Illegal immigration of Mexico Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Illegal immigration of Mexico - Essay Example Tighter border control would be the first necessary solution for the problem of illegal immigration. Tighter border control must be enforced through increased manpower and the integration of better technology into the system. According to Krikorian, the current state of manpower for border control has only one man guarding an entire mile of the borderline. (Krikorian 2006) It is of no surprise then that illegal immigrants can sneak in during their watch. The government must thus appropriate sufficient funds to employ additional border guards. Increased manning of the Mexican border, however, would not be sufficient by itself to effectively tighten border control and decrease the number of illegal entries. An increase in manpower must also be accompanied by an upgrading of the currently technology, such as sensors and floodlights, for example, that are being used in border control. The construction of heavier and taller fences with adequate lighting to replace the weak wire fences tha t litter the borderline is one basic upgrade that would already be of much help. Although this upgrade would come at a cost, it would be worth it because the economic costs being borne by the government and the citizenry as a consequence of illegal immigration far outweighs the cost of such upgrades. Second, a national verification system accessible to prospective employers must be set up to ensure secure verification of a prospective employee's legal status. Right now, illegal immigrants are easily entering employment with the assistance of a black market catering to the manufacture of false identification papers. Since the documents that are being required for employment can be readily falsified, employers sometimes unwittingly employ illegal immigrants. As such, there is a need to set up a secure and comprehensive database of all citizens, legal immigrants, and foreign nationals with work permits so that companies and employers can verify the work eligibility of an applicant. According to Mazzolia and Simpson, such a system was already proposed much earlier upon the enactment of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act but was left unimplemented to pacify interest groups who objected to such a system as intrusive of personal privacy. (Mazzolia, 2006) This intrusion on pers onal privacy would supposedly occur since the open access to such a system would allow an employer to verify the records not only of his applicants but also of his next-door neighbor. While such abuses are indeed possible with the proposed system, the effectivity and necessity of implementing such a system justifies such a sacrifice. According to Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, a similar pilot program launched in 1997 succeeded not only in detecting illegal alien applicants but was also shown to effectively dissuade illegal aliens from seeking employment in such establishments. (Vaughan 2006) With such a high probability of success, we cannot afford to forfeit the use of such a system for privacy concerns that can actually be tempered by limiting the extent of personal information that would be available in the