be hired. From there, they often moved to other areas of the United States and settled in unseen.

In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act that granted temporary legal status to all undocumented immigrants who arrived in the nation before 1982 and imposed monetary sanctions on employers who purposely hired undocumented workers. Instead, this policy had the opposite effect as sponsors of the bill were forced to heavily downsize the punishments to keep the support of the business community and many undocumented immigrants were left in the country with either no intent to return to their home country or no legal way in doing so. The ramped-up Border Patrol also resulted in immigrants spreading out to other parts of the country, making them much more difficult to find. A writer from the Washington Post, Brad Plumer, points out the weaknesses of this law in his piece “Congress tried to fix immigration back in 1986. Why did it fail?” In this, he states that the bill’s largest weakness to be the uncalculated demand for immigrant labor which was very high at the time. The author goes on to state that the balancing of recent immigration levels will lead to the next piece of legislation being more effective, but there is still the demand for laborers that will be affected. Even the authors of the bill are worried that Congress may repeat the same mistakes, stating that the new policy will have to be applied “vigorously” to be effective. Vigorous comes with a high price.  

 

Future Hope

Although many Mexicans seem to have established themselves in the United States, some signs imply that some would be willing to return back to their home country o long as improvement is seen.

One survey taken from 2015 showed lawful Mexican immigrants among the least likely group to become U.S. citizens. This survey is particularly interesting because of legal citizenship among this group reaching its highest levels in over two decades. Of those surveyed, their main concerns were insufficient English skills, lack of time or motivation, and cost of application.[9]

In fact, compared to migration levels in the late twentieth century, there has already been a steep decline in Mexico-U.S. migration since the mid-2000s linked to the decline in the U.S. economy.[10]Analyzing these statistics, it is implied that decreasing the factors that pull these migrants to the U.S. and fixing the factors that push them out of their home country are the most effective ways of ‘naturally’ decreasing illegal immigration levels.

A new solution: Foreign Aid

            Foreign aid is a highly controversial topic among scholars, who have made three dominant opinions: foreign aid has been harmful towards poor countries, its amounts should be drastically increased to be more effective, and it should be controlled and specific to reach peak effectiveness. Its effectiveness is heavily debated, with one researcher’s analysis over nearly 100 studies concluding that the link between foreign aid and growth was positive, yet the margin was small and almost insignificant. This study specifically found no relation between increased aid and faster growth, which has been found to be true among countries. Other scholars have stated these claims of no relation to be exaggerated, with evidence from the poorest nations in Africa showing that assistance helped speed up GDP growth by nearly 1% each year.[11]Sebastian Edwards, a writer for the World Economic Forum, claims this number to be ‘nontrivial’ as these countries already have a low GDP rate to start from, yet if this number were applied to another country its effect would be a much higher increase in economic condition. The writer does make the great point of analyzing why some foreign aid projects are successful and others are disasters rely on greatly analyzing the context of the country.

             Steve Radelet, a writer for the Brookings Press, has a different opinion to offer on the effectiveness of foreign aid. In his article “Once more into the breach: Does foreign aid work?” he targets the critics of foreign aid, stating that claims of the assistance being ineffective are ‘utterly false’. He ensures to include the possibility of complete failure in certain projects before pointing out a few successful projects including health programs, such as the AIDS Relief program which provided HIV care and treatment to patients in need and references an academic writeup that found foreign aid equivalent to 10 percent of the GDP enough to raise per capita growth rates by an average of one percent. Although these all seem like great examples of improvement, it seems as if foreign aid is most effective when targeting health issues and works slowest when improving economic conditions as should be expected.

            These foreign aid findings lead me to believe that directly investing in a country to improve economic aid is great for long term strategies but will not work fast enough to be a direct solution to the U.S.’s illegal immigration. It can still be used, but direct financial investment is proving to be too slow for a direct solution and needs to be used as a supplement with something else. Seeing as Mexico’s government struggles with making jobs available and these residents have problems with quality of life, it appears as though directly increasing jobs while improving infrastructure will be a better solution. In order to fund such a savvy solution, the government should reduce its funding in immigration security-related programs and spend these funds coming up with incentives for U.S.-based companies with transnational labor factories to move their production over to Mexico and produce more jobs. With other money left over, the U.S. should assist Mexico in improving their infrastructure and, seeing as Mexico has already started the process, the U.S. will not need to invest much more money into Mexico to help it doing so. In the process, construction jobs may be created and by the time the new infrastructure is complete there should be enough new jobs created to provide these unemployed constructionists with a new opportunity for work in their country.

 

--I plan on adding a few more paragraphs here

*Will include ways the people can participate in the solution

 

---Conclusion

Based on past policies and their rate of success, the United States cannot afford to continue approaching the problem from an isolationist perspective. The constant reliance of endless taxpayer money to fund these solutions is inconsiderate and harmful, as it is not efficient to rely on the constant availability of large amounts of money to go towards border protection. If permanent progress is expected, the nation needs to take steps towards long-term improvement in Mexico to provide their government with the resources to improve its own communities and eliminate the factors that push its people out. In the end, this allows for Mexico to finally have the ability to establish itself as a strong, self-sustaining border country and for a decade-spanning problem to finally be addressed appropriately.

 

[1]U.S. Census Bureau, and American Community Surveys. Size and Share of the Foreign-Born Population in the United States, 1970-2016. 8 Feb. 2018.

[2]Ainsley, Julia Edwards. “Trump Border 'Wall' to Cost $21.6 Billion, Take 3.5...” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 10 Feb. 2017, www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-wall-exclusive-idUSKBN15O2ZN.

[3]Logan, Bryan. “Trump Wants Taxpayers to Pay for the US-Mexico Border Wall.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 5 Jan. 2017, www.businessinsider.com/who-will-pay-for-mexico-border-wall-us-2017-1.

[4]Whelan, Robbie. "Amid Trump’s Immigration Crackdown, More Mexicans Get Visas to Work in U.S." Wall Street Journal - Online Edition, 09 Aug. 2017, p. 1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=124515802&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

[5]United States, Congress, Poverty & Equity Data Portal. “Country Poverty Brief.” Country Poverty Brief, 2016.

[6]Martin, Eric, and Nacha Cattan. “Has NAFTA Been Good for Mexican Economy?” Farm Futures, Informa PLC, 29 Nov. 2017, www.farmfutures.com/trade/has-nafta-been-good-mexican-economy.

[7]Carlsen, Laura. “The New York Times Company.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2013, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/24/what-weve-learned-from-nafta/under-nafta-mexico-suffered-and-the-united-states-felt-its-pain.

[8]Scott, Robert E., and David Ratner. “NAFTA’S CAUTIONARY TALE.” EPI Issue Brief, 20 July 2005.

[9]Gonzalez-Barrera, Ana. “Mexican Lawful Immigrants Among the Least Likely to Become U.S. Citizens.” Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends Project, Pew Research Center, 29 June 2017, www.pewhispanic.org/2017/06/29/mexican-lawful-immigrants-among-least-likely-to-become-u-s-citizens/.

[10]Fix M, Papademetriou DG, Batalova J, Terrazas A, Lin SY, Mittelstadt M. Migration and the global recession. Migration Policy Institute; Washington, DC: 2009. [Ref list]

[11]Collier, P. The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It, Oxford: Oxford University Press.