Immigration has been a debatable issue throughout the history of the United States. Questions have been brought up to the government such as what should we do with illegal immigrants, should the United States help undocumented immigrants with a path to citizenship, should the US deport those who are undocumented, and will help immigrants have a negative effect on the growth of the United States? As a result of the previously unanswered questions it has caused controversy for the US government and it even played a part of the presidential election of 2016 because of the immigration policy. By looking at the 18 million undocumented children about to be deported, the removal of DACA and the money that they provided to the US government system, we can see that the US government should help those who are undocumented be able to stay. This is important because it would benefit the future of the United States overall. 

    However when talking about immigration, most of the time DACA will be brought up because it ties up with immigration policy. DACA also was known as Deferred Action for Children Arrivals, is an executive order our former President Barack Obama put into effect on June of 2012(Adams and Boyne 48). According to a scholarly article, Access to higher education for undocumented and “dacamented” students: the current state of affairs, it states, “The Obama Administration authored the memorandum Exercising Prosecutorial Discretion with Respect to Individual Who Came to the United States as Children.”. In fact, I have had personal experience with DACA being involved with my families lives. From first hand, I have seen that DACA has given hope to those undocumented children by giving the children a future to look forward to after high school, for example like going to college. My own cousin is a DACA recipient and is one of the most hardworking people I know. DACA gave her an opportunity to go to college which she is doing now. She even said, “ I have a better and brighter future because of DACA program. And now I can have a better life than my parents wanted me to have”. She isn’t the only one out of an estimated 853,000 other DACA recipients that feel this way (Adam and Boyne 48). This is a temporary program but it gave those 853,000 people work permits, social security number, and federal benefits (Statement from President Donald Trump).

    DACA is not a form of gaining a path to citizenship, it does not make those who are undocumented legal here, but it makes DACA recipients “lawfully present” in the United States (Adam and Boyne 50). Even though it doesn’t completely help DACA recipients with citizenship they still go through the very expensive long process. To be able to be accepted you must meet all the following criteria such as you must be between the ages 15-31 as of June 2012, have GED or diploma, and have resided continuously in the United States since 2007 (Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Additionally, if one served in the armed forces then you must be honorably discharged from the coast guard or armed forces of the United States (Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). From the information given by my cousin a DACA recipient, she pays about $600 each application for DACA(Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Even after all that those who applied for DACA, it still doesn't guarantee that they got approved for DACA. When you think of that money that is coming in from more than half a million people you would think the government would want to keep this going for a while. It would benefit the country economically but not only that, it would give a brighter future for the country. Knowing that we would have invested in education, and help educate hard working people trying to do what's best for the United States. 

    Sadly things don't go as planned when it came to the election of 2016. Immigration was the top issue in the election of 2016 and it made a big difference in the results. On December of 2016 Donald Trump became the 45th president of the United States. According to Philip Martin author of Trump and U.S. Immigration Policy, President Donald Trump campaigned two major issues involving migration. The first major issue was having the United States build a wall on 2,000 mile Mexico-U.S. border with Mexico paying for the expenses (Martin 1). The second major issue was deporting the country's 11 million unauthorized foreigners (Martin 1). Him and other U.S. citizens believe that undocumented immigrants are a real threat to the country and that getting rid of them would “Make America Great Again”. The question is how great can America be without foreigner because this country was built on foreigners. 

Keeping President Trumps new policy on immigration can cause a problem in the future for the US. Removing those who are undocumented would take more tax dollars due to the fact that the process is very long. As soon as the immigrants are in the process of getting deported they are put in detention centers. These detention centers are like prisons but they are just for those who are being detained for deportation or immigration trial cases. I know this because my uncle was recently deported back to mexico but in that process of deportation came money from the government. This money is to keep those who are being deported detained as if you were in a prison. In these detention centers my uncle told me that you still do things as if you were in a prison such as have jobs, have a set schedule, have rec time, and being in a cell. Our tax dollars do go to those detention centers as they would go to those prisons. This process of him getting transported to the closest detention center to Mexico so that he could be deported there took three to four months to do. This is only one person that was deported from South Carolina to Mexico. Now imagine 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants being deported and put in those detention centers so that they can be sorted out to get them to there country they were born from(Wise and Petras). That would take a lot of time and money from the government to do so. So why waste that money and time, when the government could invest it in this countries future including those who are undocumented. This could help make those who are undocumented have some legal permanent status so they could help shape this country into a better one. 

Some feel that jobs will become more available to those who are citizens of the U.S. but they still are today it’s just that lower class citizens are not willing to work those labor jobs. According to data on occupation categories, those who work as farms make up 26% of unauthorized immigrants followed by 15% unauthorized immigrants working in construction and 9% in production and services(Martin 2). So if those citizens don’t want to do them now those type of jobs and the immigrants are still here what makes you so sure that they would want to do them if President Donald Trump deports all of those who are unauthorized immigrants. These hard working immigrants are doing no harm to this country and they are very important to this system of society.

Now looking at Erik Gomez’s Ted Talk on Immigration, he pointed out many valid reasons why some americans want those who are undocumented to be deported. The one that stood out the most was Americans are fearful of change (“Through the eyes of a child immigrant”). It's not about the jobs or the economics behind the deportation of immigrants but fear of change that they would bring to this country. Changes like religion, culture and many more things that would interfere with the american traditions that in place(“Through the eyes of a child immigrant”). I don’t feel that people understand that in order to make this country number one again that we need to change. This country can not be the same in order to become better, so with these foreign immigrants they could help make a positive change in the United States. 

Now, ask yourself why other people from other nations want to come to America? When looking at other countries you must also look at the economic structure and social aspect of the country. According to a scholarly article, The Reference Shelf:Immigration, it states “Economic turmoil also leads to increased crime and gang violence, and together these factors have continued to motivate immigration into the United States for more than 200 years.”. Therefore explains that the United States is a targeted country for immigrants to come and settle down with their families. The United States is always known as the country of freedom and safe nation , but not all countries gives privileges like the US does to other nations citizens. Even though immigrants come to the US for a better life for their families, majority of American are dissatisfied with the immigration policy because they are not abiding by the US laws.  As a result of an increasing number of immigrants coming to the United States, in 2015 Gallup News took a poll on how many Americans that are dissatisfied with the United States immigration policy and it showed that more than 67 percent were dissatisfied (Newport). But it has also reported that 87 percent of Americans said that they would allow immigrants already in the US become citizens if they meet the following requirements; paying taxes, no criminal background and learning the english language(Newport). This is one of the many compromises the government could make with those who are undocumented. Doing this would increase the chances of making America a better country in the future economically.  

In conclusion, the United States should compromise with undocumented immigrants to having a path on to getting citizenship. These immigrants come here to for malicious intentions but to have a better life for themselves and their families. All most immigrants want is to get away from a corrupt nation and they want to achieve something greater than they could ever do in the other country that they were once from. And if they want to do that here I don’t see the problem in which others perceive it to be. I see a nation that has been growing off of immigrants since the beginning of history. I see a nation that can still grow from immigrants by just giving those who are illegal a chance to prove that they can become great citizens of the United States. Let them have that American Dream and let them help develop this country for the greater good of society. From my experience with having family members that are undocumented and seeing how they better this country, I feel that they deserve the opportunity to stay in the states and help “Make America Great Again”.
