In "Contested Membership over Time”, Robert Gonzalez discusses the struggles of being an undocumented immigrant in the United States. With immigration policies such as DACA, it doesn’t seem enough to help immigrants in need of help.
Many young undocumented immigrants have lived in the US since they were very young. And when DACA and other immigration policies were created to help these youths, this was viewed as an opportunity for many undocumented students to have some legal status. Unfortunately, some individuals cannot obtain any legal status from immigration policies because there was a belief that there “good” and “bad” immigrant. Which I find extremely unfair because these people are too complex to be marked as good or bad because of circumstances.
So if you are pursuing an education, providing for your family, or being a productive member of society then you are a “good” immigrant. While “bad” immigrants are apart of gangs, had a felony on their record, or an overall criminal. Also, what happens if that person has clean up their act and trying to change? While these policies could help so many undocumented students, I feel that this would prompt more problems to rise because this would lead to the idea that some people are deserving of the safety and programs connected to citizenship while denying many things for the ones who is characterized as an “bad” undocumented immigrant.
In an article that I read, while people benefited a lot from DACA, this is not always a permanent solution for all undocumented immigrants. The DACA narratives tended to only highlight model immigrants and with DACA out of the picture, this caused all undocumented immigrants to be categorized in the same group. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/07/how-daca-pits-good-immigrants-against-millions-of-others/?utm_term=.0733282eb561
Do you believe that these policies would help immigrants who deserve it or would it only encourage more people to behave a certain way?
Daisy,
ReplyDeleteI believe that the policies that put into place to "help" immigrants can be very discriminatory as you mentioned. They may have good intent by trying to help these individuals who want to do good for America and are not trying to harm anyone, but the regulations that they put into place make it hard for people who have a past to recreate themseleves. Someone who got caught up with a gang when they were 17 may be 40 now and trying to provide for their family, but they would not be allowed to be protected because of their past that they may regret very much. Also, ending up on a gang list may be a mistake. Either way, these policies that decide who is good and who is bad make for an unfair decision as to who will be protected.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteThe point that you make in your post is basically what most people would agree with. In my personal experience I know people that came here as immigrants since they were young and they made wrong choices when they had just gotten here to the U.S. Since they were young, and unexperienced to how the system works different here than in Mexico there choices from the past have now prevented them from gaining their residency. Now that they are more mature like you mentioned they regret the bad choices they made and wish they could go back in order to today have an even better life here in the U.S. I can also related to the point that the author makes about people being marked as "bad" by the system from simple mistakes they made during their childhood and are now criticized, which they now regret. My boyfriend made bad choices when he was a kid and was marked down as part of a gang. He has now been trying to have a better life and make better choices but he is seen as more of a target by police since he is and will continue to be in that list forever. Like many undocumented who have lost their opportunity to certain rights and regret their actions from the past he is not the same.
Hello Daisy,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I also believe that society has created this "good" and "bad" immigrant title. Many immigrants that have come though are uninformed about how the system works and although they thought that whatever country they came from was okay to do has affected them. In regards to your question I personally believe that many people have made mistakes and have tried to better themselves but little mistakes in some cases has affected their status. I think that now more than ever with the president we have many would behave a certain way to maintain it. I also think that no one could really know when someone is a good person or bad person for all we know a bad person can be doing unlawful things without people knowing and still get away with it, and vice versa. But also these circumstances has led to a belief on others who are really trying to get an education.