Critical Perspectives on Immigrants and Refugees (Analyzing the Issues) by Anne Cunningham

Critical Perspectives on Immigrants and Refugees (Analyzing the Issues) Reviews

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  Vincent Rutter

  I think that this was a very great book, and I think that it is very educational and fair to both sides of the topic. This book has simplified many complex topics while still showing and giving credit to the authors and experts who have written about this topic. And I think overall it did a great job at informing the reader about immigrants and refugees.
  
  My favorite quote in this book is "The Supreme Court held that the United States government could legally deport an alien whose desire to remain neutral in his country's civil war had exposed him to threats of violence and forced conscription into a guerrilla army. The Court found that the alien's neutrality did not constitute a 'political opinion' for the purposes of protection under federal immigration law. Therefore, the alien could not be considered a 'refugee' eligible for political asylum in the United States"(Joseph 75). This was a very interesting case, Immigration and Naturalization Service V. Elias-Zacarias, where the U.S. government simplified the definition of refugee in the legal system. This ruling by the Supreme Court resulted in it becoming harder to apply for political asylum. And because of this ruling about a neutral alien it affected real people like Jairo Jonathan who fled from Guatemala when he was eighteen years old. And because of this case even if a refugee meets the standard for getting asylum the government still has the right to refuse them asylum. What makes this quote and court case so important is that this determined the way the government would treat refugees in real life. This case applied to many real people throughout history, and it was really the start of the legal definition of what a refugee was and impacted many people's lives who were trying to escape their native country.
  
  "But 9/11 completely changed our refugee policy. In the wake of the terrorist attacks, the George W. Bush administration restructured the immigration bureaucracy to convey a greater sense of safety to the public"(Garcia 204). I really like this quote and the whole 'What Ordinary People Say' section of this book. This section talks about the history of what the American population thought about Immigration. In the beginning the population thought immigration to America was a good thing for the people moving here and the country itself. Of course there were still many people that thought that Immigrants should not move to their country, but generally most people looked at immigration as a good thing for both parties involved. But during WW2 people thought that German refugees could be German spies to attack America. This is what started people to be more hesitant about refugees and immigration. But the biggest thing to change the public opinion was 9/11. The American population started to turn against immigration because they didn't want to get attacked once again. The government started to take action after 9/11 to prevent any more terrorist attacks on America. They also started to make refugee policies making it much harder to legally get into the country. They made these policies in order to make the people of America feel safer. Because of this event people have been not willing to help refugees. An example of this was in 2015 when America stopped taking Syrian refugees into the country because they thought that there was a risk that the Islamic State would send refugees in disguise. This is the history of Americans thoughts about immigration.
  
  The theme of this book is about what immigration and refugees are, what it is like to be a refugee, what the experts say about immigration, what politicians think about immigration, what the government has done and is doing about immigration, what social media says about immigration, what advocates for the refugees think about immigration, what the regular people think about immigration, and the history of immigration is like in America. It shows both the pros and cons of immigration. It shows the harm to the U.S. with people immigrating here, and it shows the benefits to the immigrants when they move to America.