The Impacts of Immigration on Families and Children Paper Example

Introduction

The issue of immigration is a controversial issue in American society. Most families within the American society consist of parents who stay illegally within the American borders. However, these individuals have children born within the boundaries of the U.S., and are residents of the United States. These are incomplete citizens. These incomplete citizens face some challenges because of their parents' legal status. In as much as there are diverse thoughts about illegitimate immigration, immigration reforms, and policies negatively impact those children born to illegal parents. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the educational, emotional and financial impacts of illegal immigration on children and families. The paper focuses on communication, psychology, business, and government.

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Communication

In immigration, communication projects how the media, culture, and society affect how children are perceived. Culture is believed to have positive and negative impacts on children. According to Hoekstra and Sandra (230), there are various organizations and groups which see the U.S. born children and undocumented families differently. Others regard these children as a burden, and that they should not benefit from the programs meant for the American citizens due to their parent's illegal status. The media negatively impact these children and families as well. For instance, these individuals experience trauma when they see families separated, punished and torn apart. They are also traumatized when they are labeled as criminals due to lack of proper documentation. The families live in fear that anything can happen to them anytime. There are situations when illegal immigrants are forced to make difficult decisions which directly affect their families. The media focus on this group of individuals and display to the people how the illegal immigrants are a problem to the American society.

Psychology

The psychological approach suggests that undocumented immigration status affects children sociologically, emotionally and mentally. According to Repko (60), "the epistemology of psychology is that psychological constructs and their interrelationships can be inferred through discussion and observation and applied to treatment (clinical) or a series of experiments with slight variation (experimentation)."

During the process of growth, children face various changes and challenges. Stress is among the difficulties which these children encounter. For instance, they have to deal with the fact that at some point in life, their families will be separated because of the immigration status of their parents is traumatic. The imagination that a child misses his or her parents during childhood because either or all of them were deported creates a traumatic feeling in the children. Such situations generate a sociological and emotional imbalance in the lives of these children.

An attempt to contemplate how these children will deal with such issues suggests that the children will be jeopardized when they are forced to move their locations about acts or laws which are evident in the modern society. For instance, the city council of Texas State passed an ordinance which specified that illegal migrants are do not have the authorization to rent apartments. In such situations, parents are forced to decide whether to move or stay or take their chances of facing deportation.

When a child is deported back to his/her home country, there are possibilities of forcing the child to change the educational curriculum, which comes with its challenges. The quality of the education which the child will also receive matters because the legal immigration status of this child is not changed. The child might fail to complete schooling due to financial constraints which the family might be experiencing. These are among the situations which the child has to worry about, and they have a psychological impact on the child.

Business

Business is also an essential field which looks at the impacts of illegal immigration from an economic perspective. According to Repko (58), the economic concepts which are concerned with illegal migration are unemployment, cost, and opportunities. Repko (58) adds that the epistemology of economics depends on the presentation of the math configuration. Illegal immigration, therefore, does not only affect the United States' economy but also affects the parent's home as well due to brain drain and loss of skilled labor which would otherwise help build the parent economy.

Borjas (9) asserts that the illegal immigrants face the challenge of securing job opportunities which they can use to support their families back at home. They fail to send money back to their home republics. Also, if the parents are expatriated to the parent home, and their parents remain in the United States, society feels the burden of covering this cost. Being American citizens, these children qualify to get medical cover such as Medicare, CHIP, food stamps among other government programs which benefit the American citizens, and these children are entitled to.

One would wonder the amount that the society pays regarding taxes for these benefits which parents would cover, was it that they were with them within the United States boundaries. There are also questions on whether the unlawful parents positively impacts the economy, or make it worse for other people,

The Government

It is the government which has to deal with the manner in which children of undocumented parents are affected. Chiswick ( 109) asserts that the government has managed to formulate laws, policies, and regulations which affect the undocumented parents and their children every day. For instance, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986) suggest that an organization or a business cannot hire any undocumented individual. The families are subjected to challenging situations since they cannot secure steady employment opportunities to support themselves and their families. The case also causes a financial burden to the families.

According to Partida (250), the 14th Amendment also allows children born within the boundaries of the United States to have the rights to be citizens despite their parent's legal status. There are also situations when the government has imposed themselves on illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigration is, therefore, an issue that requires an urgent solution. The American society is divided over the problem, and there are also numerous debates about the issue of illegal immigration. There is a need for the government to develop a clear understanding of the problem of illegal immigration and the rights that accompany it.

Conclusion

Illegal immigration is a problem issue which needs an interdisciplinary method to tackle. The issue has divided the government and the society on the manner in which it should be handled to establish a better solution of solving the issue. Different disciplines are affected, and these disciplines have suggested the way in which the matter affects children and families. These disciplines can stand independently, or depend on each other when establishing an understanding of the issue.

Works Cited

Borjas, George J. "Introduction to" Issues in the Economics of Immigration"." Issues in the Economics of Immigration. University of Chicago Press, 2000. 1-14.Chiswick, Barry R. "Illegal immigration and immigration control." Journal of Economic Perspectives 2.3 (1988): 101-115.

Hoekstra, Mark, and Sandra Orozco-Aleman. "Illegal immigration, state law, and deterrence." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 9.2 (2017): 228-52.

Partida, Jorge. "The effects of immigration on children in the Mexican-American community." Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 13.3 (1996): 241-254.

Repko, Allen F. Interdisciplinary practice: A student guide to research and writing. Pearson, 2005.