Alejandro Portes was an immigrant himself; however, most recently Portes has looked toward the future of immigration reform and the reform of the American health care system.

Alejandro Portes, director and co-founder for the Migration and Development at Princeton University and also a visiting professor at the University of Miami, spoke Monday, Nov. 11, in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union.

Portes spoke about two ideologies the public often believes. He defined nativism as an ideology to basically exclude the newcomers or immigrants.

“The second is forced ‘assimilationism,’ an ideology that looks more at how to assimilate the immigrants as fast as possible or turn them in to Americans as fast as possible,” Portes said. 

Portes believes that instilling the sense that linguistic heritage is inferior in second generation children is a problem.  

“This ideology drives a wedge across generations, weakening parental authority,” Portes said. 

Portes said these ideologies play in to political and economic views which can affect them majorly.

The opposition to immigration of many Americans that is formed by these ideologies, Portes said, has banded immigrants that are here legally together.

“Minority political movements can be powerful because, unlike those in the general population, they are focused on a few specific targets — stopping deportations, defending bilingual education, preventing labor market discriminations,” Portes said. 

Portes said a record number of Hispanic voters went out and voted against conservative nativists.

“[They] majorly contributed in the re-election of Obama, which has shown political figures the power of the Hispanic vote and views on immigration reform,” Portes said. 

Portes believes that when there is a lack of immigrants the economy can suffer. With employment of immigrants now, there is a lot of exploitation and it is mostly beneficial to employers, so there is room for reform.

“It is recognized that without immigrant workers in agriculture, it would not be as successful, which affects Iowa,” Portes said. 

Portes has an idea of how the government should regulate workers that enter the country.

The current amount to cross the border is $2,000, and for immigrants who wish to cross the border only to work for short term, this is a lot of money to pay initially.

Portes suggests to first “set up a labor permit that last for three years, it is then renewable for another three years. An incentive will be that upon return to their countries, migrants will get half of the entry payment, plus the social security tax that was earned while working.”

Portes said that for immigrants who want to stay in the United States after six years of temporary work, a unique path to permanent residence could be created.  

Vincent Linhart, junior in finance, said he agreed with some of Portes’ points. 

“I don’t know if the lecture changed my views on immigration; I mean he basically said that there is a problem and I like his ideas to reform,” Linhart said. 

Linhart also said he liked that this problem is being brought to better light politically.