9/11 and Immigration Law and Policy Article Analysis

The day of September 11th, 2001 was a day full of heartache and devastation for the citizens of the United States and even some around the word. Not only was that day full of sadness, but it was also a turning point for the U.S.’s immigration policy and laws regarding such things. 

The article “9/11 and Immigration Law and Policy” by Deepa Iyer and Jayesh M. Rathod goes into depth about the specific laws and policies that were put into place post 9/11. The article talks about all the changes that the U.S. made to make the country safer, but they also talk about the unfortunate events that happened because of these actions. For example, the federal government made the process of obtaining temporary visas for any foreign national stricter. The result was an increase in detentions and deportations. It seems the authors tried to keep their opinion of the situation under wraps, but key words let their true feelings show through. I have concluded that the authors feel that the actions, or certain actions that the U.S. took after the attacks of 9/11 were unwarranted or overly dramatic. A quote from the article states, “The federal responses to 9/11 led to unprecedented increases in detentions and deportations”. I take this information as even more evidence of how the authors feel about the effect of the policies and laws put into place after the attacks. Throughout the article, facts and statistics about certain policies, like the revisions to the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 and the Homeland Security Act that allowed a more intensive process of machine-readable and tamperproof visas. In response to these acts, the United States had to issue specific training to officials on fraud terrorist identification and information on what to do if said officials were to come across a fraudulent visa or identification. 

The article leaves readers with an idea that maybe the immigration system and agencies are not as just as they may seem. They argue that it is important for the U.S. to have strict agencies and systems such as these, but are the approaches that these agencies are taking fair and just? Or are they random and lacking reason? These questions are difficult to answer and that is for a dramatic effect, but they are fair questions to be asking. The authors intent is to get their gears grinding about if the approaches, for example, ICE is taking could be reformed in a more efficient way or if they are fine as is. 

While I agree with many of the effort the U.S. made to keep our country safe, I am glad that Iyer and Rathod include the downfalls and consequences of these actions. The method that the authors used was superior. They introduced all the facts and policies regardless of their opinion on the topics, but then also offered their opinion on whether they agreed or did not. While doing so, they still managed to exclude their own bias and allow for readers to develop their own opinion with all the facts necessary to do so.