Prejudice Against Immigrants
Isis Torres
Illegal immigration is on everyone’s mind and it has become an important “wedge” issue in national politics. However, illegal immigration is not the real problem or issue. It has been cleverly devised to avoid the obvious underlying prejudice against immigrants. Illegal immigration is actually a thin disguise for ongoing racism in this country. There are three topics that are central to the issue of immigration. These are jobs, prejudice, and the challenge of getting across the border.
To begin with, according to (http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/05/02/los-angeles-times-illegal-immigrant/) there are about eleven million undocumented immigrants in the United States. (Los Ageles Times) Therefore, many Americans are angry because they believe that undocumented people impact the U.S in negative ways. They also believe that undocumented people take their jobs, take advantage of the social programs and they complain because they don’t pay taxes. But what they don’t fully understand is that to be able to work here and get paid fairly they need a social security number. Without a SSN immigrants cannot apply for any programs nor pay taxes. Some people though, use fake social security numbers to get jobs and others just borrow SSN from people they know. Immigrants who come from different countries are willing to take risks to be able to support their families in need. There are plenty of jobs (because most of the jobs that immigrants have are the jobs that others refuse to do.) In fact large businesses prefer to hire undocumented people because they have no redress, this inability to complain makes it easy for them to be oppressed by their employers. Many Americana’s turn it around as if undocumented people are the problem because they work illegally and “take” their jobs, but at the same time they hire them. The economy in order to function requires cheap labor.
Arizona has a law that it requires an official whenever he “has a reasonable suspicion that an individual might be in Arizona illegally” be required to inspect their documentation. According to (http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/is-arizonas-sb-1070-immigration-law-constitutional) “SB 1070 mandates the carrying of proper documentation for any alien in Arizona, and it levies a misdemeanor on any person who is found without such documentation. It also requires state law enforcement officials to determine an individual’s immigration status during any routine stop, detention or arrest when the official has a reasonable suspicion that an individual might be in Arizona illegally. Additionally, SB 1070 strengthens penalties for hiring, sheltering, and transporting illegal immigrants. When a member of the house is deported, they steal a woman’s right for a husband, a man’s right for a wife, and a child’s right for a parent. The solution in my opinion is to help those countries in need, to prevent people from wanting to come here, stop prejudice and racism.” A white person from Germany will not draw official attention. A brown person from Mexico certainly will. The terms “illegal” and “alien” are purposefully negative. Their connotation is that such a person is less than one who is legal. The language used in the law and by the media perpetuates the prejudice and makes it easy for even those people who aren’t prejudice to get trapped by using language that implies some people are less than others. These two negative terms to refer to undocumented people perpetuates racism. Everyone is an immigrant in the United States because this land belongs to the Native Americans. According to (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/integral) the word illegal means, “forbidden by law or statute.” Thus it is inaccurate to use the term illegal because undocumented people have not been convicted of a crime.
America has been the land of opportunity for over five hundred years. People from all over the globe have come here in search of a better life. Immigration is always difficult as it forces people into new relationships with a different culture but if you add to that the dangers of coming across the border there is no justification for treating these people as anything less. Once you risk your life to give yourself and your family a better life you shouldn’t be looked down upon. There are also many reasons why people migrate to the United States. One reason is the whole ideology about the American Dream. People come here for better lives, for better jobs and for much better places to live that are safe. For example in Mexico, there are many people that live in poverty that fight every day to survive in severe poverty conditions. There are many problems other than poverty for example: Government Corruption, Drugs, Drug Cartels and safety to mention just a few.
Immigrants come to the United States from all over the world not just from the South of the border. There are different ways they enter, either documented or undocumented. There are two ways that I believe are the most common for people to come here. One is to come here with a visa and stay here after the visa has expired. The second way to come here is crossing the border with a coyote. It is very expensive to come here with a coyote and it is extremely risky. It’s about $8,000 dollars per person to cross the border either by river, desert or by car with fake papers. There are many risks when people cross the border. Woman and children are at higher risk than man because they get raped and sold to human trafficking. It also depends on the weather conditions because people dehydrate when they cross by the desert and die, they sometimes get lost. When they cross by river many people drown and die and just a few get lucky and make it. I was a first hand witness to what happens when well-intended people try to seek a better life.
I am one of the lucky few I came here when I was almost eight years old. November 2004, I came here for a better future. I came with my mom and a family friend. There were about eleven of us, three women six men and me. I remember that the coyote told us to take a nap because we were going to cross at midnight. But my mom was too scared to sleep with all of those strangers there. At about 3:00am we started getting ready to leave and the coyote was completely coked out. We crossed by desert; we walked for about three hours nonstop. It was very scary because it was dark and it seemed as if we were going to get lost. We kept walking; it was cold, windy and scary. Whenever we would hear a car we had to stay still so they wouldn’t hear us. I saw many things on the desert, shoes, cloth, teddy bears, diapers and empty water bottles. We had to crawl under a tunnel and it was dark. I remember when we got closer to the road I saw a blue canopy and I panicked because I thought it was the river and that we had to swim. It was a bad feeling because I didn’t know how to swim. I remember I stopped and I let go of my mom’s hand and I ran back. My mom followed me and asked me what was wrong. I told her that I was scared because of the river. She said, “Lets stay together, it’s a desert.” As we kept walking tears started running down my face. I was scared, cold and tired of walking.
According to (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/border-deaths-spike-27-percent-immigration-mexico_n_2915605.html) in 2012, 477 migrants lost their lives attempting to cross the border. “Migrant deaths along the Mexico-U.S. border occur hundreds of times a year because of those attempting to cross into the United States from Mexico illegally. The number of deaths has steadily increased since the mid-1990s with exposure (including heat stroke, dehydration, and hyperthermia) being the leading cause.“ (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.) According to a December 2006 cover story in the San Diego Reader,“ On 7, nine migrants died in a crash in the Yuma sector when the driver of a Chevrolet Suburban in which 21 Mexicans were “stacked like cordwood” lost control after crossing a Border Patrol spike strip at high speed. This year the number killed in traffic accidents during illegal crossing is about 50” Another cause of immigrant deaths are drowning in canals, ditches and the Rio Grande. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexico–United_States_border) The main reasons to why people died while crossing the border are drowning, accidents, incidents of Border use of force, vigilante killings, intentional killings and many more.
The very next day, early in the morning I woke up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees, bushes, dirt and strangers. I couldn’t believe what had happened, I was at a different place in a different State with different people. I remember the coyote told us to stay still, because the helicopters were right on top of our heads. I was very scared I thought we were going to get shot. After about fifteen minutes, the helicopter disappeared. When they finally told us that the truck would be there soon, everyone smiled and looked very happy, I was anxious and happy to know that we made it and that I was going to see my dad. The coyote told us to stand next to the road and wait for a pickup truck and we did. When the pickup truck finally got there the coyote asked me to jump into the truck and lay down on the floor. Right when my mom was going to jump into the truck with me the coyote asked her to step away from the truck because the coyote’s girlfriend wanted to ride with him and supposedly there was no more room for her. Three other men jumped in the truck because they were friends with the coyote. I remember I was lying down on the back of the truck with people’s feet on my head and on my back to keep me still because I was crying for my mom trying to look stare out the window, it was horrible it was the worst feeling. It felt as if I would never see my mom again.
There are many families who get broken apart crossing the border, they either get lost, they die do to dehydration, or simply because they get abandon by the coyotes. But even when immigrants cross successfully they are still at risk, especially woman and children. In many cases children and woman get sold to human trafficking, they get kidnapped and they get abused. There is also another way to separate families and that is deportation. Deportation is something that is heart breaking because it breaks apart many homes and it hurts every single member of a family. According to, (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346043/cooking-books-deportation-stats) “Deportation specifically of illegal immigrants convicted of a crime.” But many people get deported simply because they are working illegally, or because they are not “carrying the proper documentation.” There are three top reasons you may receive a deportation notice. One is committing a crime, bad behavior and faulty paperwork. But even for least harming reasons immigrants get deported. Deportation is unfair and worthless because either way people are going to keep trying to come to the U.S to unite with their families and keep working hard to support their families.
It was a long, a boring uncomfortable ride. The truck was running out of gas and the coyote and the driver were arguing about gas money. The coyote asked the driver to pull over because there was a guy standing on the side of the road asking for a ride. He said that it would be less suspicious if we had an American guy riding along with us. They asked the guy for gas money because the truck was running out of gas and neither of them wanted to pay. I remember the guy jumped on the back of the truck and he was having a long conversation with the driver. I remember the driver kept telling the coyote that he couldn’t understand half of the things that the guy was saying and they all started laughing. After a fifteen-minute ride, the guy told the driver to stop at a gas station to put gas on the truck. When we stopped the coyote received a call and they told him something about ten minutes and he said, “We’ll be there in ten minutes!” When we left we moved around, this time I was sitting in the back seat looking out the window. It was getting dark. I saw snow for the first time and Christmas decorations it looked beautiful. We finally arrived to this guy’s house; we were going to wait for my mom and the rest of the people there. The house was small and comforting. They offered us food; cloth and they also asked if we wanted to shower. They walked us to a room and they told us to wait there. The room was empty I was with my mom’s friend sitting in the carpet staring at the room. It was something that I’ve never seen before. The room was big it had a really comfortable, brown carpet; a heater attached to the wall and the color of the room was bright yellow. After a few minutes the woman came back to the room and asked us if we wanted to go to the store with her. I was bored and exhausted, but my mom’s friend said yes so we went. The store was huge, it had all kinds of things shoes, cloth, food, movies, cell phones on display, TV’s toy’s etc. There were a lot of people at the store that day. I still couldn’t believe that I was in another state away from home, without my mom, my dad, my sisters. It was a feeling that I can’t explain something that I had never felt before, I felt knots on my throat I was in shock I couldn’t believe what had just happened. When we got back to the house my mom was already there she was pale her face looked different, she was like scared to death she hugged me really tight and asked me if I was okay. We were sitting in the living room waiting for my dad to get there. I remember the coyote was talking on the phone and asked the person on the phone to bring more money or else he wasn’t going to lets us go. Unfortunately he was talking to my dad, the coyote was angry he screamed at my mom and told her to get away from his face and to take me to the room. At that point my mom was crying, shaking she was hugging me and telling me that everything was going to be fine. After what seemed like hours the guy who drove us to from the border to the house came out and told us that my dad was outside waiting for us. My heart started racing, my emotions were getting the best of me. I was crying. I was happy, excited, and ready to start a new life with my dad.
My story is one of a family that is working hard, studying hard and determined to not only make a better life in this country, but make a better community as well. It has been cleverly devised to avoid the obvious underlying prejudice against immigrants. Illegal immigration is actually a thin disguise for ongoing racism in this country. Immigration becomes an issue when politicians and the media make it seem as if immigrants impact the United States in a negative way. People come here for better lives. Immigrants are hardworking people who risk their lives to come to the U.S, and not only that they also take the riskiest jobs that others refuse to do. All and all, illegal immigration is not the real problem or issue. It has been cleverly devised to avoid the obvious underlying prejudice against immigrants
Works Cited
"Integral." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, 2013. Web. 13 May 2013. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/integral>.
"Is Arizona's SB 1070 Immigration Law Constitutional." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. <http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/is-arizonas-sb-1070-immigration-law-constitutional>.
"Migrant Deaths along the Mexico-United States Border." Wikipedia.com. The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Apr. 2013. Web. 14 May 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexico–United_States_border>.
Scarry, Eddie. "TheBlaze Books Give You More!" The Blaze. Theblaze.com, 2 May 2013. Web. 28 Apr. 2013. <http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/05/02/los-angeles-times-illegal-immigrant/>.
Stiles, Andrew. "The Deportation Lie | National Review Online." National Review Online. National Review Online, 19 Apr. 2013. Web. 14 May 2013. <http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346043/cooking-books-deportation-stats>.
Isis Torres
Illegal immigration is on everyone’s mind and it has become an important “wedge” issue in national politics. However, illegal immigration is not the real problem or issue. It has been cleverly devised to avoid the obvious underlying prejudice against immigrants. Illegal immigration is actually a thin disguise for ongoing racism in this country. There are three topics that are central to the issue of immigration. These are jobs, prejudice, and the challenge of getting across the border.
To begin with, according to (http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/05/02/los-angeles-times-illegal-immigrant/) there are about eleven million undocumented immigrants in the United States. (Los Ageles Times) Therefore, many Americans are angry because they believe that undocumented people impact the U.S in negative ways. They also believe that undocumented people take their jobs, take advantage of the social programs and they complain because they don’t pay taxes. But what they don’t fully understand is that to be able to work here and get paid fairly they need a social security number. Without a SSN immigrants cannot apply for any programs nor pay taxes. Some people though, use fake social security numbers to get jobs and others just borrow SSN from people they know. Immigrants who come from different countries are willing to take risks to be able to support their families in need. There are plenty of jobs (because most of the jobs that immigrants have are the jobs that others refuse to do.) In fact large businesses prefer to hire undocumented people because they have no redress, this inability to complain makes it easy for them to be oppressed by their employers. Many Americana’s turn it around as if undocumented people are the problem because they work illegally and “take” their jobs, but at the same time they hire them. The economy in order to function requires cheap labor.
Arizona has a law that it requires an official whenever he “has a reasonable suspicion that an individual might be in Arizona illegally” be required to inspect their documentation. According to (http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/is-arizonas-sb-1070-immigration-law-constitutional) “SB 1070 mandates the carrying of proper documentation for any alien in Arizona, and it levies a misdemeanor on any person who is found without such documentation. It also requires state law enforcement officials to determine an individual’s immigration status during any routine stop, detention or arrest when the official has a reasonable suspicion that an individual might be in Arizona illegally. Additionally, SB 1070 strengthens penalties for hiring, sheltering, and transporting illegal immigrants. When a member of the house is deported, they steal a woman’s right for a husband, a man’s right for a wife, and a child’s right for a parent. The solution in my opinion is to help those countries in need, to prevent people from wanting to come here, stop prejudice and racism.” A white person from Germany will not draw official attention. A brown person from Mexico certainly will. The terms “illegal” and “alien” are purposefully negative. Their connotation is that such a person is less than one who is legal. The language used in the law and by the media perpetuates the prejudice and makes it easy for even those people who aren’t prejudice to get trapped by using language that implies some people are less than others. These two negative terms to refer to undocumented people perpetuates racism. Everyone is an immigrant in the United States because this land belongs to the Native Americans. According to (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/integral) the word illegal means, “forbidden by law or statute.” Thus it is inaccurate to use the term illegal because undocumented people have not been convicted of a crime.
America has been the land of opportunity for over five hundred years. People from all over the globe have come here in search of a better life. Immigration is always difficult as it forces people into new relationships with a different culture but if you add to that the dangers of coming across the border there is no justification for treating these people as anything less. Once you risk your life to give yourself and your family a better life you shouldn’t be looked down upon. There are also many reasons why people migrate to the United States. One reason is the whole ideology about the American Dream. People come here for better lives, for better jobs and for much better places to live that are safe. For example in Mexico, there are many people that live in poverty that fight every day to survive in severe poverty conditions. There are many problems other than poverty for example: Government Corruption, Drugs, Drug Cartels and safety to mention just a few.
Immigrants come to the United States from all over the world not just from the South of the border. There are different ways they enter, either documented or undocumented. There are two ways that I believe are the most common for people to come here. One is to come here with a visa and stay here after the visa has expired. The second way to come here is crossing the border with a coyote. It is very expensive to come here with a coyote and it is extremely risky. It’s about $8,000 dollars per person to cross the border either by river, desert or by car with fake papers. There are many risks when people cross the border. Woman and children are at higher risk than man because they get raped and sold to human trafficking. It also depends on the weather conditions because people dehydrate when they cross by the desert and die, they sometimes get lost. When they cross by river many people drown and die and just a few get lucky and make it. I was a first hand witness to what happens when well-intended people try to seek a better life.
I am one of the lucky few I came here when I was almost eight years old. November 2004, I came here for a better future. I came with my mom and a family friend. There were about eleven of us, three women six men and me. I remember that the coyote told us to take a nap because we were going to cross at midnight. But my mom was too scared to sleep with all of those strangers there. At about 3:00am we started getting ready to leave and the coyote was completely coked out. We crossed by desert; we walked for about three hours nonstop. It was very scary because it was dark and it seemed as if we were going to get lost. We kept walking; it was cold, windy and scary. Whenever we would hear a car we had to stay still so they wouldn’t hear us. I saw many things on the desert, shoes, cloth, teddy bears, diapers and empty water bottles. We had to crawl under a tunnel and it was dark. I remember when we got closer to the road I saw a blue canopy and I panicked because I thought it was the river and that we had to swim. It was a bad feeling because I didn’t know how to swim. I remember I stopped and I let go of my mom’s hand and I ran back. My mom followed me and asked me what was wrong. I told her that I was scared because of the river. She said, “Lets stay together, it’s a desert.” As we kept walking tears started running down my face. I was scared, cold and tired of walking.
According to (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/border-deaths-spike-27-percent-immigration-mexico_n_2915605.html) in 2012, 477 migrants lost their lives attempting to cross the border. “Migrant deaths along the Mexico-U.S. border occur hundreds of times a year because of those attempting to cross into the United States from Mexico illegally. The number of deaths has steadily increased since the mid-1990s with exposure (including heat stroke, dehydration, and hyperthermia) being the leading cause.“ (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.) According to a December 2006 cover story in the San Diego Reader,“ On 7, nine migrants died in a crash in the Yuma sector when the driver of a Chevrolet Suburban in which 21 Mexicans were “stacked like cordwood” lost control after crossing a Border Patrol spike strip at high speed. This year the number killed in traffic accidents during illegal crossing is about 50” Another cause of immigrant deaths are drowning in canals, ditches and the Rio Grande. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexico–United_States_border) The main reasons to why people died while crossing the border are drowning, accidents, incidents of Border use of force, vigilante killings, intentional killings and many more.
The very next day, early in the morning I woke up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees, bushes, dirt and strangers. I couldn’t believe what had happened, I was at a different place in a different State with different people. I remember the coyote told us to stay still, because the helicopters were right on top of our heads. I was very scared I thought we were going to get shot. After about fifteen minutes, the helicopter disappeared. When they finally told us that the truck would be there soon, everyone smiled and looked very happy, I was anxious and happy to know that we made it and that I was going to see my dad. The coyote told us to stand next to the road and wait for a pickup truck and we did. When the pickup truck finally got there the coyote asked me to jump into the truck and lay down on the floor. Right when my mom was going to jump into the truck with me the coyote asked her to step away from the truck because the coyote’s girlfriend wanted to ride with him and supposedly there was no more room for her. Three other men jumped in the truck because they were friends with the coyote. I remember I was lying down on the back of the truck with people’s feet on my head and on my back to keep me still because I was crying for my mom trying to look stare out the window, it was horrible it was the worst feeling. It felt as if I would never see my mom again.
There are many families who get broken apart crossing the border, they either get lost, they die do to dehydration, or simply because they get abandon by the coyotes. But even when immigrants cross successfully they are still at risk, especially woman and children. In many cases children and woman get sold to human trafficking, they get kidnapped and they get abused. There is also another way to separate families and that is deportation. Deportation is something that is heart breaking because it breaks apart many homes and it hurts every single member of a family. According to, (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346043/cooking-books-deportation-stats) “Deportation specifically of illegal immigrants convicted of a crime.” But many people get deported simply because they are working illegally, or because they are not “carrying the proper documentation.” There are three top reasons you may receive a deportation notice. One is committing a crime, bad behavior and faulty paperwork. But even for least harming reasons immigrants get deported. Deportation is unfair and worthless because either way people are going to keep trying to come to the U.S to unite with their families and keep working hard to support their families.
It was a long, a boring uncomfortable ride. The truck was running out of gas and the coyote and the driver were arguing about gas money. The coyote asked the driver to pull over because there was a guy standing on the side of the road asking for a ride. He said that it would be less suspicious if we had an American guy riding along with us. They asked the guy for gas money because the truck was running out of gas and neither of them wanted to pay. I remember the guy jumped on the back of the truck and he was having a long conversation with the driver. I remember the driver kept telling the coyote that he couldn’t understand half of the things that the guy was saying and they all started laughing. After a fifteen-minute ride, the guy told the driver to stop at a gas station to put gas on the truck. When we stopped the coyote received a call and they told him something about ten minutes and he said, “We’ll be there in ten minutes!” When we left we moved around, this time I was sitting in the back seat looking out the window. It was getting dark. I saw snow for the first time and Christmas decorations it looked beautiful. We finally arrived to this guy’s house; we were going to wait for my mom and the rest of the people there. The house was small and comforting. They offered us food; cloth and they also asked if we wanted to shower. They walked us to a room and they told us to wait there. The room was empty I was with my mom’s friend sitting in the carpet staring at the room. It was something that I’ve never seen before. The room was big it had a really comfortable, brown carpet; a heater attached to the wall and the color of the room was bright yellow. After a few minutes the woman came back to the room and asked us if we wanted to go to the store with her. I was bored and exhausted, but my mom’s friend said yes so we went. The store was huge, it had all kinds of things shoes, cloth, food, movies, cell phones on display, TV’s toy’s etc. There were a lot of people at the store that day. I still couldn’t believe that I was in another state away from home, without my mom, my dad, my sisters. It was a feeling that I can’t explain something that I had never felt before, I felt knots on my throat I was in shock I couldn’t believe what had just happened. When we got back to the house my mom was already there she was pale her face looked different, she was like scared to death she hugged me really tight and asked me if I was okay. We were sitting in the living room waiting for my dad to get there. I remember the coyote was talking on the phone and asked the person on the phone to bring more money or else he wasn’t going to lets us go. Unfortunately he was talking to my dad, the coyote was angry he screamed at my mom and told her to get away from his face and to take me to the room. At that point my mom was crying, shaking she was hugging me and telling me that everything was going to be fine. After what seemed like hours the guy who drove us to from the border to the house came out and told us that my dad was outside waiting for us. My heart started racing, my emotions were getting the best of me. I was crying. I was happy, excited, and ready to start a new life with my dad.
My story is one of a family that is working hard, studying hard and determined to not only make a better life in this country, but make a better community as well. It has been cleverly devised to avoid the obvious underlying prejudice against immigrants. Illegal immigration is actually a thin disguise for ongoing racism in this country. Immigration becomes an issue when politicians and the media make it seem as if immigrants impact the United States in a negative way. People come here for better lives. Immigrants are hardworking people who risk their lives to come to the U.S, and not only that they also take the riskiest jobs that others refuse to do. All and all, illegal immigration is not the real problem or issue. It has been cleverly devised to avoid the obvious underlying prejudice against immigrants
Works Cited
"Integral." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, 2013. Web. 13 May 2013. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/integral>.
"Is Arizona's SB 1070 Immigration Law Constitutional." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2013. <http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/is-arizonas-sb-1070-immigration-law-constitutional>.
"Migrant Deaths along the Mexico-United States Border." Wikipedia.com. The Free Encyclopedia, 20 Apr. 2013. Web. 14 May 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexico–United_States_border>.
Scarry, Eddie. "TheBlaze Books Give You More!" The Blaze. Theblaze.com, 2 May 2013. Web. 28 Apr. 2013. <http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2013/05/02/los-angeles-times-illegal-immigrant/>.
Stiles, Andrew. "The Deportation Lie | National Review Online." National Review Online. National Review Online, 19 Apr. 2013. Web. 14 May 2013. <http://www.nationalreview.com/article/346043/cooking-books-deportation-stats>.