Immigration trail
As our last big project of the ninth grade year we participated in a mock trial debating the issue of illegal immigration in the USA. The purpose of this project was to experience the American justice system first hand and learn about the very popular issue of illegal immigration in America. By studying an issue of such popularity, everyone had their own views and beliefs on the subject, but to truly study the act of law in the class we had to become someone who fully supported a specific solution towards the problem. The four solutions presented were A- the current immigration laws need to be enforced, B - there needs to be some sort of streamlined legalization process for those who are already here, C - we should allow temporary workers into the country to do the jobs that the undocumented immigrants are now doing and D - there is nothing wrong with the system we have now. After being assigned to a group the project began and your role was chosen, the roles for the students included: Lead Attorneys - The group of people facilitating a team, a lawyer - a lead attorney right hand man, helping them in the trail and preparing all the witnesses on the team and finally, the witness. The witnesses were the ones called forth to be questioned by their lawyers to prove their teams viewpoint and to be interrogated by the lead attorneys of the other teams who will be trying to shoot down the ideas established by the witness to help their team.
With this project, like any other, there were highs and lows. Some of the high notes were how my team came together in the actual trail and it was a very eye opening experience when it came to how a trail works and how immigration affects the country and its people. Some of the lows how ever were the timing of the due dates. I felt that the amount of time given for some of the assignments was too short for creating something of the quality you really want it. This may be due to the loss of three full work days due to the May fire storm but it still caused many problems. Another low is how the groups worked together. In many cases, including mine, there were multiple people doing other peoples jobs (Lawyers doing witnesses work and witnesses doing lawyers work) and the lack of communication between lead attorney and the rest of their team. One way we could’ve avoided this would be to extend some of the deadlines and to encourage and capitalize on communication in the group and to express the importance of pulling your weight in the group.
This trail has opened my eyes to a lot of things. Among these are how a trial/debate works, how a lawyer has to do his job, how law is a team event and needs the participation of everyone involved. It has also lead to a lot of knowledge of illegal immigration and how many of the “solutions” and facts involving the issue are based on racial stereotypes and bias ideas.
With this project, like any other, there were highs and lows. Some of the high notes were how my team came together in the actual trail and it was a very eye opening experience when it came to how a trail works and how immigration affects the country and its people. Some of the lows how ever were the timing of the due dates. I felt that the amount of time given for some of the assignments was too short for creating something of the quality you really want it. This may be due to the loss of three full work days due to the May fire storm but it still caused many problems. Another low is how the groups worked together. In many cases, including mine, there were multiple people doing other peoples jobs (Lawyers doing witnesses work and witnesses doing lawyers work) and the lack of communication between lead attorney and the rest of their team. One way we could’ve avoided this would be to extend some of the deadlines and to encourage and capitalize on communication in the group and to express the importance of pulling your weight in the group.
This trail has opened my eyes to a lot of things. Among these are how a trial/debate works, how a lawyer has to do his job, how law is a team event and needs the participation of everyone involved. It has also lead to a lot of knowledge of illegal immigration and how many of the “solutions” and facts involving the issue are based on racial stereotypes and bias ideas.
Final Products:
Annotated Bibliography
Research for strengthening Border protection for the roles of: Border Patrol Agent, Homeland Security Agent and American Worker
U.S Customs and Border Protection. 2014. “Border Patrol Overview.” Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved from:
http://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/overview
This article gives an overview of how the border patrol works, how they operate across the multiple terrains they have to cover, the things they do to ensure the safety of americans and explains how a person can become a border patrol agent. It also goes into detail on the operations performed by the border patrol to catch illegal immigrants such as linewatch, signcutting, traffic checkpoints and others. This will help further understand the role I need to train Mary to master for our trial. By knowing how the organization works I can further research with her some reasons why we need to strengthen the borders of America.
Gemma, P. 2013. “Illegal Alien Crime and Violence by the Numbers: We’re All Victims.” Constitution Party. Retrieved from
http://cpwp.swehes.com/illegal-alien-crime-and-violence-by-the-numbers-were-all-victims/
This article goes in depth into all the types of crime average illegal immigrant criminals go into and all the statistics in the multiple crime areas they are actively in. This article is also one of the more important ones because it goes into the pure facts and statistics regarding the crime aliens commit that our homeland security agents try to stop. This such crimes include gang violence, drug trafficking and sexual assaults. With all these facts I can form a solid foundation for Issmene as a homeland security agent to ask many questions that will bring up many facts that will help our argument.
Federation for American Immigration Reform. 2013. “Illegal Aliens Taking U.S. Jobs (2013).” Fairus. Retrieved from
http://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-aliens-taking-u-s-jobs
This article explains the topic of illegal immigrants coming into the USA for jobs. It goes into detail about, where the majority of jobs are being taken, how many are approximately being taken and the effects of how hiring illegal immigrants affects the economy and the American workforce. With the facts given in this article, we will have much information regarding how illegal immigrants negatively affect the work force and the overall economy. We can use this information to strengthen our debates against the idea of illegal immigrants in the workforce and how it has bad effects on the economy and the country itself.
Confer, B. 2014. "Illegal Immigrants Take American Jobs." Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Retrieved from
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/DocumentToolsPortletWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&jsid=1a3f06c15ff323b7f55c5cf595fbfcc8&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010499247&u=perr60700&zid=03b0396267fafd72242a67bb447fa28d
This article goes into more the economic problems caused by illegal immigrants taking jobs from the American people. It also mentions some of the jobs being taken by these “aliens” and how many jobs could be created by enforcing the immigration laws. By using the problems that taking jobs from Americans causes in the economy we can take these facts and present them to the jury as ways the immigrants set back the country. By setting back our economy we take away jobs leaving more and more people out of work which in cause will lead us deeper into the recession.This statement is very influential for many people and can be used to persuade the judge or jury.
Jobs Back Organization. 2014. “Do Illegal Immigrants Take Jobs from American Workers?” Retrieved from
http://jobsback.com/do-illegal-immigrants-take-jobs-from-american-workers/
This article explains some of the effects hiring illegal immigrants has on the American workforce and how they are negatively affecting the job they are employed in. It also gives information about the “typical” illegal immigrant; while racists and bias it leaves an impression and can be used. Using this information, we can give the jury some of the multiple affects the employment of these Aliens are causing and how allowing more in brings in some of the things mentioned about the “typical aliens”.
Taylor, J. 2007. “Illegal Immigration: Drugs, Gangs and
Crime.” Civitas Institute.
https://www.nccivitas.org/2007/illegal-immigration-drugs-gangs-and-crime/
This article goes into the major crimes illegal immigrants commit, mostly drug offences, gang violence, human smuggling and identity theft. By giving specific statistics about each offence and how the illegal immigrant contributes to it, we can use the information to further implement the growing problem that is illegal alien crime. This is also helpful because most of the information in the article is from the department of Homeland security.
Bloomberg News. 2014. “Boston Bombing Intensifies Calls to
Strengthen Borders.” News Max.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/republicans-intensify-borders-bombings/2013/04/23/id/500931/
This article talks about how the recent Boston marathon bombings and how they are a prime example of why we need to strengthen our borders. It goes into detail the multiple plans proposed by politicians around the country and what they are currently debating about the issue, giving examples of how we can run background checks on the immigrants we allow into the USA, using a new immigrant work policy and many other ideas. Using these ideas and others we can come up with multiple things we could do to strengthen our borders to prevent another tragedy like this happen.
The White House. 2014. “Continuing to Strengthen Border Security.” The White House. Retrieved from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/immigration/border-security
This article shows the plans President Obama has to strengthen and secure border. It goes into every part of the plan Obama has brought up to establish more secure borders with both Canada and Mexico. Some of the steps presented in this plan are strengthen border security and infrastructure, combat transnational crime, improving partnerships with border communities, law enforcement and crack down on criminal networks engaging in passport and visa fraud and human smuggling. I can use this article as proof that President Obama is pro strengthening borders. I can also use it as a basis if we tend to give some examples of how we plan on strengthening the border.
Trail Overview
One of the issues mostly debated in politics today is immigration, because of this our most recent project in humanities is a mock trial of four different viewpoints on this topic and what to do about it. Those four viewpoints are: A- the current immigration laws need to be enforced, B - there needs to be some sort of streamlined legalization process for those who are already here, C -we should allow temporary workers into the country to do the jobs that the undocumented immigrants are now doing, and D - there is nothing wrong with the system we have now. My group is a - the current immigration laws need to be enforced. We are going to be arguing that the best solution to the problem is enforcing and strengthening the laws and programs we already have.
As a lawyer, I am in charge of witnesses that will be brought up during the trial to help convince the jury that our solution is the best choice. To do this each of my witnesses needs a story that are supported by facts and prove our points. Clytus Brown’s (Zach’s) story is that he is an American worker who has lost his job because the hiring of illegal immigrants that brought down his wage by about 10%. This is due to the fact that his company employed 19% immigrant in the work force which caused a ripple in the rest of the company that reduced their wages. (Camarota, 2005). Chloe Smith’s (Issmene’s) story is that she is a homeland security agent who was associated with a mass arrest of gang members in the USA. They brought in about 600 gang members, of those 600 about 120 were charged administrative immigration charges (Cadwel, 2014). This is also important because it will open up discussion on more facts about illegal immigrants related to gang violence and narcotic trafficking revolving around gangs. This information can be found around the web and in my annotated bibliography (Gemma, 2013) and (Taylor, 2007). She will also mention how certain states and counties are restraining her from enforcing laws such as laws regarding workforce enforcement (Federation for American Immigration Reform. 2013). Monique Coleman’s (Mary’s) story is that she is a border patrol agent and has been involved in the capturing of multiple migrants. This relates to the project because it will provide an accurate account of how the capturing actually works (KRGV, 2012), give numbers and facts about the migrants (Elizabeth, 2013) and (Gemma, 2013) and how enforcing the laws and strengthening the borders will further prevent the amount of people coming in and being arrested and deported.
Some counter-arguments the opposing teams can bring up are specific for each person. For Zach some of these could be: “In what other ways what things caused you to quit? “, “ How much is your salary because your wage didn’t seem to go down that much.”. For Issmene: “Not all of the gang members are illegal immigrants.”, “ How do you know that most gangs are associated with illegal immigrants.” And for Mary: “ There are many stories and recordings of patrols and agents using violence to stop the immigrants, wouldn’t strengthening the borders mean more violence against the migrants?” Some rebuttals my witnesses might respond with are: (for Zach) Using information gathered from my sources we can bring up facts that support his claims and give numbers that support his complaints about his wage, (for Issmene) She can use specific information released by the department of homeland security and other information coming from the sources found during our research, and (for Mary) not all agents and situations involve violence and some information of how enforcing their powers would further prevent violence due to how it would prevent the amount of people trying to cross illegally.
Elizabeth D. 2013. How Many People Slip by U.S Border Patrol? Depend Who’s Counting. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved from:http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-13/how-many- people-slip-by-u-dot-s-dot-border-patrol-depends-whos-counting.
Camarota S. 2005. “The Impact of Immigration on the American Workforce”. The Center of Immigration Studies. Retrieved from: http://cis.org/node/553
Cadwell A. 2014. “Homeland Security Arrests Over 600 Gang Suspects”. Chron. Retrieved from:
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Homeland-Security-arrests-over-600-gang- suspects-5446413.php#photo-1933898
Gemma, P. 2013. “Illegal Alien Crime and Violence by the Numbers: We’re All Victims.” Constitution Party. Retrieved from http://cpwp.swehes.com/illegal-alien-crime-and-violence- by-the-numbers-were-all-victims/
Federation for American Immigration Reform. 2013. “Illegal Aliens Taking U.S. Jobs (2013).” Fairus. Retrieved from http://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-aliens-taking-u-s-jobs
Confer, B. 2014. "Illegal Immigrants Take American Jobs." Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/DocumentToolsPortletWindow? displayGroupName=Viewpoints&jsid=1a3f06c15ff323b7f55c5cf595fbfcc8&action=2&catId=&documentId= GALE%7CEJ3010499247&u=perr60700&zid=03b0396267fafd72242a67bb447fa28d
KRGV. 2012. “ Border Patrol Catches Group of Illegal Immigrants Crossing River” ABC. Retrieved from: http://www.krgv.com/news/border-patrol-catches-group-of-illegals-crossing-river/
Taylor, J. 2007. “Illegal Immigration: Drugs, Gangs and Crime.” Civitas Institute. Retrieved From: https://www.nccivitas.org/2007/illegal-immigration-drugs-gangs-and-crime/
Taylor J. 2014. “ Border Patrol catches more than 80 immigrants hiding in huts in McAllen”. The Monitor. Retrieved From: http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/video-border-patrol-catches-more-than-immigrants-hiding-in-huts/article_fa99fdb0-c67a-11e3-8cc3-001a4bcf6878.html
US Citizenship and Immigration Services. 2013. “ Immigration and Nationality Act”. Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved from: http://www.uscis.gov/iframe/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/act.html
Q&A
1 - Mary:
Q: What is your full name?
A: My full name is Monique Coleman
Q: What is your occupation
A: I am a Border Patrol agent working around the Rio Grande area
Q: How long have you been an agent?
A: I have been an agent for about 15 years
Q: As a border patrol agent how many times have you been involved in the capture and/or arrest of migrants attempting to cross over into the USA?
A: Too many to count, for example a group of agents, including me, detained about 80 migrants who were camping around the McAllen area in Texas around April 18th (Taylor. 2014). While this is just one example, the most recent numbers available for the border patrol agency are about 425,500 migrants in a year period in 2013 (Butillo and Jorden, 2013).
Q: Are all the migrants from Mexico?
A: While a large group of migrants come from Mexico, not all of them are. In 2012 we arrested about 99,000 migrants from other countries (Gemma, 2013).
Q: Do you think that the border patrol is working as efficiently as needed at the moment?
A: No, while we are working around the clock, day in and day out we apprehend only about 20% of the people attempting to cross into the USA (Gemma, 2013).
Q: What ways do you think we can improve these numbers?
A: The only real way I see us being able to become more efficient would be to strengthen the border and further enforcing the laws of immigration in the US to be able to apprehend anyone we do not catch at the border.
2 - Issmene:
Q:What is your full name?
A: My name is Chloe Smith
Q: How old are you?
A: I am 30 years old.
Q: What is your current occupation?
A: Currently I work as a Homeland Security agent
Q: How long have you been in this occupation?
A: 5 years
Q: What do you do at your Job?
A: I work to secure and protect the country. As of right now I have been working in a department of the agency focused on drug trafficking, gang violence and immigration violations surrounding illegal immigrants.
Q: How are those subjects related?
A: These subjects are related because accounts state that about 55,322 illegal aliens have been arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about eight arrests per illegal alien. Some of the offences they commit are drug or immigration offenses, which account for about 45 percent of all offenses, and approximately 12 percent (over 6,600 illegal aliens) were arrested for violent offenses such as murder, robbery, assault, and sex-related crimes. (Gemma, 2013). These relate to the gang violence because most of these crimes are committed in a gang situation.
Q: Can you tell me an example of an arrest?
A: A Colombian immigrant was arrested and pled guilty to a case of trafficking cocaine into the USA Florida traffic cocaine into the United States. He faced a sentence of between 10 years and life in federal prison. (http://www.fairus.org/).
Q: How do you typically enforce immigration laws?
A: We try to focus on worksite enforcement, but in recent years local law enforcement and governments have restricted the powers we can enforce. Counties such as Berkeley and Coachella have set up laws to restrict our powers when it comes to worksite enforcement. Coachella, specifically, has been now called a “safe haven” for illegal immigrants and assist those who have violated federal immigration laws (Federation for American Immigration Reform, 2013).
Q: What exactly is worksite enforcement?
A: The worksite enforcement system was created to promote national security, protect critical infrastructure and targets employers who violate employment laws or engage in abuse or exploitation of workers. Our worksite enforcement strategy address both employers who knowingly hire illegal workers, as well as the workers themselves. In worksite cases, ICE investigators adhere to high investigative standards, including the following:
Q: Has there recently been an arrest of a mass group of people?
A: We recently had a mass gang arrest all around the USA. We brought in about 600 members of multiple gangs, of these 600 about 115 were arrested on administrative immigrations laws (Cadwell, 2014).
Q: Have any recent events made you think of further improving the emphasis on immigration is general?
A: Recently, the Boston marathon bombings. This gives us reason to strengthen, not just the border, but our immigration system in general. With enhanced background checks and multiple ways of figuring out who is really coming into the country (Bloomberg News, 2014)
3- Zach:
Q: What is your full name?
A: My full name is Clytus Brown.
Q: How old are you?
A: I am 43 years old.
Q: What is your occupation?
A: I have been an electrician for the past 25 years. Along with other side jobs
Q: How has the employment of illegal immigrants affected your Job.
A: Due to the hiring of multiple immigrants throughout the years at the company I have been working in my wage has dropped significantly. About 50% of my companys employees are undocumented workers and this has caused a ripple to go through the entire company. Because of this my wage has gone down about 25% (Camarota, 2005) in the past couple years.
Q: How much money do you make annually as of right now?
A: About $60,400.
Q: And before the influx of migrant workers?
A: About $80,500 (Money Careers, 2012)
Annotated Bibliography
Research for strengthening Border protection for the roles of: Border Patrol Agent, Homeland Security Agent and American Worker
U.S Customs and Border Protection. 2014. “Border Patrol Overview.” Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved from:
http://www.cbp.gov/border-security/along-us-borders/overview
This article gives an overview of how the border patrol works, how they operate across the multiple terrains they have to cover, the things they do to ensure the safety of americans and explains how a person can become a border patrol agent. It also goes into detail on the operations performed by the border patrol to catch illegal immigrants such as linewatch, signcutting, traffic checkpoints and others. This will help further understand the role I need to train Mary to master for our trial. By knowing how the organization works I can further research with her some reasons why we need to strengthen the borders of America.
Gemma, P. 2013. “Illegal Alien Crime and Violence by the Numbers: We’re All Victims.” Constitution Party. Retrieved from
http://cpwp.swehes.com/illegal-alien-crime-and-violence-by-the-numbers-were-all-victims/
This article goes in depth into all the types of crime average illegal immigrant criminals go into and all the statistics in the multiple crime areas they are actively in. This article is also one of the more important ones because it goes into the pure facts and statistics regarding the crime aliens commit that our homeland security agents try to stop. This such crimes include gang violence, drug trafficking and sexual assaults. With all these facts I can form a solid foundation for Issmene as a homeland security agent to ask many questions that will bring up many facts that will help our argument.
Federation for American Immigration Reform. 2013. “Illegal Aliens Taking U.S. Jobs (2013).” Fairus. Retrieved from
http://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-aliens-taking-u-s-jobs
This article explains the topic of illegal immigrants coming into the USA for jobs. It goes into detail about, where the majority of jobs are being taken, how many are approximately being taken and the effects of how hiring illegal immigrants affects the economy and the American workforce. With the facts given in this article, we will have much information regarding how illegal immigrants negatively affect the work force and the overall economy. We can use this information to strengthen our debates against the idea of illegal immigrants in the workforce and how it has bad effects on the economy and the country itself.
Confer, B. 2014. "Illegal Immigrants Take American Jobs." Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Retrieved from
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/DocumentToolsPortletWindow?displayGroupName=Viewpoints&jsid=1a3f06c15ff323b7f55c5cf595fbfcc8&action=2&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CEJ3010499247&u=perr60700&zid=03b0396267fafd72242a67bb447fa28d
This article goes into more the economic problems caused by illegal immigrants taking jobs from the American people. It also mentions some of the jobs being taken by these “aliens” and how many jobs could be created by enforcing the immigration laws. By using the problems that taking jobs from Americans causes in the economy we can take these facts and present them to the jury as ways the immigrants set back the country. By setting back our economy we take away jobs leaving more and more people out of work which in cause will lead us deeper into the recession.This statement is very influential for many people and can be used to persuade the judge or jury.
Jobs Back Organization. 2014. “Do Illegal Immigrants Take Jobs from American Workers?” Retrieved from
http://jobsback.com/do-illegal-immigrants-take-jobs-from-american-workers/
This article explains some of the effects hiring illegal immigrants has on the American workforce and how they are negatively affecting the job they are employed in. It also gives information about the “typical” illegal immigrant; while racists and bias it leaves an impression and can be used. Using this information, we can give the jury some of the multiple affects the employment of these Aliens are causing and how allowing more in brings in some of the things mentioned about the “typical aliens”.
Taylor, J. 2007. “Illegal Immigration: Drugs, Gangs and
Crime.” Civitas Institute.
https://www.nccivitas.org/2007/illegal-immigration-drugs-gangs-and-crime/
This article goes into the major crimes illegal immigrants commit, mostly drug offences, gang violence, human smuggling and identity theft. By giving specific statistics about each offence and how the illegal immigrant contributes to it, we can use the information to further implement the growing problem that is illegal alien crime. This is also helpful because most of the information in the article is from the department of Homeland security.
Bloomberg News. 2014. “Boston Bombing Intensifies Calls to
Strengthen Borders.” News Max.
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/republicans-intensify-borders-bombings/2013/04/23/id/500931/
This article talks about how the recent Boston marathon bombings and how they are a prime example of why we need to strengthen our borders. It goes into detail the multiple plans proposed by politicians around the country and what they are currently debating about the issue, giving examples of how we can run background checks on the immigrants we allow into the USA, using a new immigrant work policy and many other ideas. Using these ideas and others we can come up with multiple things we could do to strengthen our borders to prevent another tragedy like this happen.
The White House. 2014. “Continuing to Strengthen Border Security.” The White House. Retrieved from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/immigration/border-security
This article shows the plans President Obama has to strengthen and secure border. It goes into every part of the plan Obama has brought up to establish more secure borders with both Canada and Mexico. Some of the steps presented in this plan are strengthen border security and infrastructure, combat transnational crime, improving partnerships with border communities, law enforcement and crack down on criminal networks engaging in passport and visa fraud and human smuggling. I can use this article as proof that President Obama is pro strengthening borders. I can also use it as a basis if we tend to give some examples of how we plan on strengthening the border.
Trail Overview
One of the issues mostly debated in politics today is immigration, because of this our most recent project in humanities is a mock trial of four different viewpoints on this topic and what to do about it. Those four viewpoints are: A- the current immigration laws need to be enforced, B - there needs to be some sort of streamlined legalization process for those who are already here, C -we should allow temporary workers into the country to do the jobs that the undocumented immigrants are now doing, and D - there is nothing wrong with the system we have now. My group is a - the current immigration laws need to be enforced. We are going to be arguing that the best solution to the problem is enforcing and strengthening the laws and programs we already have.
As a lawyer, I am in charge of witnesses that will be brought up during the trial to help convince the jury that our solution is the best choice. To do this each of my witnesses needs a story that are supported by facts and prove our points. Clytus Brown’s (Zach’s) story is that he is an American worker who has lost his job because the hiring of illegal immigrants that brought down his wage by about 10%. This is due to the fact that his company employed 19% immigrant in the work force which caused a ripple in the rest of the company that reduced their wages. (Camarota, 2005). Chloe Smith’s (Issmene’s) story is that she is a homeland security agent who was associated with a mass arrest of gang members in the USA. They brought in about 600 gang members, of those 600 about 120 were charged administrative immigration charges (Cadwel, 2014). This is also important because it will open up discussion on more facts about illegal immigrants related to gang violence and narcotic trafficking revolving around gangs. This information can be found around the web and in my annotated bibliography (Gemma, 2013) and (Taylor, 2007). She will also mention how certain states and counties are restraining her from enforcing laws such as laws regarding workforce enforcement (Federation for American Immigration Reform. 2013). Monique Coleman’s (Mary’s) story is that she is a border patrol agent and has been involved in the capturing of multiple migrants. This relates to the project because it will provide an accurate account of how the capturing actually works (KRGV, 2012), give numbers and facts about the migrants (Elizabeth, 2013) and (Gemma, 2013) and how enforcing the laws and strengthening the borders will further prevent the amount of people coming in and being arrested and deported.
Some counter-arguments the opposing teams can bring up are specific for each person. For Zach some of these could be: “In what other ways what things caused you to quit? “, “ How much is your salary because your wage didn’t seem to go down that much.”. For Issmene: “Not all of the gang members are illegal immigrants.”, “ How do you know that most gangs are associated with illegal immigrants.” And for Mary: “ There are many stories and recordings of patrols and agents using violence to stop the immigrants, wouldn’t strengthening the borders mean more violence against the migrants?” Some rebuttals my witnesses might respond with are: (for Zach) Using information gathered from my sources we can bring up facts that support his claims and give numbers that support his complaints about his wage, (for Issmene) She can use specific information released by the department of homeland security and other information coming from the sources found during our research, and (for Mary) not all agents and situations involve violence and some information of how enforcing their powers would further prevent violence due to how it would prevent the amount of people trying to cross illegally.
Elizabeth D. 2013. How Many People Slip by U.S Border Patrol? Depend Who’s Counting. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved from:http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-13/how-many- people-slip-by-u-dot-s-dot-border-patrol-depends-whos-counting.
Camarota S. 2005. “The Impact of Immigration on the American Workforce”. The Center of Immigration Studies. Retrieved from: http://cis.org/node/553
Cadwell A. 2014. “Homeland Security Arrests Over 600 Gang Suspects”. Chron. Retrieved from:
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Homeland-Security-arrests-over-600-gang- suspects-5446413.php#photo-1933898
Gemma, P. 2013. “Illegal Alien Crime and Violence by the Numbers: We’re All Victims.” Constitution Party. Retrieved from http://cpwp.swehes.com/illegal-alien-crime-and-violence- by-the-numbers-were-all-victims/
Federation for American Immigration Reform. 2013. “Illegal Aliens Taking U.S. Jobs (2013).” Fairus. Retrieved from http://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-aliens-taking-u-s-jobs
Confer, B. 2014. "Illegal Immigrants Take American Jobs." Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/DocumentToolsPortletWindow? displayGroupName=Viewpoints&jsid=1a3f06c15ff323b7f55c5cf595fbfcc8&action=2&catId=&documentId= GALE%7CEJ3010499247&u=perr60700&zid=03b0396267fafd72242a67bb447fa28d
KRGV. 2012. “ Border Patrol Catches Group of Illegal Immigrants Crossing River” ABC. Retrieved from: http://www.krgv.com/news/border-patrol-catches-group-of-illegals-crossing-river/
Taylor, J. 2007. “Illegal Immigration: Drugs, Gangs and Crime.” Civitas Institute. Retrieved From: https://www.nccivitas.org/2007/illegal-immigration-drugs-gangs-and-crime/
Taylor J. 2014. “ Border Patrol catches more than 80 immigrants hiding in huts in McAllen”. The Monitor. Retrieved From: http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/video-border-patrol-catches-more-than-immigrants-hiding-in-huts/article_fa99fdb0-c67a-11e3-8cc3-001a4bcf6878.html
US Citizenship and Immigration Services. 2013. “ Immigration and Nationality Act”. Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved from: http://www.uscis.gov/iframe/ilink/docView/SLB/HTML/SLB/act.html
Q&A
1 - Mary:
Q: What is your full name?
A: My full name is Monique Coleman
Q: What is your occupation
A: I am a Border Patrol agent working around the Rio Grande area
Q: How long have you been an agent?
A: I have been an agent for about 15 years
Q: As a border patrol agent how many times have you been involved in the capture and/or arrest of migrants attempting to cross over into the USA?
A: Too many to count, for example a group of agents, including me, detained about 80 migrants who were camping around the McAllen area in Texas around April 18th (Taylor. 2014). While this is just one example, the most recent numbers available for the border patrol agency are about 425,500 migrants in a year period in 2013 (Butillo and Jorden, 2013).
Q: Are all the migrants from Mexico?
A: While a large group of migrants come from Mexico, not all of them are. In 2012 we arrested about 99,000 migrants from other countries (Gemma, 2013).
Q: Do you think that the border patrol is working as efficiently as needed at the moment?
A: No, while we are working around the clock, day in and day out we apprehend only about 20% of the people attempting to cross into the USA (Gemma, 2013).
Q: What ways do you think we can improve these numbers?
A: The only real way I see us being able to become more efficient would be to strengthen the border and further enforcing the laws of immigration in the US to be able to apprehend anyone we do not catch at the border.
2 - Issmene:
Q:What is your full name?
A: My name is Chloe Smith
Q: How old are you?
A: I am 30 years old.
Q: What is your current occupation?
A: Currently I work as a Homeland Security agent
Q: How long have you been in this occupation?
A: 5 years
Q: What do you do at your Job?
A: I work to secure and protect the country. As of right now I have been working in a department of the agency focused on drug trafficking, gang violence and immigration violations surrounding illegal immigrants.
Q: How are those subjects related?
A: These subjects are related because accounts state that about 55,322 illegal aliens have been arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about eight arrests per illegal alien. Some of the offences they commit are drug or immigration offenses, which account for about 45 percent of all offenses, and approximately 12 percent (over 6,600 illegal aliens) were arrested for violent offenses such as murder, robbery, assault, and sex-related crimes. (Gemma, 2013). These relate to the gang violence because most of these crimes are committed in a gang situation.
Q: Can you tell me an example of an arrest?
A: A Colombian immigrant was arrested and pled guilty to a case of trafficking cocaine into the USA Florida traffic cocaine into the United States. He faced a sentence of between 10 years and life in federal prison. (http://www.fairus.org/).
Q: How do you typically enforce immigration laws?
A: We try to focus on worksite enforcement, but in recent years local law enforcement and governments have restricted the powers we can enforce. Counties such as Berkeley and Coachella have set up laws to restrict our powers when it comes to worksite enforcement. Coachella, specifically, has been now called a “safe haven” for illegal immigrants and assist those who have violated federal immigration laws (Federation for American Immigration Reform, 2013).
Q: What exactly is worksite enforcement?
A: The worksite enforcement system was created to promote national security, protect critical infrastructure and targets employers who violate employment laws or engage in abuse or exploitation of workers. Our worksite enforcement strategy address both employers who knowingly hire illegal workers, as well as the workers themselves. In worksite cases, ICE investigators adhere to high investigative standards, including the following:
- Evidence of the mistreatment of workers, along with evidence of trafficking, smuggling, harboring, visa fraud, I.D fraud, money laundering and other such criminal conduct.
- ICE (a subdivision of our homeland security) will obtain prosecution, criminal arrests or search warrants, or a commitment from a U.S. Attorney's Office to prosecute the targeted employer before arresting employees for civil immigration violations at a worksite.
Q: Has there recently been an arrest of a mass group of people?
A: We recently had a mass gang arrest all around the USA. We brought in about 600 members of multiple gangs, of these 600 about 115 were arrested on administrative immigrations laws (Cadwell, 2014).
Q: Have any recent events made you think of further improving the emphasis on immigration is general?
A: Recently, the Boston marathon bombings. This gives us reason to strengthen, not just the border, but our immigration system in general. With enhanced background checks and multiple ways of figuring out who is really coming into the country (Bloomberg News, 2014)
3- Zach:
Q: What is your full name?
A: My full name is Clytus Brown.
Q: How old are you?
A: I am 43 years old.
Q: What is your occupation?
A: I have been an electrician for the past 25 years. Along with other side jobs
Q: How has the employment of illegal immigrants affected your Job.
A: Due to the hiring of multiple immigrants throughout the years at the company I have been working in my wage has dropped significantly. About 50% of my companys employees are undocumented workers and this has caused a ripple to go through the entire company. Because of this my wage has gone down about 25% (Camarota, 2005) in the past couple years.
Q: How much money do you make annually as of right now?
A: About $60,400.
Q: And before the influx of migrant workers?
A: About $80,500 (Money Careers, 2012)