Tag: academic news

Immigrant Rights Groups Targeted by ICE

Currently immigration is a well debated topic around the United States because of the President’s choice to intensify immigration policies. Many individuals who take the opposing stance of which the nation’s leader does gathered together to form the movement “abolish ICE”. This movement has rapidly grown since the summer of 2018 especially in New York City. The speed of which the operation has intensified, gained the attention of many, including public figure and Congressman Adriano Espaillat. Espaillat, so moved by the cause, decided to hold his own protest, which also disputed the group of white supremists, Identity Evropa.

In Espaillat’s eyes the event was a success. They were able to gather the support of 300 fellow New York City inhabitants to support the cause. Not only did the event advance the awareness of the fellow residents but from the federal government as well. On the same evening as Espaillat’s rally was held, the Department of Homeland Security issued an “AntiTrump Protest Spreadsheet”. This spreadsheet included details of dozens of demonstrations, including representative Espaillat’s rally, across the nation all which shared views of the left.

The most striking information recovered was other protests such as identity Evropa which arguably would be considered hateful were not included on the email list. Espaillat and some question the motive of why the federal government’s email would only consist of immigrant-rights protest groups. Others believe it is the result of immigrant-rights group filing a lawsuit on ICE for constantly monitoring the activities and involvement of individuals which are similar in nature.

Academic Source on Immigrants

The peer-reviewed source I found on the Stevenson Library database is called “Immigrants from Mexico experience serious behavioral and psychiatric problems at far lower rates than US-born Americans”. I chose to focus on immigrants and refugees from Mexico because that is where my grandparents are from and I also tend to align myself with being Mexican American.

This source focuses on a study that was done to gain an insight into the criminal and violent behavior, substance use disorders, and mental disorders among Mexican immigrants in relation to US-born individuals. This study is based on the NESARC-III, a national survey of over 36,000 non-institutionalized adults ages 18+ in the US. By using this survey style, they determined immigration status by purely just asking, “Were you born in the US?”.

This study showed one table that was provided with statistics from the study and is well-formulated to show the differences between the immigrants and the US-born. The table breaks down crime to shoplifting, property damage, breaking into a house, building/car, and making money illegally. Then, violence is broken down into starting a lot of fights, physically hurting someone, using a weapon in a fight, and injuring someone in a fight. substance abuse disorders were separated by alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, and opioids. lastly, mental disorders. These were broken down into depression, dysthymia, generalized anxiety, and post traumatic stress. This study used good information to show the statistics from what they found, however, the information to back up the statistics is lacking some. The results did show that Mexican immigrants were about 4-10X less likely to be involved in criminal or violent behavior, and 3X less likely to be abusing alcohol. however, when it came to the harder substances, like cannabis or cocaine were right around 8X less than those who were born in the US.

Salas-Wright, Christopher P., et al. “Immigrants from Mexico Experience Serious Behavioral and Psychiatric Problems at Far Lower Rates than US-Born Americans.” Social Psychiatry And Psychiatric Epidemiology, vol. 52, no. 10, Oct. 2017, pp. 1325–1328. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s00127-017-1425-6.

Adult Education Services For Immigrants

The scholarly article I found was titled “Immigrants to the United States and Adult Education Services.” The work was done because there aren’t enough adult education courses, like English as a second language (ESL), provided to immigrants. The work was done by evaluating and researching issues and statistics related to immigration in the United States and adult education classes as well as using personal experiences from immigrants themselves. A result that was found was that undocumented immigrants have a harder time taking advantage of the few courses that are available because they need proof of citizenship to attend these classes. It was also found that classes, especially ESL, are extremely important for immigrants because if they are not proficient in English, they end up with low-wage jobs, unable to acquire new skills and new jobs, and denied equal access to health and other services. The work also portrays how organizations like social service agencies, community centers, and especially churches and libraries are the places that support and provide resources, like adult education services, to immigrants.

Since this was a scholarly article there wasn’t much bias present. The main bias I saw in the article that makes me think it is left-center is the fact that it brings up the Trump administration in a negative connotation, without facts. One line that stuck out to me for this was “Unfortunately, under the Trump administration, the conditions for undocumented immigrants are rapidly changing for the worse; they are likely to experience increasing persecution and discrimination” (Larrotta). Since this article was written in 2017 and cites most of its information from 2015 and some from 2016, I felt like this was more of an opinion addition to the article, rather than facts. It doesn’t use any evidence to back up the claim and the Trump administration had only been in the white house for a year before it was published. Other than this bias, I thought it used a lot of evidence and research, rather than interviews, and they cited a lot of references to back up their background information.

 

Works Cited: Larrotta, Clarena. “Immigrants to the United States and Adult Education Services.” New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education, vol. 2017, no. 155, Fall 2017, pp. 61–69. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/ace.20241.