Immigration

More than 36,000 students from throughout Los Angeles County, California skipped classes and marched through streets and on various freeways Monday, March 27, 2006, to protest an immigration bill being debated in Congress. "We may be illegal immigrants, but we are human," Metropolitan High School senior Melania Preciado said as she waved a Mexican flag. "We deserve the same rights as everyone else, not be treated like criminals."

I am sure many have already posted up something about the latest immigration issues, however I wanted to write about my own perspective on the issue. Many immigrants come into the United States each and every year, many seeking out a new life, better than what they had in their homeland. I know this because I am an immigrant. I was born and raised in Tehran, Iran until I was three years old. We then immigrated to California, where I have been living for the past 16 years of my life. My parents risked everything in order for us to have a better life here in America. I am very thankful to them and never will I be able to repay them for their sacrifices. My parents however, came to America legally unlike many immigrants that come into America they were welcomed by the law.

Those who come into America illegally should not expect to be treated equally under the law because the law does not recognize them, they are ILLEGAL. It is true that they are human beings, but they are criminals because they did break the law when they came into the United States. Criminals are humans too but once they break the law they lose their rights to freedom. If you break the law there is no reason the law should recognize you because you did not recognize the law.

Another aspect of this issue many argue today is that illegal immigrants come into America and take our jobs, clutter our neighborhood streets and crowd our schools. As far as jobs are concerned, many take low end jobs that not many want to fill. I do not really see much of an arguement there, however, when it comes to the illegal immigrants cluttering neighborhood streets, I agree strongly. It has been shown that many neighborhoods that have a high percentage of illegal immigrants have higher crime rates. Besides that they increase the number of homeless people out on the streets. Our tax dollars that go into helping the poor goes straight to those who are not even American citizens. Then there is the school system, another place where they clutter. These immigrants are here to have a better life, especially the youth and the key to a better life is education. The youth know that if they excell in school they can help their family a lot. I am very much for everyone having a good education, but if it comes to me not getting into an advanced class, or college for that matter, because an ILLEGAL immigrant student did better in school than I did, I would find that unjust.

I know all of this seems very harsh, but life can be unfair and rough sometimes. All I can say to all the people out there who are debating on this issue is that the answer is simple, if one gets into this country illegally they are NOT under the law and so they do NOT deserve the same treatment as we do. In the words of one of my good friend, "Do we get treated well when we go down to Mexico? (or many other countries) the answer is no, so why do they expect respect from us when they did not respect our country when they came into it illegally."

Bookmark/Search this post with:

 •    •    •    •    •    •    •