Immigration as a Social Issue Academic Paper

Nature of the Project, Significance and Outcomes

The United States of America has had problems with illegal immigration. The illegal nature is caused by the fact that most of the immigrants do not follow the right procedures and techniques needed when getting to a foreign country. The illegal immigration implications have affected them and the Americans too. This project is sociological in nature and has some anthropological aspects that make it viable and worth conducting. It needs the sample design to be inclusive so as to obtain the facts and figures needed for a better discussion and conclusion.

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This project is of great significance as it will not only provide information to the individual researcher but also to the entire nation as a whole. It will be beneficial to the departments that deal with immigrants as they will get ideas on how to address the negative aspects of illegal immigration and devise policies to refrain them. It will show the immigration experience and immigrants perceptions on the laws that have been imposed on them over the past few years. With this data, appropriate actions can be taken to provide them with support, and to burn the illegal once from accessing the resources of the foreign land such as education, security, and quality healthcare. In the current situation, the United States needs to have clear data of the number of illegal immigrants in the US that they have for better fund dissemination systems.

Some researchers have found out that the immigrants engage in acts that destroy the reputation of the country as a whole. For instance, the current president of America, Donald Trump has devised some policies to prevent more immigrants from getting into the country. It comes at a time when he realized the legal citizens lack jobs which are handled by the immigrants who when looked at deeply were found to be in the country by illegal means. After conducting the project, the outcomes obtained are expected to be disseminated via reports and be available to the departments that deal with immigration and foreign affairs of the country. The results of the project will be distributed after the details have been approved by the relevant departments. They will have to ensure that it is not biased and the data in it have been obtained from credible sources. The entire project needs to be clean and transparent by the time it is presented to the public for further research and decision making.

Background Study of the Project

There is a gap that exists between the legal and illegal immigrants in a country such as the United States. The gap is mainly focused on the idea that most of the people who come to the country have different missions and intentions. It has not been an easy task to quantify whether one is legal or an illegal immigrant. This aspect only comes after one takes part in an activity which is either accepted or rejected by the laws of the land. Immigration itself is not illegal, but it depends on the way one has accessed the citizenship of a country (United Nations, 2006).

Globalization has been found to be the primary driver of immigration as people tend to go to other nations to grab the opportunities that exist in the form of jobs and education. Immigration is a global issue and has been a characteristic of most human societies from the beginning of time. Some of the reasons as to why people choose to migrate include prevalence of poverty, armed conflict, social strife, economic hardships and political turmoil (United Nations, 2006). During the current age of immigration, the world economies have become integrated and upgraded to points where people focus on profit maximization (UNODC, 2015)

Illegal immigrants in USA has been connected to issues that have to do with illicit drug smuggling and human trafficking. All these have been catalyzed by the fact that globalization exists and people have to get connected to each other if at all growth and development needs to occur. It has been found out that illegal drugs in the United States take a huge part in the black market industry. It has an estimated value of around $200-$750 billion in a year. This issue came out-out of the increase in the number of people who use illegal drugs in American history (Adinolfi, 2013). Drug trafficking is an issue which affects people worldwide and takes a large part in the global illicit trade (UNODC, 2015). Human trafficking is also a result of illegal immigration, and the U.S accounts for 600,000 to 800,000 people being trafficked every year. Out of these numbers, 80% of them are female, and nearly a half of them make a population of children (UNODC, 2015)

The most commonly trafficked drugs in the U.S are methamphetamine, marijuana, powdered cocaine, heroin, and oxycodone crack cocaine (Adinolfi, 2013). Mexicans are the most commonly known immigrants to the U.S who are involved in illicit drug trade. They engage in smuggling of marijuana in large numbers, and to some extent, this has contributed to the idea that Donald Trump had on the construction of the great wall to separate the two countries (The United States and Mexico) (Taylor, 2007). The northern border of America has had experiences of increased labor as the immigrants mostly offer low-cost labor. Americans do not like the fact that they work in their country and get paid low sums of money. They, therefore, opt to offer employment opportunities to immigrants who accept to be paid low wages (Fox, 2010)

The U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department has come up with policies and rules which need to be adhered to by both the local and international immigrants. This office has the role of developing and implementing policies related to immigration and the affairs that have to do with internal and external stakeholders. The ICE has come up with policies that need its agents to go to schools and find out those who are not part of the American citizenship. It has raised fear among parents as they have a perception of their children being deported to other countries for being illegal immigrants. The ICE follows orders from the president that all the illegal immigrants should be arrested and deported (Winkowski, Kerlikowske, and Rodriguez, 2014). This act has been implemented in Phoenix, Arizona.

The current experience of people in an anti-immigrant government climate has been subjected to negative perceptions and resistant behaviors. People believed that the ICE is not doing well to individuals who have been in the country for over ten years regardless of the fact that they came to the country illegally (Taylor, 2007). The people believed that the anti-immigrant government does not care about the affairs of people in that it does not follow the ethics of human existence. In the cities of New York and states of Arizona, there have been many cases of protests and rebellious acts as people want families to keep together. They do not want cases of immigrants deported as they have contributed to the flourishing of America's economy. The only thing that they want is to have those who take part in illegal drug smuggling and human trafficking to be arrested (Milanovic, 2013)

Project Outline and Procedures

Proposed Approach

For this project, I recommend using a participatory and collaborative approach to undertaking the study. The method involves the adequate participation of selected sample respondents who will be proposed. Using this approach, the respondents will work in close collaboration with the researcher to ensure that everything is of course. This approach has superior advantages which include the fact that it is not biased and the data collected is first hand.

Research Design

Both qualitative and quantitative research strategies will be used to collect data. The survey will use the correlational study design. The study design will provide quantitative and numeric descriptions of some part of the population. It will also provide qualitative data used for describing and explaining issues. Correlation model will be used to compare two or more characteristics from the same group and to explain how characteristics vary together and predict one from the other. The characteristics to be compared will include the various categories of immigrants who will be either legal or illegal.

Data Collection Methods

The research will involve the collection, analysis, and use of secondary and primary data. It will also include the collection, analysis, and use of qualitative and quantitative methods. Secondary data collection will involve a comprehensive review of the available secondary data. It will entail collection of qualitative data through review of the existing literature concerning the various parameters of these surveys, including internet search. The primary documents to be examined during secondary data collection will include but not limited to the following: the statistics of the current situation of illegal immigrants, documents on illegal drug smuggling and human trafficking, and previous researches which have done and have similar proximities.

Primary data will be collected using a triangulation method. It involves the use of more than one technique or method of data collection. In social studies like this, no single data collection method is adequate to provide all the essential data for the surveys. To supplement the results obtained from the structured questionnaire, we shall, also, use the following primary data collection techniques: Structured questionnaire (open and close ended), face to face interview with key stakeholders in the ICE, and key informant interviews with experts in the immigration issues.

Sampling and Sampling Frame

The target population for this survey will be all the immigrants in the chosen states (legal and illegal), the staff in the ICE department, and the authorities that conduct research on illegal drug smuggling and trafficking. The survey will be carried out in the states where issues of immigration are prevalent, and the population of immigrants is also significant. It will be conducted in the top five states with foreign-born residents from a survey carried out in the year 2008. These will be California (9.8 million), New York (4.2 million), Texas (3.8 million), Florida (3.3 million) and Illinois (1.7 million) (United Nations, 2006)

A representative sample for the Survey can be determined using Fisher's Model for sample size calculation of study populations of more than 10,000. It is an international best practice for use in surveys like this, where the population is huge, and sample elements are heterogeneous and diverse. In this research, the probability error margin will have a high influence on the sample size. The smaller the error margin, the greater the sample size and the higher the accuracy level.

Data Reliability

Sampling is the scientific method utilized by statisticians to achieve what a census would do at a fraction of the cost of the census. Errors will be controlled through a scientific sampling procedure and quality control measures hence improving the quality of data collected. Mathematically, reliability is defined as the proportion of the variability in the responses to the survey that is the result of differences in the respondents. The pilot data will be tested for reliability, and if the value is 0.7 or greater, then they will be adopted for the study. To guarantee quality, the field checking methods will be stringent and involve the following:

- A team leader checks 20% of all interviews.

- 20% of all interviews will be accompanied by a team leader.

- Team leaders while in the field will check 100% of questionnaires.

- Field supervisor will conduct further field checks

- 20% accompaniment of a team leaders' work.

In addition to this, the data entry system will need all the questionnaires to be double entered thus en...