Immigrants Are Humans Not Criminals

Elie wiesel once said “You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?”

Angel Arizpe

                                                 Immigration

Immigrants helped build this country. We shouldn’t be excluding them we should be embracing them. I don’t understand how someone can hate on immigrants what did they do to deserve all this hate. Non-immigrants don’t understand the everyday struggles of immigrants because they don’t have the same rights. In the early 1990s immigrants couldn’t even go to the doctors because they would risk getting deported, According to Alan Pelaez lopez from everydayfeminism.com said when she was younger they couldn’t go to doctors and she thought that it was because they lived under the poverty line and they couldn't afford it. Then she realized that it was because it was a risk of getting deported. “The massachusetts state house even tried to pass a bill (twice) that would demand hospitals to ask for proof of citizenship. And if they were undocumented, they would get treated, but wouldn’t be able to leave the hospital until Immigration picked them up and placed them in deportation procedures”. Immigrants wouldn’t even go to the doctors because of the bill that was passed. If they had a bad illness and they didn’t want to get deported they probably risk getting more sick and possibly dying. Driving is another thing that immigrants have to worry about because they risk imprisonment or deportation. Immigrants don’t have the privileges of applying for a driver’s license because you need social security number, proof of citizenship, and ID. If you can’t drive you can’t go places you always have to call for a taxi or a ride and calling for a taxi is the worst because then you have to pay for and if your far then that's more money. Undocumented families fear that there families will get separated. They can get separated by deportation or social services can take the child from an undocumented family and put them in foster care system. Why would they just separate the child from the family just because they are undocumented you only separate the child from the family when the parent is unable to be a parent. Think how many things non-immigrants do in a daily life that immigrants worry about. Tell me what kind of person wants to get treated like a criminal for just wanting a better life for them and their families?. Its like they are constantly watched by someone.

ICE deportations in 2018 hit a high record of 256,000 deportations. The top five countries of birth for immigrants in the U.S. are Mexico(26%), China(6%), india(6%), philippines(4%), and El Salvador(3%). California, Texas, and New York are the top US states where immigrants live. According to “City of Fear” an estimate of half a million New Yorkers are undocumented. Most immigrants can’t even get a job because they don’t have papers, the education, and they can’t speak english. The jobs undocumented people have are mostly low-paid jobs. That's why most undocumented people are living under the poverty line unless they have a job that pays $40,000 to $50,000 a year. Imagine that you can’t even get a decent job to feed yourself and your family what would you do. Just because you aren’t a citizen but there are many people in america that are like that but don’t take advantage of it.