Understanding Immigration

Immigration and our relationship with our neighbors to the South (That's Mexico for those who are geographically challenged) are, in my opinion, among the most important issues that this nation faces and will continue to face in the coming years. Forget about terrorism abroad, the economy, health care, or our horrible cultural divide. While very important in their own right they get enough attention already. Also, our immigration situation and resulting policies permeate significantly in all of those issues.

I have lived in Mexico and have great empathy and understanding for their people and issues. I have also lived in several areas (Arizona and Texas specifically) that have been negatively affected by illegal immigration so I definitely understand the concerns of long standing citizens. I also am 100% confident that our current policies and attitudes towards this issue are completely inadequate.

I am in no way an expert on immigration policy, one could argue that there are very few, but I do feel like I have a practical knowledge of the key issues that shape both sides of the issues. I will attempt to write a series of entries that attempt to frame these key perspectives and hopefully make some recommendations that could help us out of the current immigration morass that we are currently mired in. This issue is just going to grow so I figure we really need to understand it and deal with it.

Over the next couple of months I will be writing entries. Since 32% of all immigrants are Mexican and 76% of all illegal immigrants are Mexican I want to focus my efforts exclusively on the Mexican-US dilemma when it comes to immigration. Here is a rough outline of what will be covered.

1. A profile of the typical Mexican immigrant and their US motivations.
2. A profile of the typical US resident and their concerns about immigration policy.
3. An outline of the current immigration policies and their strengths and weaknesses.
4. An outline of workable solutions that could improve our current immigration situation.

This is a dicey issue to navigate. Hopefully I can bring something constructive to the subject and hopefully immigration policy can be turned from a huge weakness to a national strength.