undocumented but not without Identities

Illegal Immigration. Ladies, you know how you wear those shoes even though they rub your skin because they are just so cute. Then, that raw spot on your foot becomes worse and worse during the day and you try to do little things to make it feel better but you refuse to take them off because they match your outfit perfectly. That little raw spot doesn’t even blister, the skin is just gone. After awhile it gets kind of scabby and sometimes infected if you aren’t careful and then it burns and itches. You then slap some antiseptic ointment on it and a band aid and then go back to forgetting all about it. Yea, that is what illegal immigration is like.

But, you know. It still gets on my nerves when American’s make comments about having to pay for these people to live here and all the other problems we have because of them. I am not saying that I in anyway support people just moving here illegally and yes, it does cause problems but people tend to get carried away with their comments, jokes and rants and they lose heart. I do believe that the best practice is for these people to follow proper legal procedures for being here. I don’t want anyone to freak out on me while reading this and say that I am anti-American or anything crazy so I am going to place what would be my concluding paragraph before my arguments. If you are reading this, I want you to know why I am writing it. First of all, my largest concern is for the children and the families that are torn apart and the lack of sensitivity that is shown for them by our government and officials when these families are destroyed. My second concern is the overall lack of humanity and heart that is shown for these people in general. These are things I have always felt and I have planned on writing this article for awhile and hearing the candidates’ commercials for the upcoming elections have lit a fire under me. Hearing them say things like “Kick illegal immigrants out of the state” and other comments really really bother me. So, I have a few points that I would like to bring to light and my only hope is that maybe I can get one person to reconsider their attitude when thinking about illegal immigrants and to be a little more sensitive to the lives that these people live, because they are more than just lost jobs and wasted money, they are people.

It is rather difficult to get an exact count of how many immigrants are here illegally because they are undocumented (duh) but in January 2006 the Department of Homeland Security, the American Community Survey and the U.S Census Bureau estimated that there are 11.6 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States.

As I am entering into the education field I hear comments people make saying that it should not be our responsibility to educate the children who are here illegally. The law requires teachers teach all students equally and fairly. We are not allowed to ask the status of our students and we are expected to make whatever accommodations we need to teach them. I whole heartedly support this because given the number above, think about what would happen if we did not educate these children. Many immigrants already don’t read, write or speak our language. Many do not have the same quality of education that we provide, if they have an education at all. Could you imagine what that population would be like if we stopped educating their children? In a few years we would have a huge population of uneducated people, children, teens, young adults, adults, living in our country because we refused to teach them. Those children that wouldn’t be in school, that the few tax dollars that schools get wouldn’t be spent on, they would be on the streets all day, probably getting in trouble. I don’t need to continue explaining this to you, I am sure you can imagine and understand the rest.

I believe that the law in Arizona is wrong because it will create racial profiling. First of all, this law kind of comes with a reward, or, what many people will count as a reward, a victory or a good doing. Finding illegal immigrants. It’s not the same as a police officer pulling a reckless or drunk driver off the road, yea, I think that counts as a good deed but they can see that person is being reckless. They can’t just look and see that someone is undocumented. I doubt they are going to stop the lady who has blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin and ask her for proof of her citizenship, they will always pick the person that looks like they “don’t belong” or are not “American”. Also, while I believe that all people have good in them, I know not all people chose to show it and people are not perfect. Between the perceived reward for catching undocumented immigrants and not everyone is good and does the right thing, people will go overboard with this law. It will cause racial tensions and could potentially hurt our country’s progress as far as breaking racial barriers. I mean, yea, I understand that these people broke laws by coming here illegally. I will agree that they are criminals but keep in mind that we live in a country where not all criminals are treated the same. We have different punishments for them and restrictions on how they can be punished. There has got to be something more fair than breaking up families and throwing people out of our country.

These people come here for the same exact reasons why we came here in the first place. For hope of a better life. But they will never have the same life that American citizens or those who are documented have. They have a low quality of life, the jobs they can have and their status in society is extremely restricted. We fuss about them taking our jobs, but many of the jobs they have are jobs that most Americans would refuse to take. Unfortunately, they provide a cheap labor source, but this can be very good for some businesses. They are willing to work for whatever money they can earn. They have to pay for everything in cash, they can’t get health care or insurances, they struggle to get things like glasses or contacts or braces and a lot of other things that we don’t even think about. They live in fear and they are always having to fly under the radar. I can’t imagine what their lives were like where they came from that having to live like that here would be better, but the point is, when they come here, it is not a free ride. Their lives are clearly not easy no matter where they go. People don’t think about the hardships that undocumented immigrants go through just to attempt to have what we have. And the fact is, they will never have close to what we have.

There are about 5 million children who are U.S citizens that are currently living without their parents. I have heard countless stories, many first and second hand accounts about children and teenagers whose parents were undocumented, arrested and deported. They children were left behind. Many of these stories go along the lines of: officers show up, arrest parents, children don’t get to say goodbye, officers leave, children have to go get ready to go to school. Many of these kids, mostly teenagers are left to take care of themselves and other siblings. They attempt to keep long distance relationships with their parents but this does not happen for everyone. These stories are extremely sad. These children are just left. That is it. Most of them don’t have other relatives here that they can stay with. They wake up each day without the guidance, love, support and finances that their parents provided for them and they struggle to do it for themselves. This is what bothers me the most about deportation. If you find yourself going, yea, this is sad, but so are a lot of things so why should I care about this? It doesn’t affect me. It does. Broken families, children and youth left to fend for themselves and their siblings allows for countless possibilities for failure and trouble. I will again leave you to dwell on that on your own.

We are a country on immigrants. We came here for a better life. We fought for this land, we fought higher powers for our freedom, we came in and kick the Native Americans off the land and put them on reservations on the principals of freedom, God and better lives. Over the years God has blessed us graciously and given us more than we could ever realize. He has had mercy on us and continues to bless us, I would like to know who we are to deny others that blessing? These things we have, what we have grown to become, all of the good and great things about our lives and our country and what makes us Americans, those aren’t ours. So, who are we to dictate who else can and cannot receive those blessing? To not share our freedoms, rights and finances? Those who have come here illegally probably appreciate and are better stewards of those blessing anyways, even if they don’t have them all in full.

Over the course of our great nation’s history we have always been pretty quick to barge into other countries and force our “help” upon them. We have recreated governments for people and structured their policies and placed our military in their countries to “help make their lives better” even if they resist our help. We have used force and influence to tell other countries how they should run because we didn’t agree with how it was not being done. All in the name of helping. But yet, we have people at our door step begging us to help make their lives better; they are begging for our help. They sneak in because they feel they have no choice. And yea, ok, there are legal ways of coming into this country and everyone knows that it is “hard” but we really truly have no idea how hard it is and there is no way we could. Clearly for many people it is just worth the risk to be smuggled in and live here illegally instead of going through the system. I mean, people die because they try to hide in suitcases to come into our country as opposed to just applying for a visa.
I don't know. I don’t have a proposed solution for fixing the problem. I know that we can’t just let any and everyone in. I think we need to focus on keeping them out illegally, but once they are in, and they have families and lives here, I just feel that it is extremely wrong to up and send them packing with no regard for others involved. With no heart or trace of humanity, love or compassion. It isn’t like they are ant colonies; they are people and families, not pests. There just has to be a better solution (and no, on the record, I don’t think that throwing them in jail is the solution either). I am aware that my stance on deportation is a little different and that there are a lot of people who do not and never will agree, and that is ok. I just really want to push that there a lot of complexities to these situations that people never even stop to think about and when you don’t think about it you are guilty of being close minded and of being heartless.