What My Students Think About Immigration and Employment

I teach an experimental course, “Immigration, Employment and Public Policy.” Here is a brief sample of thoughts from students: Amnesty: One student opposes amnesty to 10 million-plus unlawful aliens because that same deal was made in 1986 with the premise that amnesty would be a one-time policy. We would encourage more unlawful immigration, and undermine the front-door (legal) approach. But other students argued that deporting millions of aliens would be very costly, and undermine key sectors of our economy that depend on this labor source, e.g., agriculture, restaurants, construction and home healthcare. Enforcement: No one favors building a massive fence, but some students believe technology is already available to freeze undocumented people out of the economy. Yet one student noted: If we fully deploy this technology, we might have few or no unlawful immigrants, but our personal liberties would be severely compromised as we rely on a national registration and identity system. Families: Several students related stories about a family member who lawfully immigrated to the U.S. The American system encourages family unification; and once these “pioneers” settled in the U.S., they brought other family members. Their offspring are in our class as promising and productive members of our nation. But students asked: If our nation’s immigration system favors family unification, what’s the sense in deporting unlawful aliens whose young children were also brought unlawfully and whose siblings were born in America?