This past week, President Trump announced his plans to dissolve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that grants work permits to immigrants that were illegally brought to the United States as children. These individuals are also known as the Dreamers. In today’s political climate, it’s understandable why many people would support this move by President Trump. For decades, the media has portrayed immigrants as criminals, who are out to steal our jobs and our hard-earned money. Our own president has perpetuated this image in his campaign, playing into the blue-collar workers fears. However, there are a lot of facts about immigration that the average American is unaware of. As an advocate of social justice and human rights, I feel that it is my duty to shed some light on the subject.
First of all, the United States has had a complicated relationship with immigration. Our friends to the south have not always been sneaking across the border illegally. We’ve been inviting them to come across the border since the 1800s. It first started after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, when, in 1850, the United States recruited workers from Mexico to do manual labor for plantations and in other trades. These immigrants were not legalized during this time. However, the US cut back on recruitment in 1924 during World War I, and created the Border Patrol. The immigrants that were once invited into the country were deported from the time of the Great Depression until World War II. When faced with the war to end all wars, the United States looked again toward Mexico for aid. In 1942 the Bracero Program was initiated, inviting immigrants, once again, to cross the border illegally in order to provide hard labor for the United States. Again, these individuals were not given any legal standing. By the time program was disbanded in 1964, around 4.5 million Mexicans participated in the effort. You may ask, well why didn’t they just go home after the US ended the program? The answer to that is the US did not hold itself accountable for transporting these individuals back to their home countries (yes, countries, plural. Not all immigrants from the south are Mexican, in fact most of them are from Central America). Workers who were brought to the United States finished their work through the season and then went on to find more work. Their goal was not to infiltrate or take over the country, but to simply send remittances back to their families. Considering the tug-of-war the United States has played with immigration, it’s easy to understand why immigrants travel to this country, despite the heavy anti-immigration laws and attitudes.
Secondly, to understand immigration is to understand the people who immigrate. As mentioned, most immigrants primarily come from Central American countries. They make the tortuous journey through Central America, across Mexico, and finally across the border. Every step of their journey is taught with danger, because at any moment they could be caught by the police or killed. This journey is not an easy one, and most of the participants are children, looking for their parents who crossed years before them. As they travel alone, they are prone to the dangers of the wild: gang violence, mutilation by train, death by starvation, death by the elements. Once they reach the border, if they make it at all, they are at risk of being caught by the La Migra (the Mexican version of Border Patrol) or ICE. Yes, Mexico has a border patrol. They do not want people crossing the border into the United States border or their own border, for that matter. If they successfully cross the border, immigrants then must start a new journey: navigating the deserts of the South West and the dangers that lurk in the sand dunes. The main cause of death for immigrants who successfully cross the border is snakes and ranchers.
The Dreamers are individuals who were brought to the US as children. They have grown up in America, attending American schools, contributing to the American workforce and economy. Some people claim that immigrants don’t contribute to the economy, and that they actually drain it. While it is a case by case situation, a majority of the illegal immigrants who come to the United States actually benefit our economy in more ways than one. They obtain a fake social security number (so they can apply for jobs) and they pay taxes. In fact, they contribute more to the economy because they can’t even cash out their SS when they retire because it doesn’t exist. That money that they paid in SS taxes stays put and they never see it again, and it benefits our economy. One of the greatest reasons why the Dreamers stay in America is to pursue a higher education, again, not to drain our economy. In 2012, President Obama introduced DACA into policy, giving permission to Dreamers to stay in the United States for two additional years before they are deported. The con is that it did not provide a road towards permanent citizenship. This past July, The Dream Act was introduced. This act would provide a road to permanent citizenship if the individual is working on their education, contributing to the work force, or is enlisting in our military.
Now, I’m not here to tell you how you should think, I’m just here to clear up some misconceptions. How you use this information moving forward is completely up to you. You might accept it, and try to learn more about the subject, or you might dismiss it completely. Either way, you have been exposed to a reality that many people are unaware of.
Ignorance can only be defeated by knowledge, so read more and learn more about anything and everything.