Systemic Injustices: Illegal Immigration

A systemic injustice that I have seen especially as it nears the election is the Hispanic community and immigration into the United States. It has been seen, popularly within the Hispanic community to be targeted for illegal immigration with threats of deportation of caught. I believe that it is wrong to be targeted based on race such as being Hispanic and being assumed to be an illegal immigrant. This is a form of stereotyping that can hurt groups of people by profiling them, and often legal immigrants face the same discrimination in the assumption that they are not actually legal immigrants.I think that it should be easier for people from other countries that are going through hardships to escape to the United States legally, and also for illegal immigrants to have easier options to be allowed to stay here rather be sent back to unsafe living conditions. Often when deported illegal immigrants face much worse conditions and can be taken advantage of and abused, especially in countries with corrupt and unjust governments that are in place. By implementing solutions for people from poorer countries to move to the United States safely and more easily, it could save generations of families from living much more difficult lives in countries that may not be as well developed. America is supposed to be the land of the free and opportunity, and I believe everybody that makes their way into the United States should have a sense of freedom and security. Many of the immigrants that make their way into the United States tend to take jobs that do not require social security or background checks, which makes their income well below minimum wage because employers take advantage of their situation. This can be related to the Master-Slave dialect that we learned about in class because illegal immigrants are scared of being deported, they are willing to work for below minimum wage, and do much harder work for much less pay. By making illegal immigrants have some sort of safety and rights in the United States, it would make it less likely for them to be taken advantage of by employers and get paid less than anybody should be getting paid for their work. The hiring of illegal immigrants for below minimum wage embodies a sort of modern-day slavery hence the master-

dynamic, which should be treated as such. Overall, I think this is a difficult topic to get a quick and easy fix to but represents a systemic injustice that we need to be aware of and investigate finding a solution for.

One thought on “Systemic Injustices: Illegal Immigration

  1. I agree with your point that if not for United States employers that use exploitative practices to hire undocumented immigrants under the table, perhaps we would not have the immigration crisis to nearly the same extent as it exists today. These immigrants are vulnerable and desperate, and employers take advantage of this for their own benefit. A pathway that offers both protections for the vulnerable and opportunities such as employment and benefits would be hugely beneficial to populations such as these and would benefit the country as well. Because these people are arriving from other countries, it is easy to gloss over their humanity as we classify them as others or outsiders, but they are people nonetheless and deserve protection and justice just the same.

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