Immigration is the movement of persons to a foreign country

Immigration is the movement of persons to a foreign country

Immigration is the movement of persons to a foreign country where they are not natives and do not possess citizenship. Migration implies the need for permanent residency. Over the years, rules governing immigration have diversified in the same way as the American population.

In 1924 the United States Government enacted an Immigration Act promoting the national origins quota system. The Act restricted immigrants from Asia and some parts of Europe as the eugenics believed that they were inferior and could not assimilate with the American culture. On the other hand, the 1965 Immigration Act sought to close the racial gap that had grown massively due to the quota system by abolishing it. Instead, the Act allocated an annual number of 170,000 visas to the Eastern Hemisphere, which in turn promoted the movement of races previously considered inferior to America (Muzzaffar, Hipsman & Ball, 2015). The 1965 Act fell short in that it made room for illegal immigration. The 1965 Act limited immigration from the western hemisphere; this resulted in a large number of Mexican workers to move illegally to America as agricultural workers. Meanwhile, the 1924 act restricted the immigration for the southern and eastern Europeans who were a majority at the time for fear of their overwhelming numbers. Enactment of the Act ensured that they could not bring their relatives to the U.S.

Immigrants with a criminal status have their rights stripped, and they get accustomed to exclusionary acts of violence (Marcias-Rojas, 2016). Having a criminal record makes it difficult to shade the illegal status possible through the legalization and assimilation processes. Essentially criminal status has a generalized negative impact that infringes one’s right to seek citizenship. Marcias-Rojas (2016), argues that the tendency to combine criminalization and illegalization as one shapes the notion of who Americans view as desirable candidates for citizenship. When criminalization is defined as the process that turns certain groups of people into criminals, then it alienates people of color as undesirable. For example, immigrant Mexicans at the borders face discrimination due to their ethnicity.

In the United States of America, there is a 44% uptake of Citizenship among the foreign-born (Aptekar, 2015). The low percentages can be explained by the institutionalized factors that leave the acquisition of citizenship to an individual. Felix (2013), outlines that America needs to refashion its naturalization norms as the legal permanent residents have had negative experiences with the process. The negative aspects of naturalization make it hard to seek citizenship. Those who seek citizenship do it for safety purposes against racial hostility. Naturalization introduces inequality and discrimination in that when accepted to be an American citizen; the immigrant has to swear an oath rejecting their countries of origin (Felix, 2013). It depicts inequality as dual citizenship is a right allowed by many countries.

Gender norms define acceptable actions or behavior for men and women in a community. Longo (2018) states that for white couples, men head the household while women take up the role of caretakers who had to keep their bloodlines pure. Purity meant they could not mix with other races. The norms do reflect on the lives of Native Americans as their women lost their citizenship when they married foreign persons; consequently, they could not petition for the immigration of their foreign-born spouses. The same restrictions did not apply to men. Gender norms harm immigrants. For example, when a male citizen petitioning for their female spouse sends money, then that proves their ability to provide since men are “naturally” the breadwinners. However, if a female does the same, it reduces the chances of their immigrant partners to gain citizenship. We should not use gender norms as they are discriminatory to the females who ought to have equal rights and privileges.

References

Aptekar, S.(2015). Making sense of naturalization: what citizenship means to naturalizing immigrants in Canada and the USA. Springer Science. DOI 10.1007/s12134-015-0458-5.

Felix, A. (2013). Dreams of citizenship, naturalization nightmare: new naturalization norms needed. The University of California. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/62p083rr.

Longo, G. M. (2018). Keeping it in “the family”: how gender norms shape U.S. marriage migration politics. Gender and Society. 32(4), 469-492. doi:10.1177/0891243218777201.

Marcias-Rojas, P (2016). A new enforcement terrain. New York University Press.

Muzzafar, C., Hipsman, F., Ball, I. (2015). Fifty Years on, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act continues to reshape the United States. Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/fifty-years-1965-immigration-and-nationality-act-continues-reshape-united-states.