[Vision2020] Illegals

[Kai Eiselein]

Keely,
I believe you are a bit misguided. The problem is not with "legal" 
immigration, its with "illegal" immigration.
Having spent most of my youth living along the U.S. - Mexico border, I know 
full well "why" people want to come here. From some of the windows in my 
high school, one had full view of the slums of Nogales, Sonora. I've seen 
the beggars on the streets, kids trying to sell trinkets or shine 
shoes...missing school in order to help feed their families.
I know this will sound horrible, but it is the truth: A family of 5 in an 18 
foot trailer? Believe me when I say it is a step up for some families, who 
may have come from nothing more than a tin, cardboard and plywood shack with 
a dirt floor.
The pressure that is being put on our border areas by illegal immigration is 
horrendous, hospitals are failing because of the cost of indigent care, 
local services are at the breaking point, crime from rampant unemployment is 
outrageous. (I believe Santa Cruz County, Arizona averages somewhere around 
24% unemployment) This situation HAS to be brought under control.
Have you thought that if there were fewer illegals, there would be fewer 
employers using the threat of deportation to force workers into living and 
working in the conditions you describe? Take away that fear and workers 
might be more inclined to report such incidences. And employers would be 
less inclined to use the tactic, knowing there would be legal penalties.
Secondly, why don't you ask some immigrants who arrived here legally about 
how THEY feel about illegals? I think you'd be surprised about the anger 
they have about those that didn't.
Those that are here legally, jumped through the hoops, did the paperwork 
went through the waiting and the hassles, the rest just broke the law and 
gave a slap in face to those that did it the right way.
My parents sponsored two people from Mexico to immigrate here and my 
grandmother became a citizen when I was a teenager, I've seen what it takes 
and I've seen the pride on thier faces when they've become citizens.
I've given water to illegals in the Sonoran Desert, while out hunting and 
sent them on their way and at other times tracked them down and helped take 
them into custody, because my hunting partner was a Border Patrolman or an 
Immigration agent.
I've called it in when they'd come to our house asking for work, water or 
food. (I did give them water and food.) Cruel you say? Not nearly as cruel 
as the desert, when one doesn't know how to survive in it. The morgue in 
Tucson is filled with the unidentified bodies of people that have died in 
the desert. I wasn't being cruel, I may have saved a life.