Coming from a small southern town, I’m a closed minded person to the idea of outsiders. On the outskirts of Russellville, Alabama, there’s a chicken processing plant, which has drawn a huge interests to illegal immigrants to that town and it’s surrounding area. I’ve been drawn to the topic of illegal immigration for a few years now. My stepmom came from Germany but is a legal citizen. Getting my chance to explore how and why they come to the United States is what drew me to this topic. It’s hard to be against illegal immigration without sounding racists against the races that do that. It’s just unfair to people that actually do come into the states, legally and I believe that it should be stopped. With people coming to America they go through many dangerous stages to get here.
"In October of 2013, more than 52,000 children, most who weren’t accompanied by adults, were taken into custody for trying to cross the border. President Barack Obama, gave out 4 billion dollars to settle the problem and congress encouraged people to not send their children to America. “'U.N. high safety commissioner for refugees found that 58% of he unaccompanied children are motivated by safety concerns fearing conditions back home'”(NPR). In Honduras, it’s the fear of gang violence and drugs. In Guatemala, it’s poor economy. No matter where they’re from most of the people who are traveling to the United States are wanting to reunite with their family. While it’s a long shot to reunite with their family without getting caught, it does happen. If it’s a small child or a women, they use smugglers if the family can afford it. On average to smuggle a child it’s three grand(which way home). Smugglers, only in it for the large sum of money, give both sides of the family false hope. They tell the family that they will make it safe and sound but in reality, they rape, beat, and rob the person they’re smuggling. In 2012 President Obama, made the decision that dreamers(minors who are brought in as small children) should not be deported. Republicans said that this is adding fuel to the fire. It’s giving the family that’s still on the other side of the boarder, false hope that they can come into america and not be deported, just like their child(NPR). Everything for everyone is just false hope. Illegal immigrants come to America to live the american dream, they’re not going to get that. Children come to America to escape the poverty and hard home life, they’re going to run into the same problem here.
The rate of illegal immigrants is rising and falling in states. They found that the northern states such as, new jersey, maryland and 5 other states. The fall of illegal immigrants in the other 14 states is believed to be due to the economy taking a turn for the worst. But since the economy has come back up, border control has picked back up because the hispanic illegal immigrants has also picked back up. The senate has passed a bill that orders border control to step up and encourage people the path to citizenship. Border control misses 16% of illegals trying to cross the border.(Immigration Policy)
There is a reoccurring pattern when talking about illegal immigration, it’s children. Watching the documentary film, Which Way Home, it focused on the story of how specifically children crossed the border. They knew doing a documentary on children in danger would be more attention grabbing than having adults go through the same process. While crossing the border, people frequently die. 10 to 20 out of 100 die from the traveling. The trip that can start at the Mexican-Guatemalan border is over fifteen hundred miles long. In the documentary, they follow two boys from Honduras, Kevin(14) and Fito(13), for a majority of the film. They both want to go to America so someone can adopt them and they can go to work or get an education. To make it all the way to the Mexican border, they ride a train. Freight trains prohibit people from riding the trains but thousands of people get on them and that’s too many people to enforce the rule on. If they make it through the Mexican border they will have to make it through the desert, whether it be in America or Mexico. Many people don’t make it through the desert, such as Eloy and Rosaria. Eloy(13), and Rosaria(16) from Mexico, after a month of leaving Mexico, were walking through the Arizona desert, also known as Sonoran Desert, and died from exposure. They both wanted to go to America to study. Rosaria was found 6 months later and blood had to be drawn to get correct DNA and verify it was him. Making it to the border, like Eloy and Rosaria did was very impressive, people have to pass 5 immigration checkpoints. The producer asked Kevin and Fito to meet up at the next stop but they never showed up. Asking around, people knew the boys. Most of the older people say that they don’t like how young children do this, they think it’s dangerous and they don’t understand at being such a young age that it’s not to be romanticized.Two weeks later, Kevin and Fito were found cold and hungry in the desert. They wandered off from the group because they were frustrated. Immigration had them deported back to Honduras. Before immigration got ahold of them the cops beat them, and robbed them.(Which Way Home)
While people struggle with being deported, the rise of drugs are a problem. Kevin and Fito, along with other young boys, smoked cigarette butts they found on the ground while stopped at the train stations. Yurico(16) does drugs, such as drinking/sniffing glue to get a high. He does drugs because he believes people screw him over and it’s his only way out. Not only do people do drugs, they have drug cartels to bring drugs into the United States. That causes problems for us as a country. Even though more drugs come to the US, the crime rates do decline. According to the immigration policy website, the decline was 45% from 1990 to 2010.(Immigration Policy)
Even though my views have not changed that much it does give me a sense of what’s going on. I believe that it’s wrong that people come to the United States illegally while thousands of other people go through the process of actually becoming a citizen of the US. I did find it surprising that people would target children in such a large way as a way to get through to people like in the advocacy film, which way home. Children don’t understand that what they’re doing is illegal and breaking the law and it’s sad that people don’t teach them. I didn’t know what people did to get across the border before this and I didn’t realize how long the trip was. I found the film, which way home the most helpful along with an article on why illegal immigration was happening from NPR. They both were different views and it helped me compare and contrast the two of them while learning things about this topic.
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| This is a sign is for people traveling and warning them that it's common to encounter illegal immigrants |
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| This is a scene from which way home on people riding the train |
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| This is illegal immigrants riding the train to cross each border |
While during the research, I had to find out how someone is classified as an immigrant or an illegal and it was a short and simple explanation. It was from Berkeley University so it is credible as a source
Along with having to find how someone is classified as a citizen, I found that a lot of states use SAFE, which I had never heard of before now. It explained what SAFE was and how it was operated. It gave both pros and cons to the program and I found that helpful. This is a credible source because it's from immigration policy website.
This told which states had an increase or decrease of illegal immigrants and when all of the immigrants started coming in.
This article was very informative on how immigration is on the rise again. While the article was from a few years ago, it gives an accurate reading from the past and what was going on during that point.
This was one of my most used sources and it was very useful when comparing and contrasting this and another documentary. It gave the answer to the question I was having and it was straight forward with it
This is another thing from the immigration policy website and it helped me with the crime rates and where the most or least crime has been over a period of 20 years
This is one of the documentaries that I watched and I found the most interesting. It was an advocacy film so it gave a different view than a political view
This is the website for the documentary and it explains everything about the film
