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THE GREAT IMMIGRATION DEBATE. Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. ...
... Their lives are often paused for great lengths of time waiting for such a decision. ...
The Immigration Debate. Vol. 1. West Hartford, CN: Kumarin, 1996. ...
... I've been privileged to know two great Mexican immigrants and they have ... Many others
likely slipped in undetected (Washington Post; The Immigration Debate). ...
... Immigration Debate over immigration and immigration policy is not new ... are my reasons
why I chose immigration as one ... make a better life, that's great, but they ...
... A debate, of course, must have various points of views ... Some immigration supporters
also feel that the risks the immigrants take to get here are far too great. ...
Submitted by meth on April 16, 2007
Category: American History
Words: 1743 | Pages: 7
Views: 234
Popularity Rank: 51,381
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Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
This inscription, which is found on the Statue of Liberty, greeted years of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island to America. It describes the idealized view of the United States as a nation of immigrants, where anyone can achieve the American dream. However, does this accurately describe our immigration policy today? Our current policy is better described by this version, written by Chris Willey:
Give me your athletes, your scientists,
Your artists, writers, and actors,
Your politicians and businessmen.
Send these, the best and brightest, to me.
To these lies open the golden door:
You can keep the rest.
Under current U.S. immigration laws, it is not difficult for those immigrants labeled as desirable to receive admittance. The Immigration Act of 1990 created new categories of immigrants. "Within the employment category, first preference was given to aliens ‘with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, multinational executives'...." It may be true that these creative and skilled people have just as much of a right to pursue the American dream as anyone else. But do we, as Americans, have the moral right to exclude the needy from our country?
Refugees have two basic choices. They can return to their home country, or they can try to settle in another country. Most refugees, however, cannot return home because conditions in their native country have not changed sufficiently to eliminate the problems from which they originally fled. Curiously enough, the United Nations Charter of Human Rights "bestows the right to leave a country, but other states are not obligated to allow entry." Basically, this says that no refugee...
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