Before I begin, let me say, I do know that everyone, including their dog seem to have an opinion regarding the immense population of illegal immigrants residing within the United States. Opinions are wonderful. I personally believe every citizen of every color, creed, and nation has or should have the God given right to their own unbiased opinion and the due right to express themself.I believe in educating oneself, demanding and seeking information.

I, personally, am an independent individual. I do not follow, act, or believe simply because I “should”. I am not persuaded by a simple “popular census” of my family, friends, or society. I will definitely not claim to be all knowing, but I at least gather facts and investigate before entering the unknown.
With that in mind, let us begin.

A few days ago, I was reading the MSN homepage and came across a very interesting topic headlined “Would the United States be affected by the deportation of all illegal immigrants?”,being the inquisitive type of person that I am AND being Mexican, I obviously could not resist and immediately clicked to view more. The article itself was fair in my thoughts, I should have been content and stopped there, but I didn’t. Before I knew it I had blindly clicked and entered a forum on the subject. It was much like watching a scary movie, you shut your eyes and cover your ears, but you just can’t stop watching it. There I was, stunned, angered, and at times humored by the overwhelming comments.

Just to make myself clear, I am FIRMLY against illegal immigration, but this blog was insane. Illegal immigrants were blamed for everything from taking a handicapped woman chance to walk, over crowded schools, gang killings and violence, increased crime, home foreclosures, drug trafficking, and more. They were called cancerous tumors, destructive dysfunctional chaos, and Idiots. (By the way, those are a few of the nicer comments.)

Again, everyone has a right to their opinion, but there were some serious misconceptions, discrimination, and for lack of a better word, down right ignorance being blogged. Let me just give a quick summary and maybe a little personal insight on the matter. First of all, not every dark skinned, Spanish speaking person is Mexican. I will be the first to admit, the majority are Mexican, but there are also many central and south Americans, and that’s only talking about the “dark skinned, Spanish speakers”. There are many illegal immigrants from around the world who have entered and continue living in the United States.

Many bloggers claimed they had to wait in hospital emergency rooms with a true medical emergency because an illegal Mexican takes their kids into the hospital with a slight temperature or a common cold. Others claimed they had to take their children out of school because of the overwhelming illegal Mexican gang violence. Stories were told of American’s homes being foreclosed because of illegal Mexicans (I still haven’t grasped the concept of that one).
Public schools are overcrowded by Illegal’s children, illegal drugs are now a problem (NOW a problem?), hardworking taxpaying citizens are out of work, it takes longer to enter automated telephone services, because now you can’t just hear the menue, you must first decide whether to press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish, and lastly an MIT engineer with a Masters Degree now can’t find work because his company has decided to outsource and or hire someone from Mexico.

For the time being, and the sheer fun of it, let’s say you have somehow, without a doubt, confirmed that the person or persons creating so much turmoil, disruption, and in general changed your way of live, in question is or are Mexican. How do you know if they are legal, illegal, or a third generation red blooded, tax paying,genuine American citizen of Hispanic descent? Do you stop and ask the gang members, parents of a sick child in the emergency room, school children, drug dealer, murderer, welfare recipient, and every other hispanic walking the street to show their birth certificate, passport, or greencard? I think not.
I understand Americans, with just cause, are upset, angered, and afraid for their families, employment, security and future... but don’t be blinded. We must seek binational reform. Mexico must make an extreme sacrificial government reform. We need obligated continued education or trade school, higher wages and less taxes, we need our government to really stand up and notice its own citizens and our needs. But the United States can not put its woes entirely upon the Mexican national, legal or illegal. There is not a business in the universe that can survive, much less prosper, without continuous consumer consumption. Simply put, you can’t sell if you don’t have a client market. The overwhelming “consumer consumption” of illegal immigrants and drugs, within the United States, has been and continues to be a very lucrative and ever prospering marketable business.