Illegal Immigration in the United States of America

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Illegal Immigration in the United States of America

Immigration delineates the movement of people from one country to another for permanent settlement. Immigration occurs due to a myriad of reasons including economic, political, poverty, natural disaster, and family re-unification among many others. Illegal immigration is variously defined basing on the nature or scope of the situation involved. Thus, it may refer to crossing into the borders of another country without their authority or inspection. it may also refer to instances a person, who was previously granted a legal entry, overstays beyond the registered time. Illegal immigration may also occur when the immigrant breaks the laws through which they gained access to the country (Apana 5). Many developed countries are faced with the challenge of illegal immigration. More often than not, they receive large numbers of people from other countries. Most immigrants opt to migrate to other countries in search of greener pastures. The United States of America is a prominent victim of organized and persistent smuggling of human beings into its borders. This eventually becomes an intricate issue to solve owing to the high costs involved in effecting arrests, detentions and even prosecution of the offenders against the backdrop of the humongous numbers involved.

The largest illegal immigrants into the United States of America in the recent years have been using the porous Mexican borders, a situation which is worsened by the highly armed and organized drug cartels with interests in the unlawful peddling of the drugs to America and controversial government and state support. Research findings by the Pew Hispanic Centre released as per the year 2005 quoted the Mexican illegal entry to the United States of America at 56%. Immigrants from South American countries accounted for about 22%, Europe and Canada stood at 6% whereas Asia and Africa was pegged at 13% and 3% respectively (Apana 20-23). More worrying, Mexico contributed more than half of the illegal immigrants.

The question that abounds would then be what motivates such a vast number of migrations then? In unraveling answers to this, it is noteworthy analyzing the various underpinning factors that lead to escalated rates on illegal immigration in the U.S., especially from Mexico. The first reason would obviously be because of the proximity of the two countries geographically. In this regard, Mexico borders the United States of America from the North. Also, the controversy which has sparked criticism especially from the United States government which followed an admission from the Mexican state top administrators that remittances from Mexicans living in the United States most of whom comprised those that