Immigration

I was born in Utah and I have lived in America my whole life. I have been to Canada a couples times, served a mission for my church in Scotland and Ireland for a year and a half, and I went to Mexico for a couple days on my honeymoon. That is the only experience I have had with living outside the US or being outside my home country. I know that the United States has a lot of opportunities that other countries may not have. There are lots of people who sacrifice everything to come here, in dangerous ways, risking their lives and giving up everything just for their future generations to have opportunities they didn’t. I don’t want to write this blog post saying that I am an expert in immigration, because I am most definetely not, but I learned a lot from my discussions about it that I wanted to share with my readers.

Do you know about issues in Mexico? Are you aware of why people want to leave for a better life? Did you know that Mexico was voted among the top 2 most corrupt Latin American Countries? I have heard stories of paying off cops when you get pulled over or else you get arrested, politicians have drug cartels paying their way to the top, etc. I have heard that it is expensive to live there yet, they get paid so little, from a friend who visits family there often. It seems to messed up to demand more for living expenses when the people are not being paid enough. There are lots and lots of ways that Mexico is corrupt, or so I have heard and researched. I do know however, from my research, that Mexico has strong cultural family bonds. The culture in Mexico is all surrounding the family and they rely on each other, extended families as well. They all live close and mostly are close. What does that have to do with immigration or corruption? As Mexico becomes unsafe and families turn to the US for opportunity, there are lots of costs to get here. For a family that is immigrating illegally, they have to pay the Coyote, and that costs more than they have usually, so they save for a while, and sell most of their belongings. It is dangerous for the whole family to travel at once, so the father usually travels first to find a job and put down roots somewhere in preparation for his family eventually joining.

It takes on average about 4-6years for the rest of the family to join the father, sometimes that trip is split as well, more of the family travels and then the rest. There are lots of risks in the travel alone. First, it is illegal and the Coyotes usually take advantage of their position by making them carry drugs across, asking for more money, threatening lives and 1 out of 3 women are raped that cross the border, that is not exclusive to adult women. They are travelling across desert mostly, by foot and the number one cause of death is dehydration. So, assuming the families all make it, and they don’t lose a loved one on the way, now they have challenges when they arrive.

When the father crossed the borders illegally, he could not walk into a nice office and apply for a high paying job. They run back ground checks and he is now an illegal. He must take whatever job he can find, for someone that is most likely not a trustworthy boss, if the boss is willing to work with fugitives and break laws. Whatever job you can get, doesn’t get you a great living, when is family gets there, they are going to have to live wherever they can afford, not in suburbia with nice homes and around nice neighborhoods. You catch my drift? The families end up in rough areas and in poor school systems. The kids are more than likely to fall in with a rough crowd.

Not only are there problems with money and living situations, but the family dynamic will have changed a lot. When the family is together in Mexico they are all close and rely on dad mostly for finances, being the protector etc. But when he leaves, mom now has two roles in the home to raise the kids, she is mom and dad. Sometimes a son, may step up and quit school to help out with a job himself. But when years pass, with dad gone, the kids have a distant relationship with him now and the mother has become the head of house. When they get to America, kids can feel betrayed as their dad all the sudden tries to take over his previous roles. This is all hypothetical but there is research to back that this happens. Some people in my discussions have experienced these situations and they talked about how they resented their dad for a long time that he was gone and all the sudden he wanted to be the head of house again. When people are talking about immigration, usually they talk about the pro’s for a better life and better opportunities for their kids and grandkids, but if we raise awareness for the cons, and show how bad it is in Mexico, how heartbreaking it can be to immigrate and the cons of coming to America, maybe we can start to find solutions on how to help rather than barricade people out and leave them defenseless in their own country. Maybe we can provide a better system for becoming a citizen and receiving real opportunities now, rather than risking everything for a maybe opportunity for your kids. Maybe we can find a way to help, but there are lots of reasons to why becoming a citizen is hard and there are lots of issues with immigration that I haven’t mentioned and lots of cons to overpopulation here. I don’t have any of the answers, I just wish there was something more we could do for those who risk everything for a small chance of hope, whether it be helping them here or in Mexico. What do you think?