Illegal immigration

For the 1983 Genesis song, see Illegal Alien (song)

Template:Legal status Illegal immigration refers to migration across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. In politics, the term may imply a larger set of social issues and time constraints with disputed consequences in areas such as economy, social welfare, education, health care, slavery, prostitution, crime, legal protections, public services, and human rights. Illegal emigration would be leaving a country in a manner that violates the laws of the country being left.

Terminology

Terminology used in Europe

clandestine workers (Europe)^[1]
sans papiers [4]

Terminology used in Asia

boat people
IIs (illegal immigrants)

Terminology in the United States

Terms used in the United States include:

unauthorized immigrant/ migrant/ alien/ worker/ resident
paperless immigrant/ migrant/ alien/ worker/ resident
illegal immigrant/ migrant/ alien/ worker/ resident
undocumented immigrant/ migrant/ alien / worker/ resident
criminal alien
crim-alien (slang)
Bombadil #

^{[citation needed]}

immigrant "without immigration status"
WOP (WithOut Papers)

"Illegal alien" is the official term in legislation and the border patrol for a person who has entered the country illegally or is residing in the United States illegally after entering legally (for example, using a tourist visa and remaining after the visa expires).[5]

Causes

War and repression

One driver of illegal immigration is an attempt to escape civil war or repression in their native country.

After 6 years of armed conflict, roughly one of every 20 Colombians now live abroad.^[2] Figures from the US Department of Homeland Security indicate that Colombia is the fourth-leading source country of unauthorized immigration to the United States; The estimated number of unauthorized Colombian residents in the US has almost tripled from 51,000 in 1990 to 141,000 in 2000.^[3]

]

The largest per-capita source of immigrants to the US comes from El Salvador, for which up to a third of the population lives outside the country, mostly in the US.^[4] According to the Sam Pohl County Office of Human Relations,

Despite the fact that the U.S. government’s role in the Salvadoran conflict was unique in sustaining the prolongation of the civil conflict, the government and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) extended little sympathy to the people affected by the war. In the 1980s, the INS granted only 2% of political asylum applications, claiming that democracy existed in El Salvador and that reports of U.S. and government-sponsored “death squads” were overblown. As a response to the U.S. government’s failure to address the situation of Salvadoran refugees in the U.S., American activists established a loose network to aid refugees. Operating in clear violation of U.S. immigration laws, these activists took refugees into their houses, aided their travel, hid them and helped them find work. This became known as the “sanctuary movement”.^[5]

Family reunion

Some undocumented immigrants seek to live with loved ones, such as a spouse or other family members.^[6]^[7]^[8] This is particularly true for the families of binational same sex couples.^[9] The Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force (LGIRTF) warns binational same sex couples in the US that marriage may actually increase the likelihood of becoming undocumented, rather than decreasing it.[6][7]

Poverty

Another reason for immigration is to escape poverty. According to CBS 60 Minutes, U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Jose Gutierrez, one of the first U.S. servicemen to die in combat in Iraq, a former street child in Guatemala having been orphaned at age 8, first entered the US as an undocumented immigrant in 1997 to escape poverty, and dreamed of being an architect.^[10] Sometimes the person moves over the border because the wage-labor ratio is much higher in the neighboring country, as is the case with the US illegal immigration.

Prostitution and Slavery

Smuggling of people may also be involuntary on the immigrant's part. Following the close of the legal international slave trade by the European nations and the United States in the early 19th century, the illegal importation of slaves into America has continued, albeit at much reduced levels. The so-called "white slave trade" referred to the smuggling of women, almost always under duress or fraud, for the purposes of forced prostitution. Now more generically called "sexual slavery" it continues to be a problem, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, though there have been increasing cases in the U.S. [8][9] People may also be kidnapped or tricked into slavery to work as laborers, for example in factories. Those trafficked in this manner often face additional barriers to escaping slavery, since their status as illegal immigrants makes it difficult for them to gain access to help or services. For example Burmese women trafficked into Thailand and forced to work in factories or as prostitutes may not speak the language and may be vulnerable to abuse by police due to their illegal immigrant status.^[11]

Methods

Border crossing

Immigrants from nations that do not have an automatic visa agreements, or who would not otherwise qualify for a visa, often cross the borders illegally in some areas like the U.S.-Mexico border, the Strait of Gibraltar, Fuerteventura and the Strait of Otranto. Because these methods must be extralegal, they are often dangerous. Would-be immigrants suffocate in shipping containers [10], boxcars [11], and trucks[12], sink in unseaworthy vessels [13], die of dehydration [14] or exposure during long walks without water^{[citation needed]}. For example, across the US-Mexican border, the official estimate is that between 1998 and 2004 there were 1,954 people who died in illegal crossings.

The Snakeheads gang of Fujian, China, has been smuggling laborers into Pacific Rim nations for over a century, making Chinatowns frequent centers of illegal immigration. [15]

Smugglers, known in the US as "coyotes", often charge a hefty fee, and have been known to abuse or even kill [16] their customers in attempts to have the debt repaid.Sometimes immigrants are abandoned by their human traffickers if there are difficulties, often dying in the process. Others may be victims of intentional killing.

Overstays

Some illegal immigrants enter a country legally and then overstay or violate their visa. [17] For example, most of the estimated 200,000 illegal immigrants in Canada are refugee claimants whose refugee applications were rejected but who have not yet been ejected from the country.^[12]

A related way of becoming an illegal immigrant is through bureaucratic means. For example, a person can be allowed to remain in a country - or be protected from expulsion - because he/she needs special treatment for a medical condition, etc., without being able to regularize his/her situation and obtain a work and/or residency permit, let alone naturalization. Hence, categories of people being neither illegal immigrants nor legal citizens are created, living in a judicial "no man's land". Another example is formed by children of foreigners born in countries observing jus soli ("right of territory"), such as France. In that country, one may obtain French nationality if he was born in France - but, due to recent legislative changes, it is only granted at the age of eighteen, and only upon request.

Legal and political status

See also: Illegal immigration to the United States, Immigration to the United States, Australian immigration, Immigration to the United Kingdom, Illegal immigrants in Malaysia, Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

Many countries have had or currently have laws restricting immigration for economic or nationalistic political reasons. Whether a person is permitted to stay in a country legally may be decided by quotas or point systems or may be based on considerations such as family ties (marriage, elderly mother, etc.). Exceptions relative to political refugees or to sick people are also common. Immigrants who do not participate in these legal proceedings or who are denied permission under them and still enter or stay in the country are considered illegal immigrants. [18]

Most countries have laws requiring workers to have proper documentation, often intended to prevent or minimize the employment of unauthorized immigrants. However the penalties against employers are often small and the acceptable identification requirements vague and ill-defined as well as being seldom checked or enforced, making it easy for employers to hire unauthorized labor. Unauthorized immigrants are especially popular with many employers because they can pay less than the legal minimum wage or have unsafe working conditions, secure in the knowledge that few unauthorized workers will report the abuse to the authorities. Often the minimum wages in one country can be several times the prevailing wage in the unauthorized immigrant's country, making even these jobs attractive to the unauthorized worker. However, most unauthorized workers are paid well above minimum wage (need source)

In response to the outcry following popular knowledge of the Holocaust, the newly-established United Nations held an international conference on refugees, where it was decided that refugees (legally defined to be people who are persecuted in their original country and then enter another country seeking safety) should be exempted from immigration laws. [19] It is, however, up to the countries involved to decide if a particular immigrant is a refugee or not, and hence whether they are subject to the immigration controls.

The right to freedom of movement of an individual within National borders is often contained within the constitution or in a country's human rights legislation but these rights are restricted to citizens and exclude all others. Some argue that the freedom of movement both within and between countries is a basic human right and that nationalism and immigration policies of state governments violate this human right that those same governments recognise within their own borders. According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fundamental human rights are violated when citizens are forbidden to leave their country. (Article 13). This, however, only assists immigrants with the first part of their immigration process and does not assist with the second, finding a new home.

Since immigrants without proper legal status have no valid identification documents such as identity cards, they may have reduced or no access to public health systems, proper housing, education and banks. This lack of access may result in the creation or expansion of an illegal underground forgery to provide this documentation. [20].

When the authorities are overwhelmed in their efforts to stop illegal immigration, they have historically provided amnesty. Amnesties, which are becoming less tolerated by the citizenry, [21] waive the "subject to deportation" clause associated with illegal aliens.

Controversy

The public may be sharply divided on the issue of illegal immigration because of the controversial content.

Advocates for illegal immigration accuse much of the anti-illegal immigration sentiment on racism and/or xenophobia (the fear of strangers). It should be noted however, that Mexican is not a race, but a nationality. ^{[citation needed]}

European Union

The European Union is developing a common system for immigration and asylum and a single external border control strategy.

In France, helping an illegal immigrant (providing shelter, for example) is prohibited by a law passed on December 27, 1994 under the cohabitation between socialist President François Mitterrand and right-wing Premier ministre Edouard Balladur [22]. The law was heavily criticized by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the CIMADE or the GISTI, left-wing political parties such as the Greens or the French Communist Party, and trade-unions such as the magistrates' Syndicat de la magistrature.

Once in July 2004 and a second time in May 2006, Hellenic Coast Guard ships were caught on film cruising as near as a few hundred meters off the Turkish coast and abandoning clandestine immigrants to the sea. This practice resulted in the drowning of six people between Chios and Karaburun on 26 September 2006 while three others disappeared and 31 were saved by Turkish gendarmes and fishermen.^[13]

United States

Illegal immigration has been a longstanding issue in the United States, creating immense controversy.

The Pew Hispanic Center state that 57% of illegal aliens are of Mexican origin and about 75% are of Latin American origin [23]. They also report that while the number of legal immigrants (including LPRs, refugees, and asylees) arriving has not varied substantially since the 1980s, the number of illegal aliens has increased dramatically and, since the mid 1990s, has surpassed the number of legal immigrants. [24]

Some economists have argued that whether the impact on the U.S. economy has been good or bad depends on which section of the U.S. population one is most concerned about. The cost of labor has cheapened and this has benefited business owners, but had a negative effects on some American labourers in certain unskilled fields. [25][26][27]^[14]^[15]

A growing issue is gangs which are made of and support illegal aliens such as Mara Salvatrucha. According to a Maldon Institute report, MS 13 “appears to be in control of much of the Mexican border and, in addition to its smuggling and contraband rackets, the gang collects money from illegal immigrants that it helps [move] across the border into the United States.”[28] Its members have committed murder, severed limbs, assaulted, robbed, and raped [29] and are protected by international law with El Salvador. [30].

Issues related to illegal immigration to the United States include research that such immigration has hidden medical consequences, such as the importation of diseases (such as polio, plague, dengue fever, drug-resistant tuberculosis, the chagas disease, and leprosy), which some sources describe as serious.[31]^[16]^[17]

Mexico

Mexico has very strict immigration laws pertaining to both illegal and legal immigrants. [32] The Mexican constitution restricts non-citizens or foreign-born persons from participating in politics, holding office, acting as members of the clergy, or serving on the crews of Mexican-flagged ships or airplanes. Certain legal rights are waived in the case of foreigners, such as the right to a deportation hearing or other legal motions. In cases of flagrante delicto, any person may make a citizen's arrest on the offender and any accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities.

In the first six months of 2005 alone, more than 120,000 people from Central America have been deported to their countries of origin. This is a significantly higher rate than in 2002, when for the entire year, only 130,000 people were deported [33]. Another important group of people are those of Chinese origin, who pay about $5,500 to smugglers to be taken to Mexico from Hong Kong. It is estimated that 2.4% of rejections for work permits in Mexico correspond to Chinese citizens [34]. Many women from Eastern Europe, Asia, the United States, and Central and South America are also offered jobs at table dance establishments in large cities throughout the country causing the National Institute of Migration (INM) in Mexico to raid strip clubs and deport foreigners who work without the proper documentation [35]. Many illegally immigrated Argentines are currently working in the country with the proper documentation, including some who work also in table dance establishments. In 2004, the INM deported 188,000 people at a cost of $10 million [36].

Illegal immigration of Cubans through Cancún tripled from 2004 to 2006 [37]

Mexico cooperates with the United States by maintaining its own aggressive stance on immigration on its southern border ([38]) disrupting the illegal immigration pipeline and condemns the United States for its efforts at building a fence along the US-Mexico border. [39]

References

^ Reem Saad (May 2006). "Egyptian Workers in Paris: Pilot Ethnography" (PDF). SRC, American University in Cairo.
^ "Colombia: In the Crossfire". Migration Information Source
"In the last decade, large-scale emigration has marked Colombian society, with roughly one of every 10 Colombians now living abroad. Internally, the country has been confronted with a major humanitarian crisis, as forced displacement has reached alarming proportions during the same period. Political, social, and economic problems, coupled with widespread insecurity, have fueled both voluntary and forced migration, while the same factors have acted as powerful deterrents for immigration to the country. After 40 years of armed conflict, various fruitless attempts at peace negotiations, and a persistent drug trade, Colombia remains plagued by violence.". November 2005. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |retrieved= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
^ Office of Policy and Planning U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service: [http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/Ill_Report_1211.pdf Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: 1990 to 2000] page 9.
^ To slow immigration from El Salvador, understand its causes Baltimore Sun, January 11, 2007
^ [http://www.immigrantinfo.org/kin/elsalvador.htm Knowledge of Immigrant Nationalities of Santa Clara County (KIN): El Salvador]
^ Young Migrants Risk All to Reach U.S.: Thousands Detained After Setting Out From Central America Without Parents Washington Post, August 28, 2006
^ Love Unites Them, La Migra Separates ThemEl Observador, November 30, 2006
^ After such respect, such humiliationHaaretz, January 31, 2005
^ Family, Unvalued: Discrimination, Denial, and the Fate of Binational Same-Sex Couples under U.S. Law Human Rights Watch, May 2, 2006 Faced with the unpalatable choice between leaving and living with the person they love in violation of U.S. immigration laws, foreign-born partners may become undocumented—staying after their visa expires.
^ The Death Of Lance Cpl. Gutierrez: Simon Reports On Non-Citizen SoldiersCBS 60 Minutes, Aug. 20, 2003
^ Bales, Kevin (1999). Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22463-9.
^ Marina Jimenez (11/15/03). "200,000 illegal immigrants toiling in Canada's underground economy". Globe and Mail. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Delete the Border quoting Khaleej Times; ADN Kronos Survivors of the immigrant boat tragedy accuse Greeks (in English) - [1] [2] [3]. The newspaper Hürriyet (in Turkish). Three of the drowned were Tunisians, one was Algerian, one Palestinian and the other Iraqi. The three disappeared were also Tunisians.
^ George J. Borjas and Richard B. Freeman (December 10, 1997). "Findings we never found". The New York Times. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
^ Philip Martin (June 25, 2006). "Econoblog: The Costs and Benefits of Immigration". Wall Street Journal Online Econoblog. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
^ Reichman LB. Time Bomb: The Global Epidemic of Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis. New York, N.Y.:McGraw Hill Professional; 2001
^ Garret L. The Coming Plague. New York, N.Y.:Penguin, 1995