Brandon Jessurun

Government
Mr. Burnham
11/10/14
Fixing the Immigration Problem
Over the past couple decades, separation of federal and state government has
been a big issue. As federal government begins to take more power the state
government wants more back. The problem with the federal government having all
this power is that they are too big to ensure that all of the policies they undertake
are effective and working. This leaves state governments relying on federal
government laws that are not working. The most recent issue is in immigration.
Southern Border States such as Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California
have experienced a large influx of illegal immigrants that flood into this country this
year. Currently, the federal government are the ones responsible for protecting the
borders but very little is being done. While it is debated in Congress whether to free
up the borders a little or to clamp down, hundreds of new immigrants are crossing
into America each day. These Border States are helpless against the people coming
in, as they can set no laws to strengthen themselves or to tighten the borders. Most
recently, Arizona passed the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods
Act. This act made it a state misdemeanor for not having any documents signifying
you as an American citizen, let law enforcement enforce federal immigration laws
and stopped the harboring or transporting of illegal immigrants in Arizona. As soon
as this act was passed it immediately received attention from the federal

government and a case against the act was prepared. The act was taken to the
Supreme Court where most of it was declared unconstitutional but a small part was
allowed to stay. This small amount was then declared unconstitutional very recently
on November 9th. I believe that the state of Arizona definitely knew that this was
going to be shot down but released it as a cry to the federal government for help.
Arizona has the largest number of illegal immigrants entering through its borders
and has very little means to take care of the problem. Arizona is not the first state to
try to pass immigration laws that have been declared unconstitutional by the federal
government. With all these states trying to pass these types of laws in the past few
years it should be apparent to the federal government that something must be done.
However, the federal government still sticks to the expressed powers, powers
strictly stated by the Constitution, in order to retain power.
I believe that the government is already big enough and keeping power that
they do not take care of should be given to the states. There are many solutions that
could work to benefit both the federal government and the state governments. All
solutions point to new federalism. I believe the only way to fix the immigration
problem is to give states more power and allowing states to make their own
immigration laws is a small necessary step into furthering our nation. The best way
to fix the immigration problem is through a dual federalism. This way the federal
government could give the state government a certain amount of power but still
maintain the powers that the federal government gets to keep. This would allow the
federal government to give state governments the power to do whatever they want
with immigration and lighten the load of duties that the federal government has.

The way that this could be funded is through a categorical grant. This would allow
the federal government to give money just to the immigration area of the state
government and would still have some control over the immigration process. This
would also let the federal government give the money to certain states that have
large immigration problems rather than states like Maine or Montana that have very
little immigration problems. By doing this it would be decreasing the amount of
power the federal government has and strengthen our borders.
Immigration is one of the main problems in this country right now and is
being taken very lightly by the federal government. The federal government needs
to do something about the problem before its to late and I believe that the best
thing would be to hand this power over to the state governments with limitations.
This would make both governments happy and fix the problem. There is no reason
this should not have been done already except for the fact that the federal
government does not want to give up a small amount of their power that they do not
even take good care of. No matter how it is done this problem needs to be fixed
regardless of who does it.

Works Cited
"ARIZONA v. UNITED STATES." Arizona v. United States. Oyez, June 2012. Web. 08
Nov. 2014. <http://www.oyez.org/cases/20102019/2011/2011_11_182>.
Levine, Julia. "Types of Federalism." APGovernmentCHS -. APGovernmentCHS, n.d.
Web. 10 Nov. 2014.
<https://apgovernmentchs.wikispaces.com/Types+of+Federalism>.
Orlando, James. "SUMMARY OF ARIZONA IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION AND
LEGISLATION IN OTHER STATES." SUMMARY OF ARIZONA IMMIGRATION
LEGISLATION AND LEGISLATION IN OTHER STATES. OLR Research Report,
14 May 2013. Web. 09 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.cga.ct.gov/2010/rpt/2010-R-0213.htm>.