Coming from a family of immigrants, the concept of “illegal” immigration was always on the back of my mind.

Even as a kid, I remember constantly holding my breath whenever the police were around- even if I have done nothing wrong, whenever the news came on to discuss a forming immigration reform and whenever someone used the terms “illegals”, “aliens” or some form of derogatory term towards immigrants. And as I grew up from being a child to a young adult, my anxiety over the mention of immigration reform has not changed.

There is no way to describe the feeling that any day, by some mere accident, your parents could easily be deported the next day- leaving the life that they had created for 19 years, leaving their children merely due to the fact that the made a choice to immigrate to the United States for a better life.

There is no way to describe the feeling of when people associate immigrants to rapists, murderers and drug dealers.

There is no way to describe the feeling of shame, anger, and anxiousness whenever someone questions your parents lack of knowledge towards American culture and the English language.

And there is no way to describe the feeling whenever anyone regards immigrants as having a lower status and undeserving of basic human rights.

To those people that believe that immigrants are undeserving of living in the U.S., take a moment to realize that you are not the victim in this whole debacle. Take a moment to stop thinking of yourself, as citizens of the United States, as deserving of some form of land and some form of special status, especially since all the individuals in the U.S., citizens or not, have come from immigrants. Immigrants. Individuals that you have tried so hard to make them seem lower than a human being.

Honestly, it is disgusting how much discussions and reforms are going around in the United States to remove the 11.1 million illegal immigrants- living as law abiding individuals in the U.S., paying taxes, owning a home and supporting a family- to restrict these individuals of their rights when the current government is doing nothing in terms of gun control; in terms of finding a solution to decrease the amount of shooting sand violence in the U.S. In only one way is it acceptable to talk of immigration reform: to give citizenship to these immigrants, to remove the fear that these individuals and families have of being deported.

And to the people who are not necessarily “anti-immigration” but are not protesting over the injustice of those individuals and their families affected by this phenomenon, you are no better than those individuals who overtly support anti-immigration reform.

You are letting these people think that immigrants are undeserving in their stay in the United States. In no way are immigrants “illegal”, nor are they “aliens”. They are human beings, deserving of basic human rights and undeserving of the discrimination and hate they have faced while living in the States.