Illegal immigration is a term that describes the immigration across national borders in a way that violates immigration laws of the destination country. This year alone, 900,000 illegal immigrants were caught trying to cross the US/Mexico border, that does not include the others that actually make it across the border. Illegal immigration from Mexico really took off in 1953 when President Eisenhower was in office. At this time, an estimated 3 million illegal immigrants had crossed into the United States. Seeing this situation, Eisenhower quickly cut illegal immigration with the help of 1,075 border patrol officers. Later, in 1954, "Operation Wetback" began. Operation Wetback called for a the rounding up of all illegal immigrants by random ID-checks in Mexican-American neighborhoods. In the span of a year, 130,000 Mexican immigrants were deported, but the INS claimed that an additional 1-1.2 million had fled in fear of being apprehended. Thus began America's obsession with Mexico to US immigration.

John McCain believes in higher immigration, population growth, and foreign labor. On the issue of border security, McCain has voted for the Secure Fence Act and has encouraged agreements that would let the government onto to private property to survey land. McCain believes in foreign labor and has voted for the failed Guest Worker Program that would allow illegal immigrants the chance to become citizens. He has struggled to convince others that his voting record and ideas do not insinuate amnesty. John McCain also strongly believes in immigration reform, which, in theory, increases legal immigration, while decreasing illegal immigration. McCain has been attacked repeatedly for his views on immigration reforms that many claim is just a code name for amnesty. Although Obama believes in immigration reform as well, it's not as big of a conflict with him because he is a member of the Democratic Party. About 50 percent of democrats oppose amnesty, while 80 percent of republicans oppose amnesty, so John McCain has more to lose when he talks about immigration reform.
Onto John McCain's vice president, Sarah Palin. Her view on immigration remains a mystery, as she has never made a statement about immigration, nor voted on any immigration laws.

Barack Obama also supports the Guest Worker Program, and has voted in favor of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007. He also has claimed that there is no possible way to deport 12 million illegal immigrants, instead, he claims that they must be allowed a path to citizenship. He also supported the Secure Fence Act, as well as granting illegal immigrants the right to own a driver's license. As noted before, Obama believes in a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, which includes learning English and paying a fine, and wants to enforce penalties on companies who hire illegal immigrants.
Joe Biden, Obama's vice president, believes in guest-worker visas, the wall, a path to citizenship for immigrants, and social security for immigrants.

Before doing research, I staunchly supported Barack Obama, and that included his view on immigration. Recently, however, I have to come find out that he's in favor of the wall between Mexico and the United States. As I have stated MANY times before, I am strongly against the fence. So, I have to step back and dig a little bit deeper into the heaping political pile. After diving headfirst, I found myself still in favor of Barack Obama. Obama knows that deporting all illegal immigrants is ridiculous and instead wants to give them a chance to become legal residents. I support this decision along with the entire legal immigration process.
Until next time...


UPDATE:
After doing more research on the naturalization process and writing a blog post about it I now find myself in opposition of it. I did not realize how contradictory my last sentence in this post was until I read the post that I had just posted about naturalization.