An Immigrant on Immigration.

Ok, it’s time for me to throw in my two cents on the current illegal immigrant ‘issue’.

I saw the protests on TV, I’ve listened to the people calling American Immigration laws ‘racist’, and saw the picture of the students who hung the American flag upside down, below the Mexican flag.

Quite frankly, I’m disgusted.

Immigration laws are not racist. Trying to stop people entering the country illegally is not anti-hispanic or anti-latino. It’s the law, and it makes perfect sense.

I believe I have a unique viewpoint on this, as I’m an immigrant myself (albeit a legal one). I went through over 5 years of application procedures to get my visa, I’m still currently waiting on my greencard.

The truth is that all this red-tape, forms, interviews etc are there for a very good reason.

For example, I had to go through a full background check (America, like most countries has enough problems without letting murderers, rapists and other criminals in), a full medical, to show I wasn’t bringing any diseases into the country, and also to ensure that I wasn’t going to become a drain on the American Health-Care system.

I had to sign all sorts of forms that state I won’t attempt to claim any government-funded benefits until I went to the trouble of getting full citizenship.

In a way, I find the whole thing amusing.

On the one hand, the American public screams about the cost of healthcare, demands to be protected from terrorists, are terrified of exotic diseases such as Asian flu, throws a hissy fit about corporations like Walmart hiring illegal immigrants (being able to pay them a pittance, so they’re taking jobs away from American Citizens)…but then complain and march in the street to protest a law that would stop complete strangers from entering the country as they please.

The question you should ask yourself is that there are lots of legal ways to get into America. I’m proof of that. If these illegal immigrants are such paragons of virtue, and simply victims of racism, why don’t they enter the country legally? Why do they choose to sneak into the country, spend their entire time here looking over their shoulders and working under the table for chicken-feed, instead of visiting the American Embassy in their country, and entering completely legally, with all the rights and privileges of American Citizens?

People are treating this whole issue as though it was an anti-immigration law. If a law was passed that banned anyone from outside the country setting up home in the USA, I’d agree and be marching in the streets right now. America is a country that was built on immigration. Unless you’re a native American (and by that I mean a ‘Red Indian’), your family started out in a different country.

However, this is a law that is in place to stop illegal immigration. In other words, it wants to stop people entering the country that don’t go through a comprehensive screening process. America’s borders aren’t patrolled to keep Mexicans out, they’re patrolled to stop people from entering the country who would do the country harm.

I mean, if the price for illegal immigration was a small fine, and no deportation, what do you think Al-Qaeda are going to do? They’re going to land in Mexico, walk across the border…then if they get caught, pay the fine, and you’ve got a terrorist in the country that has every legal right to be here.

American Citizens are up in arms about atrocities like 9/11, with one hand they demand that the Government protect them and keep terrorists out, while with the other demand unrestricted access to the USA for anyone who fancies living here.

It can’t be done. It’s like demanding murderers be locked up, while demanding that prisons should be shut down. You can’t have one without the other.

The whole racism thing is a joke as well. It seems we live in a time where everyone is so shit scared of offending anyone or being branded ‘racist’, that the race card can get anyone anywhere.

If you think American Immigration laws are racist, I advise you to visit an immigration office. I’ve been to the local immigration offices more times than I can count over the past few years, and in there I’ve seen Brits, Germans, Mexicans, Asians, Arabs…pretty much every single race and nationality you can think of.

America doesn’t let people in or keep them out depending on race. They allow people in or keep them out depending on whether they follow the law.

My main point here is that I’m an immigrant. I followed the law, and got into this country. It wasn’t easy, there was a lot of paperwork, but every bit of that paperwork told the American people something they needed to know. I’m not a criminal, I’m not a carrier of some life-threatening disease, and that I’m not going to be a drain on the American people.

I wasn’t born with the right to live and work in the USA. I wasn’t born here, but by following the law, I earned that right, and have Government issued papers to prove it.

The definition of an illegal immigrant is someone, who just through the act of setting foot in America, is proving that they don’t care about American law, and more importantly, are willing to break American law.

These are not people I want living in the same country as me. It hurts the country and the people who have a right to be here.

America needs to wake up. We’re living in dangerous times, and I personally am not willing to put myself in danger, just because someone pulls the race card.

If you want to live in the USA, visit the American Embassy in your country, find out what the application procedure is and follow it.

In the end, hopping across the border because you don’t want to go through the immigration procedure, or because you’re ineligible for residency in the USA does not make you noble, badly done to or the victim of racism. It makes you a criminal who doesn’t care about the laws of the country you’re so desperate to live in.

If the consequences for illegal immigration isn’t deportation, it makes the whole immigration system a complete farce, and America might as well give Osama Bin Laden a VIP pass to the Whitehouse.

If nothing else, if the security of this nation doesn’t interest you, look at it this way. Illegal immigrants do not have the right to live and work in this country. This means they work ‘under the table’, and don’t pay taxes. In essence, your tax dollars, the ones you complain so much about paying, are indirectly subsidizing these people who think they are above the law.

Anti-immigration is something that should be fought against in any country. Anti-illegal immigration just makes good sense.

If you don’t want to follow American law, don’t come to America.

It’s as simple as that.