It is estimated that there are over 22 million non-citizen immigrants in the United States. This is a shocking number considering the fact that the U.S. government caps the number of Visas that can be given to 140,000 for work and 226,000 for family sponsored. What do the others do? This question has caused a great deal of discussion throughout the United States and produced an incredible amount of hatred.
"The Mexican government is much smarter, much sharper, much more cunning. And they send the bad ones over because they don't want to pay for them. They don't want to take care of them."
"Build the wall, build the wall!"
"Someone has to like the illegals."
"Every immigrant who comes here should be required within the first 5 years to learn English or leave the country."
"Hospitals are closing across the country due to the burden of illegal immigration, college students find that summer jobs have dried up due to illegal immigration, and wages across the board are depressed by the overwhelming influx of cheap and illegal labor."
"We cannot afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it, including the crime, drugs, kidnappings, extortion, beheadings and the fact that people can't feel safe in their community. It's wrong! It's wrong!"
What the hell America?! When did immigrants get slapped with the label of violent killers? When did we decide that if they are Latino/a that they deserve less? Why is the term "illegals" used to describe a human being? No human is "illegal." When did we start blaming immigrants for the deficits in our country? News flash: white American citizens receive 41% of all SNAP, Latino/a or Hispanic receive 10%. Over 67 million American citizens are on welfare including white, black, Asian, and Latino/a. The US spends $484 billion on welfare, $845 billion on social security, $601 billion on defense, while the CIS states...
"Our findings show that many of the preconceived notions about the fiscal impact of illegal households turn out to be inaccurate. In terms of welfare use, receipt of cash assistance programs tends to be very low, while Medicaid use, though significant, is still less than for other households." Only use of food assistance programs is significantly higher than that of the rest of the population. Also, contrary to the perceptions that illegal aliens don’t pay payroll taxes, we estimate that more than half of illegals work “'on the books.'”
The graduation rate for children of immigrants is 5x higher than the national average, and this means these graduates are going out into our society and getting the jobs they have worked for. The incarceration rate for immigrant men ages 18 to 39 was 0.7 percent, while the incarceration rate for citizens of the same age group was 3.5 percent. While the foreign-born share of the U.S. population grew from 8 percent to 13 percent between 1990 and 2010, FBI data indicate that violent crime rates across the country fell by about 45 percent, while property crime rates fell by 42 percent.
Even with all this information, there are still people who ask the question, "Why don't they just do it the right way?" Well, I'll tell you why. The backlog for some Visas date back all the way to 1992. This means people have been waiting over 24 years to just be able to legally enter our country while they are experiencing violence on a daily basis.
To add a personal note, my friend Virginia and her family are one naturalization ceremony away from being real American citizens and they only had to wait 19 years! When the war broke out in El Salvador, the U.S. government had involvement in the funding. To make amends for this many, El Salvadorian men and women were given the title of "TPS" (Temporary Protected Status). With this status, a person is given a social security number and pays taxes, but they are limited in their rights. In October of 1997, after experiencing violence, monetary struggles, and robberies in their hometown, Virginia's parents decided to partake in this offer. She was 15 months old when they immigrated to the United States. They lived in the United states under TPS, working, going to school, and paying taxes with no assistance for 14 years. After her aunt, an American citizen, submitted papers, they obtained an immigration lawyer and were made residents. As residents, they had to fly to Chicago to get an El Salvadorian passport from the Embassy in order to maintain that residency. Simple, right? Wrong.
Once they obtained residency, when Virginia was 15, they had to wait 5 years before they could apply for citizenship. This means once 5 years passed she would be over 18 and would have to take the citizenship test alongside her parents, while going to school, instead of automatically being granted citizenship with her parents passing. Those of us who are college students can definitely understand the stress that can come with tests. Imagine taking all your finals on top of studying to pass a citizenship test. On top of all this, each application costs $850 per person. Virginia's family does not have access to those kinds of funds. They borrowed money from their family and officially became American citizens (pending the naturalization ceremony) just this week. It has taken 19 years for this hard-working, tax-paying college student to become an American citizen. That is ridiculous.
Now, I am not saying that we should open our borders and let anyone who files in become a citizen. That is a little crazy. But, how can we say that just because we were born in this country that we are better than others and therefore they do not deserve to be here too? How can we say as an American people, "Apply for citizenship and then you can come here," when that process takes this long? Look into the eyes of a Syrian refugee. According to the INA, it takes 180 days to be granted asylum. Tell them to go apply for one before they come here while they are literally fleeing their country because others are killing them in the dead of night. Tell them to keep running for 180 more days and then they will be fine. Tell the woman from Mexico that she has to go back to her village where she is raped daily and patiently wait for that Visa to come in.
Go ahead and build the stupid wall but don't make these people wait and suffer for 20 years until we get our stuff together enough to realize that they really aren't all murderers, rapists, and drug dealers. Go ahead and turn a blind eye to the fact that when a family in Aleppo runs away they get mowed down by machine guns. They should have applied for citizenship and worked for their right to be here. Just like you, right? Look into your ancestors' face and tell them you deserve to be in America more than they did. History is repeating itself. America turned away Jewish refugees out of fear in 1942 and what happened next was a genocide we all find horrendous. We NEED something to change about our immigration system. Start the conversation. Start recognizing the humanity in each of these immigrants. Most importantly, stop referring to these human beings as "illegals."
"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?" - Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor
