Current Event Assignment 1 is due February 11, 2020. Please submit in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format. See attachments for assignment instructions and grading rubric. Also attached are two examples from p

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Diaz, Kevin. “Key Texas Issues Get Attention in President Trump's First State of the Union”. Houston Chronicle, 30 Jan. 2018, www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/Key-Texas-issues-get-attention-in-President-12538609.php, Accessed 3 Feb. 2018.

Mora, Sherri and William Ruger. The State of Texas: Government, Politics, and Policy. 3rd ed., McGraw-Hill Education, 2017.

The article, “Key Texas issues get attention in President Trump’s First State of the Union” evaluates what President Trump had to say about immigration, including DACA, and how future decisions about immigration could possibly affect the state of Texas. President Trump mentioned in his State of the Union address a hopeful plan to give citizenship to up to almost 2 million undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. at a young age. The article also mentions that Donald Trump emphasized “unity” among the nation and its people (Diaz). President Trump said, at his first State of the Union, that he wants to put new limits on legal immigration to focus more on the citizens who are already part of the U.S. The article later says that most Democrats in the room during the State of the Union address were not fans of the new ideas that Trump had spoken about. The article also talks about Trump’s plans for an increase in infrastructure and the promising future that Americans have for the next year.

The concept that closely ties to this article is immigration. Immigration is the “movement of people from other countries” (Mora 24). The textbook mentions that Texas is a popular location for immigrants, illegal and legal, mainly because Mexico borders with Texas (Mora 25). This article relates to immigration because Trump has plans to pull back and reduce the number of illegal immigrants that enter the U.S. These plans include giving citizenship to 124,000 people in Texas in exchange to receive the approval of $25 million for building a wall between Texas and Mexico (Diaz). This article is important in displaying that immigration directly hits Texas. With that, immigration is a controversial issue and the new ideas that are being put on the table, could potentially affect Texas’ demographics.

Immigration has been important to Texas and has made us a Minority-Majority state. Minority-majority means that, when added together, the racial and ethnic minorities exceed the proportion of white non-Hispanics in the population (Mora 16). White, non-Hispanics are less than 50% of the population and the Latino and African American population, when added together, are more than 50% of the population in Texas. The border of Texas moved under each of the six flags described in Chapter 1 and many of the earliest settlers in this area were of Spanish and Mexican descent. If the building of the wall was approved, it is possible the state of Texas could suffer from a decline in the diversity we have and families, businesses, and communities could suffer from this man-made obstacle. In addition, it is possible the government is reluctant to build the wall because of how much we would have to spend on it. Economically, trying to pay for something that many Americans are against, means money is being diverted from other projects. Although these demographics could suffer, other people believe the safety and the prevention of drugs and violence is worth building the wall.

My opinion of immigration stands between the middle of the main polarizing differences. I understand why President Trump wants have more security, especially with how high tensions have been recently. The only problem is that I have a heart for people and really care for the Dreamers here. I think it is easy to forget that DACA was made for people who were children and had no choice but to come to the United States when they were young. To leave them in the dark with the potential of being deported to a place that most of them have no recollection of, would do more harm than good. I want to challenge President Trump’s idea he has to decrease legal immigration. I think people should be given the right to immigrate legally and to put a halt on that, seems to contradict what this country ultimately stands for. It is already difficult to become a citizen and it would be disheartening to make it even more difficult by putting a limit on how many people can become a citizen.