Immigration Reform: Political Opinions Homework #1

As employers continue to hire undocumented workers and millions of people slink among the shadows, one thing is for sure: The immigration policy debate in America is twisted and causing much controversy. Both sides of the issue have been fighting tooth and nail for either reform or conservation, but which, if any, is right?

The immigration policy as it stands is confusing to many Americans, which might just be the source of unneeded controversy. According to The Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA), the U.S. provides for an annual worldwide limit of 675,000 immigrants. There are limited exceptions such as: exemptions for close family members, and a separate allowance for refugee admissions.

The immigration system is designed in various ways. There are different types of immigration such as family-based immigration, employment-based immigration and immigration for refuges. There are also U.S. programs such as the Diversity Visa Program and other forms of humanitarian relief.

According to americanprogress.org, undocumented immigrants usually settle in traditional “gateway” states such as California, Illinois, Texas, New York and Florida. But 15 states, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Utah, have experienced a 200 percent increase in their immigration populations between 1990 and 2009.

When many Americans think of immigration their minds land on Mexican immigration, but statistics show that there has been an 80 percent decline in undocumented Mexican immigrants from 2004 to 2010. There are many things contributing to the decline of Mexican immigration. Right now, there are more Mexicans leaving the U.S. than entering it, according to americanprogress.org. This is contributed to increased border control, shaky job and housing markets, and an increase in deportations.

So if cracking down on undocumented immigration is statistically working then why should immigration reform? According to the White House, President Obama has three elements of action in the reform plan:

Cracking Down on Illegal Immigration at the Border: The President’s actions increase the chances that anyone attempting to cross the border illegally will be caught and sent back. Continuing the surge of resources that effectively reduced the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border illegally this summer, the President’s actions will also centralize border security command-and-control to continue to crack down on illegal immigration.

Deporting Felons, Not Families: The President’s actions focus on the deportation of people who threaten national security and public safety. He has directed immigration enforcement to place anyone suspected of terrorism, violent criminals, gang members, and recent border crossers at the top of the deportation priority list.

Accountability – Criminal Background Checks and Taxes: The President is also acting to hold accountable those undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than five years and are parents of U.S. citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents. By registering and passing criminal and national security background checks, millions of undocumented immigrants will start paying their fair share of taxes and temporarily stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation for three years at a time.

Immigration to the U.S. is based upon the principles of the reunification of families, admitting immigrants with skills that are valuable to the U.S. economy, protecting refugees and promoting diversity, according to the White House. But this is where things get interesting, and why immigration is more of a political opportunity than a fight for humanity. According to Democracy Journal, as demonstrated in the 2012 election, immigrant communities are increasingly becoming a major political and civic push. 10 percent of the electorate in 2012 was from the Latino population, and Asian-American’s rose to three percent. These are small percentages, but historic. However, the future influence will be dramatic. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Hispanics will account for 40 percent of the electorate in the next two decades. These immigrants have a major influence on swaying voting results, and many believe that this is why President Obama is pushing for the immigration policy. The majority of immigrants will be of age to vote in the next election and if Obama’s plan succeeds, many will vote primarily democratic.

As of now, a U.S. district Judge temporarily halted the administrations executive decision because it may or may not violate the constitution. In the upcoming days the judge will rule whether Obama’s actions are legal or not. Until then the debate continues and the ruling will propel the issue into the Supreme Court.

Blogging Reading 4

1. Democratic leaders embrace blogging as a potential communication means because of the nature of blogging. Politician’s blogs can be seen by many more people than what is seen through traditional media in politics. During a televised event or news casting there is a limit to the number of people the politician can reach by who is actually viewing the media at that particular time, or watching a recorded segment. These usual means of politician communication are lacking of interaction. Through blogging, many people can communicate with the politician or see the ideas of the politician over the Internet quickly and efficiently. They can also respond and communicate with people, speak about a particular candidate and find out if they would like to vote for this person. Blogging touches more on the human nature aspects of interaction because anyone can communicate with the politician and get a first hand account of how this person will be in an election. This touches on the democratic sense of blogging and politics in that everyone should have their own voice and opinions should be heard.

2. The participatory culture enables an expansion of digital media convergence. People from anywhere can post or comment on a blog, and the blogger can communicate directly with the audience. This allows people to participate in the blogging experience, instead of information coming from one seemingly unattainable person, bloggers communicate first hand with their viewers. This encourages people to communicate, post, tweet and comment on blogs. Everyone has a say in what is being posted and everyone joins in on the conversation. This allows for more digital media convergence because now there are applications and multiple means of commenting and viewing a blog. The audience can comment and view a blog through an app, on a tablet or computer. Blogs are being incorporated into companies as part of their brand as well. These companies want to hear consumer feedback so they establish blogs on the Internet and through apps. This allows more digital media convergence to occur.

3.  Blogging can overturn the structural weakness in elections because of the immense communication that occurs. People can join together in blogging and create a conversation between people from around the nation. This can blur the geographical lines because there are a great number of people communicating from different areas. However, to overturn this people can turn netroots into grassroots and come up with plans to get their ideas flowing in certain areas. If someone on a blog in New Jersey realizes that no one else from around their area feels the same way that person can start a grassroots campaign and educate people around them of what they have learned from their blogging experiences.

4. In new media communication media convergence can abolish the sense of having elite bloggers control the Internet. With more people going online and joining in the conversation through different means of communication there will be no one source of blogging. The Internet was based off of the premise that information should come collectively rather than just one source, and blogging is the same way. Through the invention of new technologies such as smartphones and apps, more people are able to share their opinions online and express their thoughts. Videos, music, literature and ideas are all going onto the Internet faster than ever before from many different sources. This media convergence and advent of new media will allow the superior bloggers to be overthrown by the influx of many different bloggers all over the world.

Reading 3

1. The web is a great technology that creates equal opportunity for users. Everyone can find information and it is influenced by people wishing for less corruption and more dual opportunity. However, the web is not available to everyone in the world. This causes controversy in that although we may want to be equal and suggest that the web is, because not all people have access to it, it is bias. People in less technologically developed countries will not have access to the web while people who are in other more advanced countries will be able to use it.

2. Wikipedia allows anyone from anywhere to create and edit content for others to see. This exemplifies the libertarian ideals of having multiple people create things rather than having information come from one source. This shows media convergence in that it is collective intelligence. Multiple people give their ideas and create one source of information.

3. The web makes it possible for more media convergence to occur because the web acts as a source where people can see television episodes, they can listen to music, they can create videos, and put them on the web. This causes the web to be an ideal place for media convergence.

4. The web cam become controversial, especially for those in authority because anyone can post anything on the web and different ideas are shared there. Its very hard to control what goes on the web and what viewers are looking at. This causes problems with those in authority who want to control what the public is seeing .

5. I don't believe the internet can totally set us free. It may be able to set our ideas free into the web, but we will always be under authority. I don't see any problem with self expression on the internet without any limitations because I feel there are many different people sharing many different ideas, and the web itself cannot control what people view. So, it can't have any harmful effects on people who don't view degrading information.

6. In authority, there is usually someone at the to and someone at the bottom, so that creates a vertical authority system. On the web, there isn't someone at the top or someone at the bottom; everyone is equal. This causes more media convergence because they're isn't one source of media, there are many different sources of media, so more media will be converged.

7. The web is free because the creators of the web wanted it to be equal opportunity for everyone. This clashes with the business ideals because businesses and government all want to put a price on everything. There are some issues with copyrights, however because the web is so open copyrights in the web usually are considered open to the public. If the web is not free, not as many people will use it and it will lose the open and equal premise on which it was created.

"Acoustic Space" Reading 2

1. In the pre-literate world, acoustic space was derived from being able to hear and become immersed in information. A human can never turn off their sense of hearing, and he or she is able to collect a vast majority of information while being totally immersed in the audio. This is unlike the visual world where information is not totally spread out across various platforms and only comes from a single source or read by a single person at a given time. The media of television becomes part of the acoustic world because it can be immersive. The same images can be seen on televisions anywhere at any time. It is figuratively acoustic because it can be ubiquitous, sending the same message or images all over the country at the same time.

2. The alphabet had segregating tendencies because it used to be a solitary medium. Books could only be read by one person at a time and if people wanted to make copies of books they would have to write down and transcribe each and every page. This reverses due to the printing press because now a vast majority of books could easily be printed quickly and efficiently. Now more people could begin to read more texts at any given time.

3. Cyberspace becomes acoustic because anyone at any given point can write something on the Internet and have it read by a vast number of people at one time. It now has the ability to appear on screens around the country very efficiently. This is very different from television, radio or print media because authors must create the material and publish it, binding the readers. The Internet is where anyone can create a piece of work and allow thousands of people to be exposed to it.

4. The two selection criteria for the evolution of media are:

         
 a.     we want media to extend beyond the boundaries of seeing and hearing.

b.     We want media to recapture elements of communication that early artificial extensions may have lost.

In 20 years, we will not see much change in that cyberspace will still be a place for acoustic space. But it will evolve much like biological evolution has. There will be preservation of some media and others will evolve such as the radio has remained but the telegraph did not. However as media evolves the alphabet will not be put majorly in new media because it is very abstract and cannot convey emotion or speech in the way people would like.