The next cycle came with Polish, Russian, and other Baltic state immigrants being targeted during the 1940's and 50' with events like the Red Scare that swept across America. There is no doubt that all of these periods had very restrictive immigration polices directed at the target groups and there were specific legal policies implemented to curb future immigration. but, perhaps more worrisome was that there were also underlying mass racism movements during all of these scenarios directed against these immigrants whether they were enemies of our nation or not. Again, our immigration and naturalization policies needed reevaluation after September 11, 2001, which was an obviously horrific day in our history. That event made us view our existing immigration, naturalization and work as well as student visa policies. In other words, we were doing the same things that were done to the Chinese, German, Japanese and Baltic state immigrants - this time, the targets were individuals of Middle Eastern decent and practicing Muslims. Current immigration policies are extremely anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and in some sense could be considered to be racist theories. The cycle revolves against anti-immigrant sentiment that targets whatever group represents the most recent immigrant population problem.

The concern therefore is that our mass illegal immigration concerns in California, Texas, Louisiana, Florida and other states are not addressed by our current immigration laws. Jay Leno recently pointed out that there is a huge hole in the fence from Mexico to the United States and the ride across the open seas of shark...

Our immigration policies in these cases have been slow to react or simply oblivious to the inherent immigration problems. Unfortunately, the only answer to stop illegal immigration may be for our nation to go to war with whatever country the policies are missing or to not allow them to create next generations - hey, it always seemed to work in the past.
In conclusion, this essay aimed to discuss some major issues that drive the debate surrounding immigration policies in the United States. The paper had a secondary objective to present some aspects of our current immigration policies that may need reform. Because immigration is a function of the push - pull philosophy, our nation often pulls from nations of those attempting to escape the ravages of war and even war with our country. These are the basics of what create sound immigration policies. Our underlying immigration policies are thus influenced by whoever is being pulled or pushed as well as inherent racist fears against whichever group our nation is creating. We should not be building immigration policies for the greatest nation in the world on real or perceived fears.

References

Chew, Kenneth SY, and John M. Liu. (2004). "Hidden in Plain Sight: Global Labor Force Exchange in the Chinese-American Population, 1880-1940." Population and Development Review Vol. 30

Ellis Island. (2005.) Migration. Retrieved on March 9, 2005, from Ed. Monroe K12 at http://www.monroe.k12.fl.us/kls/Immigration/EllisIsland/Ellisisland.htm.

Sociology - Welfare