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Zujey Galvan

Professor Nelson

ENGL 1302-104

2 November 2021

Immigration Concerns

According to most of the authors, immigrants who come into the United States in search

of a better life, just come to commit crimes. I definitely disagree because all immigrants want is

a better life for them and their family. Moreover, these immigrants come to the United States,

and they work more than actual US citizens, I have witnessed people that get help from the

government and that’s all they live by. Unlike immigrants who bust their backs to earn some

money, they will do anything, clean houses, clean cars, get into agriculture but they work hard.

Unlike U.S. citizens who only take advantage from the governments help, like the food stamps,

checks and Medicaid.

To begin with, Immigrants Contribute Greatly to the U.S Economy, according to the U.S

Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Immigrants without a four-year degree college

take part of 36% in farming, fishing, and forestry occupations in the U.S. Another 36% of

Immigrants are building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations, 24% of the

Immigrants are currently working on the construction industry. Almost all the construction

workers are immigrants, and to be specific they are Mexicans. I believe Mexicans are so hard

workers because they go day and night working just to give their families a good life. I

personally know Mexican immigrants that do everything for their families to have a safe place

during night, they could stay working for a total of three days and they don’t care. Finally, 24%

of the Immigrants are in the Administrative and support service Industry, and this one in specific
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is something that amazes me because even though these immigrants don’t have a college degree,

they are smart and are able to learn fast.

In a scholarly paper, Painter-Davis, Harris and Gruenwald emphasize connections

between Black Americans and Hispanic immigration ferocity in America. The main idea of this

paper was that Black violence is directly associated with the Hispanic-born population,

habituated by the victim’s ethnicity. Additionally, the most common reason why immigrants

commit wrongdoings, is because immigrants face challenging economic conditions and

commonly have reduced skills, which eventually cause violence and crime. McAlexander

(2020). Other studies also portray two undisputable truths concerning connections between

immigration and crime. They state that immigrants are unlikely to do serious offenses or stay

behind bard more than native-born. They also state that the high levels of property and violent

crime. In other words, most visitors are not lawbreakers by any characteristically meaning of the

connotation. Due to this purpose, punitive migration laws are not operative in ending crime.

In addition, most of the authors from the sources portray how illegal people come into the

United States just to commit crimes and rob the government. Although some people do take

advantage, most of the immigrants do something good for our country. Such as, agriculture,

working overtime with no benefits and risking their lives for money. McAlexander states that

immigrants go through many economic problems because they lack the money, and they don’t

have as many jobs as the United States offer.

Moreover, Owens and Bohn also explain throughout their paper that crime is committed

sometimes by immigrants, because they are in desperation of trying to find a good job to get

money for their families. There is a study that shows that Texas keeps immigrants’ data about

those who have committed any type of crime. There is data that helps get information together
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by linking activities that criminals have done in the state. (Nowrasteh, Forrester & Landgrave,

2020). All of this shows that native- born citizens have more criminal behaviors than immigrants

such as, homicides, sexual assaults, and defensive wrongdoings.

Additionally, it is proven that Native-born have stepped in jail more than immigrants

have. The American Community Survey states that about one point 6 percent of males in the

nation between ages of eighteen- and thirty-nine-year-old are found in jails compared to native

born which is way higher than that. This shows that immigrants do not necessarily commit

crimes the same way native-born do. The reason is because they only look for a better future for

their families, while the rest of them native-born they only look for easy money, like smuggling

illegal people to the United States or selling drugs.

Continuously, immigrants are known to be hard workers because they value what others can’t

value. Such as US Citizens, or people that are legally in a state, and it’s sad because people that

are legally in a country take everything for granted. Meanwhile we have these illegal immigrants

who try their best for them and their families to have a better life than they had back in their old

country. There is this article called Power of the Purse, and it explains how Jose Brito Bueno

does special work like providing special works to the seniors and people with disabilities. This

proves my stance towards this essay, that not all immigrants are necessarily bad people who

come to a certain country and commit crimes. He does many things for Hispanic. Immigrants

that come from countries like Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Mexico. Brito Bueno

himself is an immigrant who came from the Dominican Republic, into the United States when he

was 18, unfortunately he went through a disgrace, his father’s corner store had burned down a

week after his arrival. Brito Bueno started working in a bunch of low-paying jobs and started

attending college, he started a program called WeCare, which was an opportunity to help
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individuals in need. This organization started back in 2009, and ever since it has helped many

Hispanic Americans living in the United States. According to the Power of the Purse, there was

59 million Hispanic Americans in the United States back in 2017. And it has also seemed like

Hispanic people have a humongous growth in the United States. All this shows that my stance is

very much clear, which means I do not think that Immigrants are coming to the United States to

commit any type of crime, instead they are coming to allow countries to help them. Believe it or

not this is what immigrants do for countries, they bring their abilities that they were taught in

their countries, and they help us. Mexicans to be specific, do a lot for the United States because

they work hard in construction jobs, they also do any type of risky job like railroads you name it.

I will always be proud and will always defend Mexicans because I have several families that

came to the United States in seek of a better life for their kids and is now trying their best to get a

permanent residency for proving that they came into the United States to make a change, not just

to commit crimes like the people that are legal. All in all, I believe that everyone deserves a

chance to be in a country without thinking you come in here to commit crimes.

In conclusion, I believe that immigrants are not necessarily bad, all they come for to the

United States is in search of a better life for them and their families. Research evidence from all

these peer-reviewed can show the audience that proves that immigration has nothing to do with

crime rates in the United States. If I were to need money and had kids, I would have probably

done the same thing, I personally come from Mexican parents and my mom sacrificed everything

for me to have a good life, luckily, I was born here in the United States but obviously it has not

been an easy road. We have struggled a lot, that is why I understand the sacrifices that these

immigrants make for their kids and families to be happy. Throughout these scholarly reviewed
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articles, you can see that immigrants are very poor and that they struggle a lot when it comes to

money, like the Haitians that came to the United States, often times this also happens because

their government treats them poorly. Many types of governments abuse of their communities

because they think that because they have no money, their voice doesn’t deserve to be heard. All

in all, my stance is that immigrants are nowhere close to being bad persons, all they try to do is

look for a better future for them and their kids. I am proud to say that most of the hardworking

people that I have met are Mexicans, my parents are Mexican, and they have worked so hard to

get me where I am, and I will always appreciate them for that. This lets the audience know that

not all immigrants are necessarily bad overall, some do come for a better future for them and

their kids.
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Works Cited

McAlexander, R. J. (2020). How are immigration and terrorism related? An analysis of right-and

left-wing terrorism in Western Europe, 1980–2004. Journal of Global Security

Studies, 5(1), 179-195.

Nowrasteh, A., Forrester, A., & Landgrave, M. (2020). Illegal immigration and crime in Texas.

Freedman, M., Owens, E., & Bohn, S. (2018). Immigration, employment opportunities, and

criminal behavior. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 10(2), 117-51.

Harris, C. T., Gruenewald, J., & Painter‐Davis, N. (2015, March). Hispanic Immigration and

Black Violence at the Macro‐Level: Examining the Conditioning Effect of Victim

Race/Ethnicity. In Sociological Forum (Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 62-82).

Bush, Jeb, et al. “The Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.” U.S. Immigration Policy,
Council on Foreign Relations, 2009, pp. 44–82, http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep29887.8.

“Power of the Purse: The Contributions of Hispanic Americans.” New American Economy

Research Fund, 18 Feb. 2020, research.newamericaneconomy.org/report/hispanic-
americans-2019/.