In correlation with the recent increase in number of illegal immigrants to the United States, mass media coverage of this issue has risen as well. This increasingly large group of immigrants has formed a “new community”, which is one of the
trends that is appealing to the mass media publishers. As a result of strong and opposing opinions on the subject being articulated by the democrat and republican political parties, “demassification” (or fragmentation between these two audiences) has also occurred. In order to fully understand both the positive and negative implications of the current immigration policies it is necessary to first define immigrants and to explore the impact that current US policies have on these immigrants.
Permanent legal immigration is not only limited in the number of spots that the US offers, but immigrants are also torequired to categorized into one of four categories:
1. Family Based Immigration
2. Employment Based Immigration
3. Humanitarian- based immigration
4. Other
Although these categories appear to be somewhat inclusive, there are specific regulations within these broad categories that limit the number of immigrants who qualify (by the government’s standards) to migrate to the US. The first issue arises
in the fact that there are “an insufficient number of visas”; this cap was set in the 1990s and has not been change to fit the evolving economy and labor market. In regards to the “family based immigration”, the category is limiting because it only allows a US citizen the right to petition for a their spouse, child, parent, or sibling (no exceptions to these limits are considered). Concerning the “employment-based immigration”, the employer must not only offer a job to the immigrant, but
also be willing to sponsor him or her financially; also, this process is often costly in time and money which is a large deterrent for employers. Finally, “humanitarian based-immigration” is confining as well because not only is there a pre-set
number for this category, but the potential immigrant must also prove to the US government that they have a “well-founded fear of persecution”, which is subject to the government’s discretion.