Policy Initiatives in the US to Address the Problem of Refugees and Migrants

Abstract

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza wrote that a confluence of powerful interests prevents the passage of laws that would ameliorate the situation of undocumented migrants and their families. The majority of immigration policies implemented in the late twentieth century and debated in Congress in the early twenty-first century have been more effective at making life difficult for immigrants than at achieving any long-term solutions that could benefit both citizens and noncitizens. None of these measures provide a real solution to the crisis of deaths at the border or to the crisis of a large marginalized population in the US (Golash-Boza, 2012). She wrote her book to change the discourse on undocumented migration—to compel people to see that immigrants are not commodities or potential terrorists, but human beings with fundamental rights. The evidence she discussed shows that it will be difficult to change this discourse, partly because of the powerful interests behind the dehumanization of migrants. She demonstrated how immigration policies violate principles enshrined in human rights doctrine and set out a vision of how immigration policy looks in a world where human rights were valued and respected (Golash-Boza, 2012).