Aziza Benjamin
ENG 103.0905
Prof. Kitana Ananda
November 6th, 2017
Immigrants Impact on America
Intro
Immigrants are often accused of stealing jobs and money from hard-working Americans. Immigrants are accused of causing many issues in America. Even the President has many opinions regarding illegal immigrants and how they are causing problems, he accuses them of being rapists and many other things.
Immigrants are always accused of stealing jobs from Americans. Yet, the jobs that most immigrants do when they get here are jobs that Americans won’t do; for example, being maids, babysitters, live in nannies or maids.
Immigrants are accused of taking away money from Americans, because when they work they do not pay taxes; but the thing about this is though they do not pay taxes, they do not get the options legal residents and Americans receive. They also are not paid minimum wage because they are not working legally and has no one to go to about payment. They also cannot receive any benefits because they are not legal residents.
“…In 2006…” according to “…an Iowa congressman [who] claimed that 13 U.S. persons died every day as a result of undocumented drunk drivers…” (Light et. all, 1448).
Immigrants have talked about their experience being detained in a detention center, and the struggles they go through. In “Immigrant Families Behind Bars: Technology Setting Them Free” Blasco writes about immigrant mothers and their experiences behind bars with their children,
L., a Honduran woman seeking asylum, was detained with her young son at a family detention center in Artesia, New Mexico, for three months. They were forced to stay in a room with four other immigrant families, and the young son became very ill, eventually requiring hospitalization.
Yancy Mejia decided that enough was enough after she was kidnapped by a Salvadorian gang, had her fingers broken and wrist dislocated. She took a risk and escaped her home country with her children in search of a better, safer life in America. Little did she know that the United States would not welcome her with open arms. Instead, she and her children were detained at the South Texas Residential Center owned by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) located in Dilley, Texas. When she expressed the intense pain she was experiencing in her wrist and fingers to the detention center’s doctor, he recommended that she drink water. (698)
Both these women were just trying to make life better for themselves and their families. They were suffering and struggling, and thought coming to America would make their lives easier. Their living conditions in the detention centers are unconstitutional, and they are not given their rights and due process.
Con
America was built on the backs of slaves and immigrants. When Europeans first arrived in America, the ones who could not afford to pay for their tickets borrowed from people which then makes them owe others money. Those ones were called “indentured servants” (Foner, 60). In this letter by Gottlieb Mittelberger in 1750, he states that “The German man and woman he describes had borrowed money to pay their passage and had no choice but to sign long-term labor contracts in America to pay off their debts” (Foner, 60). These indentured servants must pay back their debts before they can go about their lives in America. “Although indentured servants were not held for life, as slaves were, they were brought and sold and their families could easily be broken up” (Foner, 60). One bad thing about having to pay off their debts, they are not guaranteed to be kept as a family; they can be separated based on how they are purchased. Though they were still luckier than slaves who were kept for a lifetime.