Annotated Bibliography in MLA

Annotated Bibliography in MLA

Blake, Eben. "Immigration Reform 2015: Undocumented Immigrants Should be Deported Quickly, New Senate Bill Claims." International Business Time. 15 July 2015. Online. 

This article talks about the new bill that Sen. McCain and Sen. Flake (both of Arizona) introduced to tackle the issue of what to do with undocumented criminals. Under this bill, undocumented immigrants arrested for serious crimes or convicted undocumented criminals would be deported within a 90 day time frame. Blake included information from the Department of Homeland Security presenting their viewpoint on the introduction of the bill. I will incorporate this source when talking about what current legislative activity is being brought forth and the reasons why these types of bills move very slowly. 

Hincpaie, Marielena and Janet Murguia. "Undermining Immigration Reform with High Costs." Politico. 23 June 2013. 

According to Hincapie and Murguia, the goal of immigratin reform is to make our current immigration system more rational, accountable and workable. Their belief is that the current Senate bill that passed in 2014 already places enough constraints on immigrants that additional hurdles would be more detrimental to the process. This article will be useful when covering the topic of the benefits of allowing a pathway to citizenship for current undocumented immigrants. As the authors have mentioned, there are a lot of myths and misconceptions.

Pedroza, Juan Manuel. "Removal Roulette: Secure Communities and Immigration Enforcement in the United States (2008–2012)." (2013): 77-97. Springer. Web. <http://link.springer.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-6648-2>.

Pedroza suggests that immigrants may face an uneven immigration enforcement landscape under SComm (a National database for detained undocumented immigrants). Pedroza concludes that since immigrants are not distributed evenly across the country, the vast majority of removals stem from a relatively small number of states. Additionally, high-risk criminals are placed in the same removal processing category as low-risk offenders. This affects the potential for those who are good candidates for immigration reform versus those who are not. I will attempt to use this source to cover how the deportation process can many times be inefficient and overwhelming. When the only crime an undocumented immigrant committed was entering the country illegally and they are placed in the same process as a high-risk repeat offender, something needs to be addressed. I plan to use this source to differentiate between those who are actual criminals and those who are not and what those figures look like.

Rocha, Rene R., Daniel P. Hawes, Alisa Hicklin Fryar, and Robert D. Wrinkle. "Policy Climates, Enforcement Rates, and Migrant Behavior: Is Self-Deportation a Viable Immigration Policy?" The Policy Studies Journal 42.01: 79-100. Web. 17 July 2015. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/doi/10.1111/psj.12043/pdf>.

The following source argues that contrary to what most policymakers thinks, increasing the enforcement of harsh immigration laws and detaining undocumented immigrants does not in fact change their behaviors. Undocumented immigrants are not deterred from attempting illegal re-entry into the country. A survey of 210 undocumented immigrants was conducted as part of this research from border and non-border cities in the U.S. Their data was collected by the authors to come to the conclusion that self-deportation is not a viable policy option. This source will be useful when speaking about proponents of self-deportation because it disproves their argument. 

Rogers, David. "At Stake in the Immigration Debate: Billions of Dollars." Politico. 10 Feb. 2015. Online.

Rogers presents a budgetary analysis of what it would mean to deport the 11+ million undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. According to Rogers, the budget constraints that the Republican party has already placed on the Obama Administration could also hinder their ability to force individuals out of the country. I believe that this article will be helpful because it presents factual figures on the cost of deporting a single individual and larger quantities. The intended audience is more likely individuals very familiar with immigration affairs. Rogers also uses quotes from high level officials involved with this issue.  I plan on using this source because it has very striking figures that can be used to speak on the impossibility of deporting all the undocumented immigrants.

Additional Sources

Dickerson, John. "The Death of Immigration Reform Is Also the Death of Obama’s Restrained Leadership Experiment."Slate.com. 1 July 2014. Web. 17 July 2015. <http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/07/immigration_reform_is_dead_what_are_obama_s_options_now.html>.

In this article, Dickerson claims that there are two main reasons why immigration reform seems unlikely to pass during President Obama’s administration. Dickerson believes that disagreements on how to move immigration reform forward without compromising border security and the Republican Party’s infighting is one reason for the inaction. The second reason is that Republicans will attempt to block anything that President Obama moves forward because they do not believe he has been good at enforcing current immigration laws. The major outcome from this article is to highlight how tense this topic is and how unlikely things will move forward when a divided government. I plan to use this source to speak on how the two sides of the issue are not willing to cave in to the other and essentially how this topic has stagnated.

Gonzales, Ricardo. "Judge's Decision Complicates Matters For Unauthorized Immigrants." NPR. NPR, 18 Feb. 2015. Web. 17 July 2015.

Gonzales summarizes the latest installment in the immigration debacle. A Federal judge in Texas issued a temporary injunction stalling the President’s executive action. This injunction leaves many individuals who felt that they would qualify under his executive action in limbo mode. Gonzales was able to include interview excerpts from immigration organizations that have begun to help people fill out the paperwork. I plan to incorporate this article to talk about the latest development on this issue at the very beginning of the project.

Lovelace, Ryan. "USCIS Is Already Processing 7 Million Immigration-Related Requests Annually-Before Obama's Amnesty."National Review Online. 3 Mar. 2015. Web. 17 July 2015. <http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/414779/uscis-already-processing-7-million-immigration-related-requests-annually-obamas>.

The purpose of the following source is to explain how the current processing of immigration documents under the jurisdiction of the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services is at an overwhelming level as is. The intended audience is those individuals who want to better understand the immigration naturalizations and residency process. The information collected was through a USCIS official, Mr. Donald Neufeld, who testified in front of a Congressional committee. The major observation in this article is the fact that under President Obama’s executive actions, USCIS would be even more backlogged because they would have to process potentially millions of applications. I will use this article to speak on the logistical problems that come with any type of action on immigration reform.

Riley, Jason. “The Mythical Connection between Immigrants and Crime.” The Wall Street Journal 14 July 2015. The Wall Street Journal. 17 July 2015. < http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mythical-connection-between-immigrants-and-crime-1436916798>.

Riley’s purpose is to demonstrate that immigrants are not more disposed to crime. I believe that his main audience is people who do believe that undocumented criminals are more likely to be criminals than legal immigrants. Riley supports his argument by citing previous independent studies on this issue. The major observation is that immigrants—regardless of nationality or legal status—are less likely than the native population to commit violent crimes or to be incarcerated. I plan to use this when talking about the misconception that immigrants are more likely to engage in criminal activities.