Latino Immigration

PRO IMMIGRATION

This website looks at why immigration can be a good thing for both the US and Mexico. It separates the document in four separate parts; creating a concise, well structured argument, whilst looking at certain aspects of the immigration. It focuses on how immigration benefits the countries in terms of profits & poverty and social security & starvation.

Using statistics, the information provided in this document is well supported and keeps everything interesting and often quite surprising. For example, the article states that 53% of Mexico's 104million population live in poverty- this is very shocking, and shows why the immigration rate is so prolific, as Latino people are looking to benefit themselves in terms of their quality of life and economic standing; meaning that they are willing to work hard and for a lower wage than American people. The illegal immigration also benefits America's economy because an estimated $7billion is paid to the American government via social security from immigrants. It also looks at how even though the immigrants might be seen to be stealing jobs from American people, they do the jobs that nobody else wants so actually help support the economy right from the very bottom, such as de-boning chicken in poultry plants, working in fields picking crops and in construction.

I believe that this article is good in terms of looking at contemporary immigration issues because it focuses on several different aspects and also looks at immigration from both sides of the issue. This means that it is fair and less biased, as well as meeting the aims of the article itself- to inform people of why immigration is so prolific and how it benefits each of the countries.

This image shows how prolific the immigration is at this current time and how much it is growing. Although there has was a slight drop between 2007 and 2010, the statistics are still very high and this is likely to be down to an increase in border security in recent years.

ANTI IMMIGRATION

The website 'Protect Our Border' is a very much anti-illegal Latino immigration group, the author(s) are obviously very passionate about keeping immigrants out and are very patriotic, especially represented by the image of the American flag at the top of the site. The website outlines many points that it believes "Pro Illegal Alien Groups don't want you to know", there are 33 in total, all of which are well structured and looks at both social and economic factors that immigration affects.

Although the grounds for this argument do seem sometimes unfair, the authors have every right to argue their case, mainly because they do balance their point and often distinguish the fact that legal immigration is absolutely fine, it is just the illegal immigrants that they have problems with, which, in my opinion, is fair enough. Despite agreeing with parts of their argument, I do believe that referring to the illegal immigrants as 'aliens' is somewhat unfair, it almost dehumanises them; making out that they are not even valued people.

There have been many protests in recent years about stopping illegal immigration and the US government has proposed a plan to put a 700 mile fence across the south western border between Mexico and America. There are even petitions in place now which are aiming to stop illegal immigration for good, which, interestingly, is sponsored by the same 'Protect Our Border' page that I have talked about above.