immigration law essay

immigration law essay

The Importance of Immigration Law

1. Introduction

The immigration control had its biggest change on 31 December 2020, following the UK’s exit from the EU. The EEA and Swiss nationals are not treated the same way as citizens of other countries, so provisions from Part 2 of the agreement are, in some cases, disapplied by Part 3. This led to a change in immigration law by bringing in the EU Settlement Scheme, recorded in the amended rules from Appendix EU (EEA EFTA) for EEA and Swiss nationals, family permit, and applicable date as from 1 January 2021.

Control of immigration means the end or reduction of the migration of persons to the UK or stay in the UK who are not citizens of Member States of the European Economic Area (EEA). EEA is the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. This control is to be measured from the migrant worker category right up to EEA and its family members.

The immigration into the UK has increased immensely over the past decades, making it a multicultural society. With various attractions of the UK, people from different countries are inclined to come to the UK for the purpose of study, employment, betterment of life, and to escape from prosecution in their own country. This is where UK immigration law comes into force to control the immigration process in the UK.

From this definition, immigration law is significant to control the immigration process of aliens into the UK or any other countries. This type of law is said to be part of national law and international law.

Step up to the plate to discuss the topic is immigration. Immigration is the international movement of people into a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship, in order to settle or reside there, especially as permanent residents or naturalized citizens, or to take up employment as a migrant worker or temporarily or involuntarily as an indentured worker.

Now, coming to the point, the word immigration relates to the movement of people from one country to another for the purpose of settlement. Immigration law refers to the national statutes, regulations, and legal precedents governing immigration into and deportation.

The main reason behind writing on this topic is being students of LL.B, we knew nothing about immigration laws. The only thing which we have studied is Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, dealing with the right to a fair trial. It’s a very vast and technical area of law, and we thought, why not enhance our knowledge about immigration laws and share it with people who are willing to know about immigration laws.

2. Historical Background

During the late 18th century, a significant increase in immigration from Europe became a necessity largely due to the declining immigration to the colonies of British subjects who were being scared away by imperial laws and taxes meant to squeeze their income for the Empire. This led to the passage of the Naturalization Act of 1798. However, the lack of an organized immigration and naturalization policy at the time of independence was illustrative of the fact that the new nation did not truly come into its own and begin developing an identity fully independent of Europe until later in the 19th century.

The need for immigrant labor and the influx of immigration led to the importation of African slaves. The colonists did not consider that the Africans were actual immigrants; they were seen only as property. Therefore, the question of regulating their passage or naturalization never arose.

When the colonies were still under British rule, they wanted to add to their populations and foster a prosperous trade with Europe, so they eagerly encouraged immigration. Although the United States did not exist during the 17th and 18th centuries, the purposes for European settlement which led to America’s founding were driven partly by imperial goals to raise a national income and power. The colonies envisioned achieving these ends by making themselves attractive to settlers who would establish a permanent base for a global financial system of trade of raw materials for European manufactured goods.

The history of U.S. immigration legislation may be broadly divided into three phases: the colonial period, the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the post-1965 interval. In each of these periods, the need for regulation was driven by some evident increase in immigration.

3. Current Challenges and Controversies

Since the 1970s, the United States has experienced a major resurgence of large-scale immigration. Enforcement of immigration laws became a central focus of the federal government. Prior to this era, immigration enforcement was of marginal significance and was rarely a major issue of contention between Congress and the President. The nation witnessed a complete turnaround in enforcement priority and a restructuring of the immigration enforcement and administration infrastructure. In a little over a quarter-century, the United States made a dramatic shift from a minimally enforced immigration policy to a much intensified effort to control migration, both legal and illegal. These changes have had a direct impact on the foreign-born residing in the United States. The increasing presence of immigration enforcement has complicated and obfuscated the already difficult and confusing process of gaining legal immigration status. This has resulted in a noticeable increase in the population of undocumented migrants in the United States and has also influenced the decisions of many foreign nationals who have chosen to reside in the United States to settle without obtaining legal immigration status. This trend continues to the present day and is a contributing factor to the estimated population of 11.6 million undocumented migrants who currently reside in the United States.

Within the last 15 years, Congress has enacted laws and the federal government has implemented policies that have brought significant change to the enforcement and administration of immigration laws. Increased funding and resources for immigration control have gained priority in American politics. This section provides an overview of the changes in immigration enforcement, the linkage to terrorism, and the effect of post-9/11 policies.

4. Benefits of Effective Immigration Law

A final key benefit of an effective immigration law on a nation’s economy is the increased size of the tax base. As previously mentioned, immigrants often fill the gap for job shortages in specific industries and have higher employment rates. This results in many immigrants paying taxes. The average effective tax rate (regarding the income tax) for immigrant households would be similar to that of native-born households, at 15.8% with immigrants having a rate of 16.7% and native-born citizens with a rate of 15.7%. This helps offset the costs of immigrants using public services and takes some of the tax burden from the current taxpayers. This could potentially reach in the billions; for example, in 2010, it was determined that the overall fiscal impact of the 2010 undocumented population on the U.S. Social Security system is roughly a positive $12 billion, due to their contributions via payroll taxes for benefits they will never receive.

With effective immigration law, a nation will be more capable of addressing weaknesses in the labor market, which helps increase economic growth. Immigrants often do the jobs that nationals of the host country will not or cannot do. For example, in the United States, it is immigrants who provide much of the seasonal agricultural labor. Immigrants have a positive effect on the US economy as a whole. Approximately 14 million immigrant workers were employed in the U.S. civilian labor force in 2007, as well as having higher rates of participation in the labor market. When comparing the employment/population rates of immigrants and native-born workers, the likelihood of being employed was higher for immigrants in 17 of the 25 years from 1994 to 2018. Immigrant workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in service occupations, production, transportation, and material moving occupations. Employment is a contributory factor to economic growth; therefore, with increased labor market activity from immigrants and a higher employment rate, the economy of a country can increase.

Without effective immigration law, a country would be unable to protect its sovereignty. To protect its sovereignty, a nation must have the ability to control who enters its borders. Effective immigration law allows a country to gain access to a global market where they can select the world’s best and brightest minds. The United States has been a prime beneficiary of brains on the move. Over the past 30 years, America has attracted many of the world’s best-educated people. Although it makes up only 5 percent of the global population, the United States is home to 20 percent of the world’s college-educated people, and it attracts a disproportionate share of global talent: 54 percent of foreign Nobel laureates are U.S. immigrants. And delivers concrete, specific, factual (where needed) information relevant to the title for the section.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, the history of immigration in the United States is one of bans, which illustrates a continual pattern of discrimination targeted at one group or another. We have shown that the most significant changes in immigration policy have not been due to shifts in economic needs or changes in the global environment, but have been reactions to specific ethnic groups and a changing color line. While one might argue that banning the Chinese for twenty years, Japanese internment, and the 1924 National Origins Act were motions based on economic need to protect jobs and wages, the racial foundation of these legislations leads to their classification as acts of discrimination. With these and several other examples, we show that legislation shaping US immigration policy has continually been efforts to preserve the current racial distribution and prevent changes to this distribution. A common theory of immigration law history is that it has been an objective and rational set of laws more or less consistent with the principle of protecting the economic interests of native citizens. Our study shows that immigration legislation has clearly been a reflection of the social and political climate of the time defined by racism, nativism, and a confused notion of American identity.