Gustavo Zamora

POLS 1100-025
David E. Lowry
03/15/2016
Whos Really Making America Great?
Throughout the course of history, here in the U.S., the consensus of Federalism has
always been a hot topic. In recent years, during the Obama Administration, the subject has had
very small increments of discussion both in the government and in society. Now with the 2016
presidential elections, the subject has gained traction and has made its way to the main stage
when it comes to issues addressed by the candidates. The issue that I will be mainly focusing on
is Immigration Reform. This issue is very hot among both of the majors parties we have in this
country.
From the right side of the political spectrum, we have the Republican party, that is for
Anti-Federalism. Believing that the states should be able to decide what is best for their populace
and their interests. Now, regarding the issue of unauthorized immigrants, Republican led states
are without a doubt going to take action against unauthorized immigrants residing within their
state. This is because of lack of firmness from the federal government that is how it is perceived
from their side according to Ramakrishnan, from the Center For American progress. Some
examples of these occurrences can be seen throughout the past years, like Arizona's legislation,
S.B. 1070, that was passed in 2010.(Ramakrishnan & Gulasekaram, 2014) This law gave the
right to local police officers to ask for proof of legal residence here in the United States. Instead
of having to wait for ICE to get involved if detainees dont have the proper identification.
(Ramakrishnan & Gulasekaram, 2014)

From the other side of the political spectrum, we have the Democratic party. In essence
the party is Pro-Federalism, which favors the government to be the solution for issues and
problems that the public and or the nation face. In regards to the issue about Immigration
Reform, the Democratic party believes it is the duty of the Federal Government to take charge.
What the Democrats have advocated for a long time is comprehensive immigration laws that
would take care of all the undocumented immigrants, specifically the ones that are not a threat to
the public or nation.(Liptak and Shear, 2016) The only democratic president that was able to do
something with respect to this contending issue, is President Barack Obama. Back in the Fall of
2014, President Obama, presented the DACA1 and DAPA2 programs which would be enabled by
executive action.(Liptak and Shear, 2016) While DACA did manage to operate without a lot of
obstructions, DAPA did not. The program was challenged in federal court by 26 states that
argued that the program over exceeded the powers of the president, and also violated
congressional laws.(Liptak and Shear, 2016)
Now tying this back into this year's 2016 Presidential Elections, we have a huge event
that happened within the United States Supreme Court. Chief Justice, Antonin Scalia, passed
away before the hearing for the lawsuit of DAPA, which was supposed to be in mid-spring of
2016. Since the court is not complete, the focus has gone away from the case, moving over to the
focus of who will take Scalias spot. Whenever a seat becomes available in the supreme court its
the job of the President of the United States to nominate a person to that seat, but now since
were so close to the end of Obamas term, Republicans want him to wait and not nominate
anyone (Raju, Berret, LoBianco, 2016). They claim that it is his duty to wait until the next

1 DACA- Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals

2 DAPA- Deferred Action for Parental Accountability

president is in office, enabling the American people have a voice in this dilemma (Raju, Berret,
LoBianco, 2016).
If this program is defeated in the supreme court whenever its hearing is going to be held
then phase of Federalism will come into play. A big part of what will be done with the 11 million
undocumented workers will be a tug of war between the states and the Federal government. To
achieve anything with both parties being involved you must first have a good balance of power
within the government. I believe that it is the duty of the Federal government to take action on
this issue, because the core problem of this issue is within the USCIS3.
In a final thought, to fix the problems we have in this country first we need to have a
balance with Federalism within our country to make both parties happy. We could achieve this in
the country by having even party powers within the House of Representatives and Senate. Doing
so could enable the representatives from each state to enact on what they want their states to take
care of and what they want the federal the government to take care of. While this does sound like
a good plan, there is a downside to my proposal and that would be that both major parties would
have to learn to compromise and learn that you cant have everything that favors your party. I am
fairly confident that there would be push back from both parties and the biggest opposer would
be the Republican party because of their history of noncooperation with many issues. My final
verdict is that we will never have balance in Federalism, because of the political division we
have today in the United States.
Work Cited
Ramakrishnan, Karthick, and Pratheepan Gulasekaram. "Understanding Immigration Federalism
the United States." Center For American Progress. 24 Mar. 2014. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
3 USCIS-United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

Liptak, Adam, and Michael D. Shear. "Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Obama Immigration
Actions." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Jan. 2016. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/20/us/politics/supreme-court-to-hear-challenge-to-obamaimmigration-actions.html?_r=0>

Raju, Manu, and Ted Barrett. "Senate GOP: No Hearings for Supreme Court Nominee." CNN.
Cable News Network, 23 Feb. 2016. Web. 23 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/politics/joe-biden-supreme-court-senate-republicans/>.

Gustavo Zamora
POLS 1100-025
David E. Lowry
03/15/2016
Reflective Assignment

Before writing the signature assignment on Federalism and Immigration reform I felt like I was
very well informed on these subjects because they affect my daily life. When I finished the
signature assignment I realized that I was very malinformed, then I came to realization. It wasnt
that I wasn't paying enough attention to the news and details; I was just getting my news from
very biased and very establishment oriented news networks. I realized that in order to get a full
picture of what's going on in our government I need to watch the news from both sides of the
spectrum.This course encouraged me to go and do my research on a subject that I really care
about and it taught me a very important skill. In any situation that I may be, it is necessary to do
the research that is essential to fully check the details in what I am being told. To never just take
someones word for something. I will definitely be applying this to every debate, town hall, and
rallies in general that I watch this election year.
Another essential part to my learning process during this assignment is that we cant have
a balance between Anti- and Pro- Federalism because of the diverse political belief spectrum we
have in this country. I was able to come to an understanding of this idea because of the material
that we have gone through in this class. It gave me a broader understanding of what American
politics really means and that is that who ever the majority is within the government is the one
who has the last word.