Immigrants Have Many Faces

In a recent interview with the news media Arizona Governor Jan Brewer stated that individuals entering the United States illegally are “accosted by drug cartels” and in essence forced into servitude as carriers of illegal drugs. Unfortunately, instead of envisioning the wholly inhumane treatment of a people constantly under siege and terrorized by the cartels, Governor Brewer continued to label individuals trying desperately to flee as “illegal trespassers” and “drug mules.”


The truth is that the United States has a severe problem with controlled substances. As law enforcement works diligently to keep illegal drugs out, cartels in Mexico and South America find new ways to supply the demand. Human beings are, in fact, daily “accosted” by the increasingly violent and cruel cartels that have a stranglehold on Mexico, its citizens and government.

However, it is important to remember that immigrants have many faces, many stories, many backgrounds, and a world of complications and issues that cannot possibly be encompassed in one broad, sweeping statement that all individuals entering the country are “drug mules.” Our only border is not the Southern Border, and our population of undocumented immigrants does not only come from Mexico. Not all individuals who immigrate to the United States do so illegally, not all individuals who are immigrants entered through our Southern Border, not all individuals who are presently in the United States without documents entered illegally.

The overwhelming majority of individuals who desire nothing more than a life in the United States want to be here legally, and with documents, whether they are escaping a life that many of us cannot even begin to imagine or not. If we as a country are ever going to solve the current problem we have of “illegal immigration” it is going to take a comprehensive overhaul of a system that is wholly archaic. There are many people who are unaware that individuals who are present in the United States without documents cannot simply “become legal” or even apply for themselves. Until we as a nation choose to fix the current law, our undocumented populations will grow.

In all fairness, no matter what side of the immigration debate one is on, no one believes in illegal immigration. Both sides want there to be a day when illegal immigration does not exist. The question is how, do we as a country, choose to address the issue.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2010/06/27/jan.brewer.drug.mules.ktvk?hpt=T2

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