New Immigration Law and Turkey

Immigration has been a major source of population growth throughout the history of the United States. It is known that through the ages a lot of people have migrated in USA. Today, American administration plans on changing the law to help reduce the time illegal immigrant spouses and children are separated from citizen relatives while they try to win legal status in the United States. New immigration law has positive and negative impacts on the country.

Some say that new immigration law supports the economical status of the state. Some people think getting rid of the illegal immigrants will lower the tax. On the contrary, there are a lot of people who believe that it is a disaster for education. New immigration law is already affecting educational organizations, students and teachers in the state. The law states that every school is required to report the immigration status of every student in the school. They are also required to document on the immigration status of every child’s parents. Because of this, children are afraid to come to school, educators are forced to become immigration agents and children fear that they will be forced to report the status of their parents.

Iraqis are a good example to analyze. Throughout the past 100 years, a lot of people from Iraq have been granted refugee status in United States. It is very difficult for the Iraqi immigrants to return to their country, according to them to return would be toaccept death. For instance, an Iraqi engineer now working at a restaurant in Damascus (35) asks: “Return to Iraq? There is no Iraq to return to, my friend. Iraq only exists in our dreams and memories.Iraqis are a good example to analyze. Throughout the past 100 years, a lot of people from Iraq have been granted refugee status in United States. It is very difficult for the Iraqi immigrants to return to their country, according to them to return would be to accept death. For instance, an Iraqi engineer now working at a restaurant in Damascus (35) asks: “Return to Iraq? There is no Iraq to return to, my friend. Iraq only exists in our dreams and memories.”

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül has criticized a new immigration law of Germany, which obligates spouses to have a certain level of German before they are allowed into the country. In an interview in Thursday’s Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper the Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gül said, “I wish that all Turks in Germany could speak German. But making it compulsory is against human rights. And it doesn’t solve the problem.” (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,475839,00.html)

Today, Turkey has witnessed a new form of ‘irregular immigration’, which involves nationals of neighboring countries, EU nationals and transit migrants. Turkey allows nationals of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia to enter the country freely without visas or with visas, which can easily be obtained at airports. “However, some overstay their visas and illegally work as household help, commercial sex workers, and laborers, especially on construction sites and in the tourism sector.” (http://www.migrationinformation.org/ Profiles/display.cfm?id=176) The number of those irregular immigrants is hard to estimate but figures ranging from 150.000 to one million.

Immigration has become a new trend all around the world. Due to the shrinking world economy and unemployment, people illegally immigrate to foreign countries. Turkey, with a growing young population has to keep in mind that this law will cause economic trouble in the future.