The US Immigration Debate Starts Before the Border is Even Crossed
By Hector Gonzalez

I've been paying close attention to the immigration debate going on right now, not only in Congress but also in coffee shops, radio talk shows, school discussions, dinner tables and internet forums. This is arguably the most important debate that I have witnessed in my lifetime. Hearing what many people are saying, whether it be over the internet or over the radio is causing a fear to grow in me because I'm afraid that the biggest threat behind HR 4437 is not so much that “illegal” immigrants will actually be convicted for crossing the border, rather it is the animosity that the debate is creating. In my opinion, that is perhaps the true intention of the bill.

The principle argument that I'm hearing in the debate is that “illegal immigrants” don't have any rights in this country because they are illegally here. Many times I hear people try to counter the argument by saying immigrants are just seeking better opportunity. But the anti-immigrant sentiment replies by saying they are illegal and seeking a better life doesn't justify breaking the law. It is an interesting point, but a shallow one. When I say shallow, I do not just mean sentimentally shallow, but intellectually shallow.

This argument is assuming that the issue of illegal immigration in the U.S. begins once the immigrant crosses the U.S border, but in reality the issue begins when the conditions of immigrants are so bad that they require them to migrate. Such conditions, whether the American public knows it or not, are caused directly by the United States. People in Latin America are poor because of cheap labor and because resources in Latin America are literally being robbed from its land. The greatest example of this is the WTO (World Trade Organization) that dictates trading laws that benefit the US economy while leaving Latin America to starve.

I have heard people on the left make the suggestion that, “Mexicans should revolt against the Mexican government, not against the American government.” But the fact of the matter is that the Mexican government is being paid off by the American government, and revolting against the Mexican government would mean that the U.S would intervene, cause extreme bloodshed, and it wouldn't allow such an uprise to be successful. In the last thirty years such attempts have been made in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Panama to name a few, and in all those cases, the U.S intervened, and the people's uprising failed and much bloodshed was caused.

The real debate is not whether illegal immigrants should be able to live in the U.S., but literally whether people below the border are equal to Americans. If Latin America is poor because the U.S. keeps it poor, and if it closes off its' borders to immigrants, then what the U.S is really doing is setting up people to die.

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