Is Immigration really a problem?
By: Miguel Verduzco
1999 was the year I immigrated to the United States. 1999 is the year that I left my beautiful Mexico. It is the year I left where I was born and raised by my grandparents. For me, immigration life is the hardest because it is like living in a place where no one wants you around. It is like living in a place where people are racist to you just because you’re Mexican, or Hispanic. It is the kind of life that only an immigrant can understand.
Can you image how much it can suck? From families whose parents can’t work because they are not “legal” and/or do not have a social security number. The reality is that most immigrants leave their homeland looking for a better life. Yet, jobs are not open to us here. Instead we are faced with a lack of understandings. Instead we are not comforted by an empathetic feeling. Americans don’t understand.
They do not understand that immigrants are doing the hardest jobs for minimum wages. That we are working at making houses, painting them so that the communities look like a better place to live in. We are the farmers, construction workers, gardeners, housepainters and the day-laborers that make up the base of your country. No one but an immigrant can understand the feeling of frustration.
Why is it that Hispanics are treated like animals? A barricade for example is like a cage. The cage is around the United States and instead it blocks those from getting in.
Imagine yourself being an illegal. You are driving home from work tired. Suddenly, you see a barricade in front of you. How would you feel knowing you are about to get stopped and probably deported? How would feel if you could loose your family? How would you feel if you could loose the opportunity for a better life?
In my opinion only illegal people that are doing wrong such as stealing, selling drugs, and etc are those who should be deported not the ones that are actually here for a better life. Not the farmers, construction workers, gardeners, housepainters and day-laborers who struggle to put food on the table and money in their pockets. Not for the families struggling to survive with the promise that one day “things will be better, because we are in America.” Is this really justice? Is it fair to think of an immigrant in these terms without forethought?
I really think that what Americans call “justice” in the United States when talking about immigration policies tends to lean towards a negative discussion on the issue. The idea that we came hear to steal jobs, that we came here to deprive anyone or take from the economy. These ideas are not from a place of concern, but from a place of hate.
Sometimes I wonder how beautiful this world could be if every country in the world got along. If people could travel and visit any place in the world without having to worry about being deported, capture and probably even killed because you are not from their. If people could really understand what “justice” means. Perhaps then, they might be able to relate to how an immigrant feels.
-Volume 3, Issue 2-
