Latino Immigrants

Latino Immigrants and Social Welfare Policy

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Latino Immigrants and Social Welfare Policy

Overview of the Issue
This essay will examine the plight of Latino immigrants; review the opposing opinions concerning providing social welfare for Latino immigrants; and explain and justify the authors’ opinion concerning this urgent national concern.
Immigration is an increasingly divisive issue in the U.S. Significant numbers of immigrants working and living in the U.S., combined with mounting negative public opinion concerning immigration and the lack of Congressional progress toward immigration reform has escalated the vitriolic debate on both sides of the issue. Media attention about the recent surge of unattended, undocumented children
The number of immigrants to the U.S. has steadily increased. In the 1930’s a total of
250,000 people legally immigrated into the U.S., that increased to 2.5 million per in the 1950’s,
7.3 million in the 1970’s, 10 million in the 1990’s, and currently about 1 million people legally immigrate to the U.S. each year (2014, Wikipedia). Current estimates place the total legal immigrant U.S. population to be in excess of 40 million. In addition there approximately 11.5 million undocumented immigrants living and working in the U.S. (Furman et al., 2008).
Latino immigration to the U.S. is a particularly heated issue. Immigration to the U.S. from Latin American countries has a disturbing history. Because of the labor shortages resulting from World War I 700,000 Mexicans entered the U.S. in the 1910’s. An additional 500,000 immigrated in the 1920’s due to new technology and markets. The Great Depression ushered in an era of massive deportation, over 500,000 people were deported. World War II saw a reversal of deportation and an estimated 5 million Mexicans immigrated into the U.S. during and after the

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war. Yet another reversal due to a program with the derogatory name “Operation
There is a fine and possible jail sentence for not complying. This puts social workers in an ethical dilemma (Furman, Langer, Sanchez, Negri, 2007). If a social worker in Arizona comes in contact with an individual in need, for example, an undocumented immigrant woman with small children who is being abused by her husband, and the social worker intervenes to provide the woman help, and the social worker reports her legal status to the INS, the woman runs the risk of being deported and possibly being separated from her husband, and her children, if her children were born in the U.S. No social worker should be placed in such a situation and laws that create such dilemmas for social workers need to be amended.
In conclusion, social work has a proud tradition of helping oppressed, vulnerable and marginalized populations. The social work profession is bound by powerful, well-crafted ethics and principles. Immigrants are people who came to the U.S. to escape persecution or seek a living wage to provide for their families. At present they face poor health and significant social difficulties. Social workers need to: 1) be unhindered by unfair immigration laws so they