Federal vs. State Immigration Issue, Essay Example

Immigration reform should be a federal policy process. In the U.S. constitution, whenever federal and state laws come in conflict with each other, federal laws take precedence. There are already federal immigration laws in place, thus, there is no need for state immigration policies. It should be left to the federal government to change immigration laws, leave them as they are, or create temporary provisions to address important immigration issues. If states’ immigration policies are going to be the same as federal immigration policy, it would just be a waste of taxpayers’ money but if states’ immigration policies turn out to be different, federal immigration policies would take precedence according to the U.S. constitution.

Having states’ immigration policies when there are already federal immigration laws makes no sense from logical point of view as well. When one wants to visit a particular state in the U.S., he/she always have to fulfill the requirements of U.S. federal immigration laws. Anyone who fulfills such requirements can visit any state in the U.S. and doesn’t need separate state visas. Since the issue of immigration has always been a federal matter, it also makes sense for the federal government to enforce immigration laws and determine policies regarding violations of immigration laws. There are fifty states in the U.S. and if each state starts having its own immigration policy, it wouldlead to nothing but utter confusion.

Ideally, the debate should be left to the three branches of the governance system which are Executive, Congress, and Judiciary. This is because immigration reform may require bypassing some of the current immigration laws in order to give chance to those in the country illegally to pay fines and fulfill certain requirements in order to gain path to legal residency. Since immigration reform will require addressing the current laws, public opinion may not be the ideal way to address the issue. But the governance system, especially the Congress has failed to do its job. The issue has been politicized by both parties to score political gains and even though think tanks and investigative studies have shown that immigration reform will yield economic benefits for the U.S., the issue remains unsolved. Due to the failure of Congress, the best choice may now be to take the issue to the public in the next primary and presidential election process. Polls show that majority of the Americans support immigration reform which shows American public is being more realistic than their elected officials. Immigration reform may still be addressed through the governance system but the public pressure may increase the probability that the government will finally solve the immigration issue whether it’s deporting all of the illegal residents or giving them a chance to gain legal status.

One of the things that immigration debate shows is that even democracy and distribution of powers have their shortcomings. For a bill to become law, it has to go successfully progress through multiple entities such as the House, the Senate, and finally the President. Unless the majority in the Congress as well as the President belongs to the same party, issues often get politicized and remain unsolved for long periods. Contrast this with Chinese political system where the authoritarian government can quickly address the issue. Thus, when Presidency and Congress majority belong to two different parties, the political system becomes quite inefficient. In addition, even democracy doesn’t guarantee that the best interests of the country will be served. Many elected officials who supported immigration reform during Bush presidency, changed their positions during Obama’s presidency due to public opinion. A better approach will be to impose limits on Congressional terms as well just as there is a limit of maximum 2 terms for a U.S. President. This way, elected officials may be able to take into account the long term interests of the country instead of the opinions of their constituents only.