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Goals

Goals . Understand the history of immigration and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the United States Begin to look at the personal reasons behind undocumented immigration. Develop a sense of Christian compassion for the migrant. Essential Questions.

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Goals

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  1. Goals • Understand the history of immigration and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the United States • Begin to look at the personal reasons behind undocumented immigration. • Develop a sense of Christian compassion for the migrant

  2. Essential Questions • Why would someone leave her or his home country and family, risk her or his life migrating north, only to work for menial work?

  3. Immigration in the United States A Brief History

  4. Earliest Migrants into the Americas • Bering Strait: Inuit migrants from Russia to Alaska • Tracking big game across the Bering strait

  5. Early European Immigration • Europeans (mainly Spanish, English, Portuguese, and Dutch) • Financial Reasons (cheap land, cheap labor) • Religious Reasons (religious persecution, missionaries)

  6. Mid-19th c. • Chinese: Gold Rush and Trans-Contintental Railroad • Irish: Black ‘47 and the Great Hunger • Germans: Forty-Eighters and the Revolutions

  7. Mid 19th c.

  8. Know-Nothing Party • Nativist political group in the mid-19th century • Anti-Immigrant • Anti-Catholic

  9. Know-Nothing Party • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRMrA8MTXpA&feature=related

  10. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo • Ended the Mexican-American War • Known in Mexico as the US Invasion of Mexico (or the Gringo Invasion) • Mexican citizens in Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico became US citizens and retained all rights to property.

  11. Late 19th and early 20th centuries • Italians (particularly from the south) escaping a depressed economy • Polish escaping oppressive Russians, Prussians, and Hapsburgs • Russian Jews escaping pogroms • Lebanese and Syrian Christians escaping religious persecution

  12. What do all these groups of people have in common? They were all seeking a better life.

  13. Anti-Immigrant Fervor Today

  14. Legal Immigration Today The US State Department issues several types of visas. • Visas for visitors • Visas for workers • Generally for skilled workers • Visas for students • Visas for immigrants/refugees

  15. Undocumented Immigration Today

  16. Reasons for Undocumented Immigration • Poverty in home countries • Job opportunities (particularly for unskilled labor in developed nations) • Trade liberalization • Human Trafficking

  17. Recent Attempts at Immigration Reform • 109th Congress: • 2005: McCain-Kennedy Bill • Failed, but inspired other bills • 2006: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act • Senate Version: Amnesty and “Blue Cards” • House Version: Border fence, federal crackdown on local authorities and employers • 110th Congress tried and failed to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform • 111th Congress: DREAM Act failed to pass the Senate

  18. “Gang of 8” Proposals • Sen. Michael Bennett (D-CO) • Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) • Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) • Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) • Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) • Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) • Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) • Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

  19. “Gang of 8” Proposals • A path to citizenship • Reduce current visa applicant backlogs. • Expand and improve e-verify. • Work-visa options for low-skilled workers.** • DREAM Act • Increase Border Patrol

  20. Economic Implications • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RomPjp3ydek • www.takeourjobs.org • Reality: slightly positive impact on native-born American wealth • High School dropouts negatively affected. • Annual Border Patrol Budget: Just shy of $12 billion

  21. Moral Implications • Policies which splits families • Deportation to different cities • Documented and undocumented spouses • Between 400 and 500 annual deaths by people crossing the border

  22. Religious Implications • Exodus: Widows, orphans, and aliens. • Ezekiel 47: 21-23 • Welcoming the alien is one of the more prevalent themes in the Hebrew Scripture • “Strangers No Longer” • Unequal economies • Legal paths to citizenship • Humane border control

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