¡Sí, Se Puede!...... porque......

Today about one million latinos went into the streets in the US to protest considering illegal immigration illegal. I wanted to take a day off to say i'm going with the people but I realized that my mouth breath of nachos from yesterday's dinner didn't fool people enough to consider me a latino. Some counter protest took place and a few old men pulled down the Mexicen flag and burned it.

I still have mixed feelings about the whole thing, and living in Tucson makes it impossible for anyone to avoid talking about it. I sympathasize with those thousands who take the 1200-mile trip on el tren del muerte (the train of death) to reach the Mexican-American borders. Many of these are teenagers who just fall off the train and die, many of them pay all their savings and suffer on these long trips to come and work for 5 dollars and hour for the rest of their lives. I've seen many of them in local hospital dead and dying as they were crossing the borders.

I know, and you know, a few people who were deported or asked to leave the US ASAP because their visas have expired. Every month there are at least 500 Jordanians who are denied visas to the US. The same applies for most other 3rd world countries. So why is Mexcio different?

Many Mexicans are truly illegal, but they are not unwanted and there is a big difference between the two. Many people feel like Americans wanted Mexicans to come and do certain jobs but they were not welcomed to live among them, and when the time has come when these jobs are not needed anymore they would ask someone who's been in America for 20 years to turn the other way around and leave the country.

Some people claim that if Americans were paid more, they would have done the jobs that illegal immigrants do. Dhaaaa, pay me a good salary and i'll clean you dog's shit for the rest of my life. The Congress has not raised the minimum wage for 9 years. The Bush administration is working day after another on smashing the middle class. They are reducing taxcuts on the rich and taking money away from health care. Those who are destroying the American economy are the members of the government and Congress, exactly the same people who want to crack down on illegal immigrants.


What I hate about this issue is that illegal immigrants from Mexico are generally treated so much differently than both legal and illegal immigrants from other countries. Millions of people fought and worked hard and paid a lot of money and were not able to return to their home countries to see their families for many years because they were trying to stay perfectly legal in this country. I know students and workers who were deported because their visas have expired. I still have to leave the US for 2 years after I'm done with my six-year specialities because of my visa, although I never broke the law and I speak English and one quarter of my family are American. I believe that illegal immigration harms legal immigration.

It doesn't look like this issue will be resolved soon. It's not easy to deal with 11 million illegal immigrants, especially when there are much more standing behind them. El tren del muerte will keep rolling and Mexicans will find one way or another to come to America.