Illegal = Unequal
I have struggled all day with my reaction to a story I read in today’s New York Times about people who are in this country illegally. Actually I have struggled with this issue since reading The Tortilla Curtain a few years ago.
The NYT article featured a young woman who with her mother and younger brother came from Ecuador as a tourist 8 years ago to join her father who was living in this country illegally. She was a bright child, having skipped a couple of grades in her country of birth. They all stayed on in New York City after their tourist visas expired, joining the thousands of others who live and work there without legal status.
In this country she easily finished high school, but was denied the right to apply to prestigious colleges because she didn’t have the necessary identification. She was able to get a degree in accounting in Queens, where she graduated with a 3.8 GPA, but then the doors were shut again when she went to apply for a job.
Meanwhile she watched her brother who had managed to be born in this country have all the freedoms and privileges she had been denied. And what was he saying -- Maybe I’ll go back to Ecuador to live!
The girl’s mother has urged her to drop her Mexican boyfriend, who is here on a student visa, and look for an American husband to secure her legal status. The mother even added that she could feel free to divorce him if it didn’t work out.
I find so many aspects of this girl’s plight sad. She must live in constant fear of deportation. Her hard-earned degree is being wasted on a low-paying accounting job, whereas her American friends easily landed jobs paying twice as much. The question of legality looms large as she decides on a life partner. There are no rays of hope for people like this young girl.
She and her boyfriend spend their free time volunteering with the New York State Youth Leadership Council, an immigrant group pushing Congress to pass the Dream Act, which would grant legal status to high school graduates who were brought to the United States by their parents.
It would seem there are enough challenges posed by a new culture and a new language for children who come here illegally, not always necessarily by their own choice. Should they really be forced to spend the rest of their life in this country in the shadows without the chance that other young people have to realize the American dream?
posted by Barbara at 9:34 PM
11 Comments:
This post speaks to everything I abhor about those who cry "illegal immigrants go home." Those who would send immigrants back to where they were born without consideration of individual circumstances are mean, fearful, spiteful and completely ignorant! This young woman, more than many who are native-born Americans, has EARNED the right to stay here. How lucky would we be to have her brains, grit and determination working in the United States!
The 2008 film "The Visitor" deals with this topic (to an extent). Not a great movie, I think, but a good story nevertheless, and terribly pertinent.
F.
Kate -- I don't know about you, but I would hate to be the one to judge the merits of one immigrant over another. It could easily turn into the system of bribes that got many of them into this country to begin with. I wish there were a fair rule-based system. I like the idea of legalizing those who graduate from high school. At least that would give them an incentive to stay in school and some hope for the future.
Anon -- Yes, exactly. I saw The Visitor, which took place in NYC, and was sad at the end when the inevitable deportation happened, leaving behind a woman from Senegal selling jewelry and ducking every time the authorities came by.
I am constantly appalled that in this country today so many people would close the doors to those coming here for a better life, or for something different. This is a country built by immigrants, yet we now are scornful and choosy about whom we allow in as if our forebears had been here forever. We need a workable immigration program that allows people to live here legally, without the need for dangerous and illegal entry into the country, and that affords those people the rights and protections of our laws. Yours was but one story of senseless beaurocracy that punishes, especially the children of illegal immigrants. We recently read of a young woman, who has been in this country since she was an infant, deported back to Guatamala where she does not remember ever being, she knows no one, doesn't understand the culture and barely knows the language. Her siblings were all born here, so here they remain, fighting for her right to return. Gahhhh!
We need more motivated bright, successful people, not fewer.
Terry -- Another case where following the letter of the law just seems too cruel.
Merle -- Amen!
This must be a common story in your town, so near the Mexican border.
i'm voting for the dream act. another amen to merle!
xxx
rdm
Watch as the wingnuts try to turn the swine flu outbreak into an anti-immigration frenzy. I don't watch CNN anymore, but I'll bet Lou Dobbs has done this already. And I have to say, "The Tortilla Curtain" may be a great book, but it's one of the dumbest titles I have ever seen.
You are right, Barbara. I did not mean there should be any ONE "litmus" test but the idea that those who graduate from high school here is certainly a good one. It is a conundrum.
A lot of us came to the States by way of immigrant forebearers. Who am I to criticize?
My mother was illegally in this country which did lead her to feel desperate in a sense, all of short life. She worked hard at the worst jobs and did them cheerfully, she had no papers, no formal education, and she married asap-- young-- for much more than the usual security women wanted back then-- she felt she had to be married to an American Citizen and quickly produce children. She didn't have time for courting rituals or much fun --she never had a vacation, never owned a home, never had nice things. I always remember her working crummy jobs.
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