Civic Democracy

Jeremy Adam Smith’s “Our Fear of Immigrants” proposes a sympathetic outlook towards immigrants. Smith wants the disgust and loathe of citizens to stop, and instead for them to start retaining empathy for newcomers. While reading the article, there is a sense of fear that people hold for immigrants. Many of these fears are mainly blamed on many motives such as psychological reasoning, genetic cognitive, and social status. Although Smith provides plenty logic behind the behavior of citizens, there should also be the point of view behind the immigrants themselves.

America as we know it today has been shaped by immigrants. It can be argued that America shapes immigrants as well. It is a nation that people, nationalist or foreign-born, desire to assimilate partially or fully into. According to a New York University professor, “Immigration, however, played a key role not only in making America’s development possible but also in shaping the basic nature of the society” (Diner, p. 2). It is a nation built on this idea of the “American dream” which varies depending on the person. However, it is something that holds steadily in an immigrant’s mind that is possible to achieve. America’s past, present and certainly future will be formed by immigrants, and once they get here America will coincidentally form their being as well.

The U.S found itself confronted to new challenges that they didn’t think of before. This new challenges led to a shift of American attitudes towards immigration. This was due to the high influx of the immigrants coming from Europe and of the liberal paradox related to immigration (Tichenor 2002, 51). The United States found itself caught between two stools where immigration benefited the economy but the on the other side its obligation to set limits regarding social and publics welfare available to the new wave of immigrants.

Linda Chavez’ “The Realities of Immigration” combats how most politicians view immigration. She states in her essay that most politicians are misinformed and take a stand against immigration to seem tough (Chavez 436). Chavez provides historical and statistical facts to argue the statement that immigrants take all the jobs and leave citizens unemployed. She states that immigrants tend to be more motivated to work harder and take on cheap

In “The Right Road to America?,” Amy Chua informs her audience about the possibility of America’s national identity becoming lost due to the influence of immigrants. Chua’s defines her thesis by stating “Around the world, nations face violence and instability as a result of their increasing pluralism and diversity,” (336). The key points of the text includes Chua explaining why America and other nations could lose their core identities, how the United States could become unglued from its true meaning, and how citizens can fix this imminent problem. The information in this text is significant, especially in today’s society. With all of the issues about immigration coinciding with our current president, this text relates to current subjects

Human nature leans toward bias, yet author Jeremy Adam Smith attempts to approach his argument in, “Our Fear of Immigrants” with a neutral approach. By presenting this neutral front, Jeremy Adam Smith is able to clarify and investigate the sociological explanations behind each side of the immigration debate. After exploring both sides, Smith promotes that immigrants should be viewed as humans, with families and lives. I agree with Jeremy Adam Smith’s claim in "Our Fear of Immigrants" that our fear of immigrants is connected to our genes and relates to social and psychological concepts that can be compassionately reformed, but I disagree that it would be fair to examine the different scenarios to why people broke the law when evaluating immigration policies.

In order to gain favor with the native masses, it seems that many politicians have used immigrants has scapegoats. More to the point, when trying to find a way to isolate a country’s problems whether it be unemployment or the economy, most politicians try to find a scapegoat to blame for the mishaps of the country’s well-being. For example, when the Marijuana tax act of 1937 was passed its sole purpose was to halt the immigration of people from Mexico. Moreover, many blamed the immigrants from Mexico for the usage of Marijuana. As the usage exponentially increased within the United States, the political solution was a blame on immigration. This is but one of the many reasons immigrants become targeted by politicians and the government. However,

Aside from social issues such as religious freedom, immigrants have come to the U.S. to escape poverty and make a better life for themselves and their children. Until immigration laws limited the amount of immigrants from certain foreign countries, the rate of immigration from other nations had been highly correlated to the difference in real wages between the U.S. and the home country as well as the economic and political conditions.[4] When the real value of money in the U.S. increased vis a vis that of a foreign nation, immigration from that

Immigration-related discussions could always cause vehement debates and arouse ambivalent feelings among both policy makers and the general public. On the one hand, we appreciate that immigrants contribute to cultural diversity, social vibrancy and economic prosperity; on the other hand, we sometimes could not resist to express our concerns and complaints about how immigrants constantly drive competition in job markets, put strain on public resources, and pose threats to social peace. Although classical economic model predicts with the expansion of labor force caused by increasing immigrants, wages or per capita income will fall and living standards will deteriorate, there might be a subgroup of immigrants who could, in contrast,

It is expected that ultimately there will be a loss of ethnic distinctiveness for immigrants in the U.S., meaning the lack of attachment to the country of origin. (Golash-Boza, 2006) It is argued that all ethnic distinctiveness will no longer exist by the seventh or eighth generations. Before exploring the influence of foreign born vs. U.S. born parents on their children’s cultural assimilation; the different theories of assimilation will be explored. The idea of Assimilation came about in the early 20th century. (Golash-Boza, 2006) Assimilation is surrounded by two theories, the first that all immigrants will assimilate sooner or later and that the generational status of the individual is one of the main factors in determining the

The United States has maintained a tolerate-hate relationship with undocumented immigrants, and really immigrants in general. DeSoto (2016) provides a unique perspective in regards to the system surrounding undocumented immigration, “until the nature of global capital is arranged so that such [economical] asymmetries are less extreme, people will migrate towards money and opportunity and way from poverty and lack of opportunity” (p. 2). As Hilfinger-Messias, McEwen, and Boyle (2015) emphasize, more often then not when immigrants become increasingly visible in society nativism resurfaces exclusionary tendencies, and immigration policies become increasingly prohibitive and strict,

When immigration policy is discussed, typically, it is discussed within the confines of egalitarian notions and sentiments, and inside the boundaries and parameters set by generally Marxist-influenced social democracy. Characteristically, it is not discussed pertaining to the concept of a social order built on the rights of property owners, sharers, and contributors to and of the common stock- which at their discretion- may exclude bad apples, lazy contributors, rotten characters, trespassers, and terrorists. Once egalitarian sentiments and notions are rejected full-scale- (only giving credence to those that have empirical weight or logical consistency) more proper, more substantive interdisciplinary analyses may reveal that the current investigative techniques employed by current mainstream political theorists are- in the context of reality, incorrect, superficial and quite shallow.

In Immigration: What Is to Be Done? By David Cole, David advocates the misleading anti-sentiment of immigrants today, such as immigrants taking jobs from U.S citizens, immigrants refusing to assimilate, Immigrants using and taking society’s resources, and the belief that Noncitizens are not entitled to constitutional rights. David contends these beliefs suggesting that the claims are biassed and flat out wrong, in addition he shows admiration for immigrants.

The question of identity is always a difficult one for those living in a culture or group, yet belonging to another. This difficulty frequently remains in the mind of most immigrants, especially the second generations who were born in a country other than their parents. Younger generations feel as if they are forced to change to fit the social standards despite previous culture or group. Furthermore those who wish to adopt a new identity of a group or culture haven't yet been fully accepted by original members due to their former identity.

We live in this country for the land, and the for the free as Americans we rely on many attributes in this world in order for us to live our lives. Our government has supplied us with many great things for us to be proud of. Our government is “the institutions and processes though which public policies are made for society.” (Edwards, Wattenberg, and Lineberry, p. 7). With all these institutions which includes the President, Congress, the courts and all the federal administrative agencies. These are the institutions that make up public policies for us, and to shape the way we live as Americans. The way this system has been operating through all the years has been