Undocumented Immigration Stereotypes

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Millions of undocumented immigrants live in the United States. Every day they live in this fear of being caught by an immigration agent, being deported to their home countries and lose everything they have worked so hard for in many years. They live uncertain of the future and many become anxious as they contemplate the possibility of being separated from their families at any time. Millions of these immigrants have lived in the United States for many years, and many even have children born in this country. There are those who have lived in the U.S. for so long, that they now consider themselves part of this country. However, because of their legal status these immigrants are marginalized and excluded from most types of social and political …show more content…
However, an educated and rational debate about this issue requires that these prejudices, which have now become stereotypes, be clarified. First, estimates indicate that around 57 percent of undocumented immigrants come from Mexico, the next largest group (or 15 percent) comes from Central America, and the rest come from other countries (as cited in Nadadur, 2009, p. 1039). Hence, not all undocumented immigrants are Mexican. Second, “between 25 to 40 percent of undocumented immigrants entered the country with legal documents such as student visas, tourist visas, or temporary employee visas, but failed to leave or properly extend their documents” (Lipman, 2006, para. 12). Thus, not all entered the country without inspection (illegally). Finally, “more than 90 [percent] of adult undocumented immigrant men and 50 [percent] of adult women are in the labor force” (Lipman, YEAR, p.819). Hence, the great majority are not terrorists or individuals that come to disrupt society; rather, they come to …show more content…
Moreover, it is essential to clarify that the U.S. domestic situation is also responsible for these immigration waves. Specifically, Michael Piore (1979) explains that international migration is the result of a high-demand for lowskilled workers in the host country and not necessarily always due to unfavorable conditions in the sending country (p.15). Piore (1979) also argues that there are four different factors in developed countries that influence the demand for unskilled labor. One of these factors is what Piore calls “structural inflation” (p.15). As Piore describes it, society usually expects both, social status and wages to correlate. Hence, low-prestige jobs consequentially have lower wages. Since people generally like status, low-wage jobs become undesirable. Because there are no people willing to occupy the unskilled positions due to the low social status attached to them, the ideal thing to do would be to raise the wages of unskilled jobs to attract workers. However, this would also imply raising the wages for everyone else in the labor hierarchy, since wages should match social status and prestige. As a result, the easier way out is to hire immigrant workers who are willing to take those jobs for low
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