Illegal Immigration
Illegal immigration has been occurring for many years, but many things have changed regarding peoples opinions on this subject. Today many people dislike illegal immigration, but years ago it was somewhat encouraged. People depended on immigrants to do labor work such as building railroads or dangerous mining, and didn't really mind immigrants from coming to the U.S. Now people argue that illegal immigrants are stealing jobs. This change in people views on immigration may be caused by the fact that there are a lot of unemployed people claiming that this is because of illegal immigrants. This also may be because there is more technology now, and therefore less of a need for certain manual labors. People now are fighting to end illegal immigration, and to deport all illegal immigrants. People years ago had little interest in the subject of deportation. There were still laws and guidelines about immigration, but most weren't as serious as they are now. The impact this has on immigration today is increased boarder security and increased deportation.
DREAM Act
The DREAM act is an act that says children brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents have an opportunity to earn their citizenship. This act was introduced in 2001 by Orrin Hatch and Dick Durbin, but there are many ways to compare it to things that happened in the past. In the past if a family of illegal immigrants were discovered they would all be deported back to wherever they came from without any thought about the children. Now people are starting to pay more attention to the fact that children who had no say in any of this are being moved around from place to place and may end up in an unfit living environment. This act will have a great effect on the number of immigrants who are contributing to society compared to the number who aren't. This is because in order for an illegal child to become a citizen they have to have been living in the U.S. for 5 years and be committed to graduating high school and going on to college or military services. This will eliminate the amount of immigrants who don't do anything to contribute to society. In the past there was nothing that would determine weather or not someone would contribute to society or not, so there was no way of filtering through the people.
Border Patrol/Border
The borders of America, specifically the Mexican American border has been watched very carefully in the past few years. Many illegal immigrants come across the border each year searching for a better life in America, but since the government has been keeping a closer eye on illegal immigration the border has become an annoyance to tend to. There is not enough border patrol to watch every part of the border at one time. This lead to the construction of the fences at the boarder. These fences are more like walls that are meant to keep illegal immigrants from getting across. In the past illegals could just come across and easily find a labor job to support themselves, and many people would never get caught and deported. People of America would sometimes take it into their own hands and line the border searching for illegal immigrants. This increased border security will in time lead to a great decrease in the amount of illegal immigration in America.
Hiring Illegal Immigrants
There are always going to be jobs that no one wants to do, and in the past immigrants who came to the U.S. would often take these jobs just to earn some money. In the past if someone needed a job done, they would hire anyone they could regardless of whether or not they were a legal citizen or not. Now there are laws against businesses hiring illegal immigrants. This has effected immigration in a huge way. When illegal immigrants can't get a job anywhere in the U.S. they sometimes move back to Mexico. This could also cause lots of immigrants to reconsider coming to the U.S. in the first place. This could cause a big decrease in the amount of illegal immigrants.