Family Reunification: Vital for Social and Economic Progress - Essay Sample

Introduction

Family reunification is an essential aspect of immigration policies. The United Nations Body UNHCR aims to have the family reunification as a priority. In an individual's social progress, the family plays a vital role in development. It is the primary institution in which an individual first interacts with before joining the other institutions such as religion and education. A united family plays a vital role in an individual's economic progress. It is the basic building block for an individual's economic development and support. Reunification programs mostly aim at reuniting families, especially children are likely to be permanently separated from their parents and other family members (Gubernskaya and Joanna 429). It is essential to develop a policy that can help in family reunification in cases where chances of refugee family separation are high. The reunification programs developed need to have clarity of implementation and must be effective than the existing policy to ensure success. Immigration, in most cases, involves detention of those who are illegally in the country. Parents are most likely to be the ones detained, and the children are left alone. The developed policy will be useful in ensuring that the child left at home by the parent arrested does not suffer or lack. Separated families due to immigration policies implemented by the government have a right to live together.

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Policy Recommendation

Reformulation of existing policy is essential to ensure a more united and healthy family. In this case of the parent is detained, the government should ensure that the separated child does not suffer. It starts with the definition of family. The policy should be changed to be more inclusive and reflecting on current trends. Our focus being the USA, the current definition of family is limited to children and marriage certificate. A child's parents might be unmarried and of the same sex who got the child through adoption. The new policy should take care of such families (Gabriel 190).

Detained families need to be able to hire caregivers for their children. It will help in ensuring that the children are not held together with their parents in the detention centres, which would adversely affect their lives (Bonizzoni 230). In most cases, parents are put in detention centres to wait for the processing of their immigration documents. During this time, children's lives should not be affected.

Processing times should be short. It enables the parents not to remain in deletion centres for long with the future being uncertain. Prolonged processing of immigration documents affects the lives of the child due to the separation occasioned (Gubernskaya and Joanna 419).

Data and Professional Opinions

In the United States, 81 per cent of the applications for admission in the country are family-related. Experts argue that prolonged family separation leads to uncertainty about the family's future which affects economic productivity (Gubernskaya and Joanna 422). It then shows that those who are illegally in the country are many. It has a long term effect on the Nation's productivity, and it's GDP. The feeling of exclusion which affects the families whose permit processing time for reunification has taken so long affects the mental and social perception of those that are affected.

Policy Comparison

Canada offers an excellent example of how expanded family definition solves the current challenges experienced in the United States and some European countries. For example, Canada recognizes same-sex marriages and defines them as a family on matters related to immigration documents. Liberal ideologies inform most states about current reunification policies (Gabriel 179). The presence of kin and other immediate family members determines the productivity level, especially where a minor is involved. Canada recognizes this and has formulated more accommodative policies which can be copied by other countries, including the United States of America.

Policy Effect

If adopted, the new policy recommendation will help in reducing family separation time. It will reduce the time that parents are put in detention centres away from their children. In situations where the family members are put in immigration detention centres, the new policy recommendation will ensure that the children will not suffer. The guardian will take care of them as provided in the policy (Bonizzoni 225).

Conclusion

The policy will be useful in ensuring that the child meets the basic need and does not suffer because of the government's immigration policy. The data provided and the expert opinion shows that the discussed strategy will be useful, and families will not be adversely affected. By having parents arrange to have a guardian at their place of residence during the time of parent's detention, the typical child life is not changed. The only thing that will be missing is the parent who is detained, but the average life of the child continues. Those favoured mostly be the reunification program are the immediate family members.Immediate family members in many jurisdictions are the children, spouses and parents of the person needing a reunification process with the family member. They must be reunited so that they can live happy and more empowered lives with family members around them.

Works Cited

Bonizzoni, Paola. "Policing the intimate borders of the nation: a review of recent trends in family-related forms of immigration control." Gendering Nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018. 223-239.

Gabriel, Christina. "Framing Families: Neo-Liberalism and the Family Class within Canadian Immigration Policy." Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice 38.1 (2017): 179-194.

Gubernskaya, Zoya, and Joanna Dreby. "US immigration policy and the case for family unity." Journal on Migration and Human Security 5.2 (2017): 417-430.