Welcome to America, Now Get Out

             When researching the history of the United States; we could determine that the country prides itself on the diversity of the citizens as well as our ideals of acceptances. Other countries around the world have made life is better to live in America, so to escape these immigrates have given up everything from possessions to even family ties to move here to have a better life. They would do almost anything to come to America; some people come to America through the proper channels like the people (≈ eight million) who traveled through Ellis Island; and then there are the ones who cross the borders in the cover of darkness.

            Above I mentioned that the US has prided itself about the diversity of the citizens and we even write songs about it, songs like “America” by Neil Diamond which is hyper-linked to see and hear the song on YouTube. However, the song is about the people who immigrated to the country; we all know that there have been times that immigration has uncontrollable and also controllable. Recently in America, the immigration and naturalization of the people seem to be uncontrollable especially around the borders of Mexico.

The topic of immigration reform has been a sensitive subject at the different levels of government which we learned in our reading material; we read that immigration is not only control at the federal level but at the local government level. It is here that I was able to see the immigration policies that have been put in place. In the process of preparing for our class discussions on the subject, I looked into my village’s census from the last two decades or census period. Carpentersville has not only seen an increase in the immigrating population which can be seen in the table below.

Census Record for Carpentersville
race	2000		2010		difference
	Pop.	Percent	Pop.	Percent	Pop.	Percent
Caucasian	21,031	68.8%	23,708	62.9%	+2,677	-5.9%
African American	1,279	4.2%	2,563	6.8%	+1,284	+2.6 %
Asian	606	2%	2,073	5.5%	+1,467	+3.5 %
Native American	197	.6%	188	.5%	-9	-.1 %
Hispanic	12,410	40.6%	18,883	50.1%	+6,473	+9.5 %

The village board has written ordinances to combat what they believe is the problem with the undocumented that live within the village limits. Unlike the 2011 immigration controversies in Arizona; when the Arizona Senate passed Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act. This piece of legislation stated that something like “if someone was a legal citizen of a Hispanic descent; they would have to carry their green card or another form of legal immigration papers and they need to produce the identification or documents on the spot and if someone did not have the proper identification they would be turned into Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).” The village of Carpentersville would passed in ordinance that allows our village, to remove anyone from a residence if there is speculation of multiple families living in a house that is might for single family use. For, example the village was able to determine that there was a transition house just by the amount of cars in the driveway on a daily bases. One day there was approximately 10 cars in the driveway and within a week may be less there was a seizure notice on the door of the house. My village has done more to control the immigration situation, while some legislation has been legal other legislation has not and it was is the somewhat questionable legislation that media stations like ABC to report a story.

So the point that I am making about the policies that are created at the different government levels can be really extreme to acceptable. With the extreme end being what happened in Arizona and as moderate about the situation where I live. Now, with the increase amount of immigration in the country; the federal government has been made aware of the situation and has made step to help reduced the immigrating population.

  

America. (2015). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBwA6xKADr8

Arizona’s Immigration Enforcement Laws. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/research/immigration/analysis-of-arizonas-immigration-law.aspx

Carpentersville ordinances. (2015). Retrieved from https://www.municode.com/library/il/carpentersville/codes/code_of_ordinances

2010 and 2000 census record. (n.d). Retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/17/1711358.html

 © 2015 by Mary Costley