by Pedro Velazquez
Most of you would say we’ve seen or been victims of discrimination, but some of us would describe it differently. Alejandro Martinez has seen the differences of being an undocumented immigrant and a citizen of the United States.
Alejandro first came to the United States when he was 14, he is now 38 years old. He came here with some education, but not the best since he did not finish high school back in Mexico. He crossed the border to the United States with some family-friends, so he wasn’t alone during the trip.
His first job was of course the stereotypical field working, but right away he noticed something off the gate; his pay was very low compared to the minimum wage of the state. He immediately brought it up to his friends, but they told him not to question it because they will deport him if he does so. That got him scared because his family had spent a lot of money to get him here and he didn’t want to risk it all.
Fast forward to 16 years of hard labor and hard work, Alejandro was approved to be a citizen after a little over ten years of putting in an application.
“I never even thought this was possible, to be honest I forgot I even applied for a citizenship,” said Alejandro.
I found this funny and sad because how can you forget about something as big as your citizenship. That goes to show you about how our country handles its immigration cases. This little piece of certification gave Alejandro infinite confidence, so he could live in the richest and greatest country without questioning if he will be here in a month.
According to Pew Research Center, when Donald Trump took away DACA, a visa allowing people to work and learn here provided to those who came to the US as children, he is going to leave nearly 790,000 recipients of the program vulnerable to deportation back to a country they barely know anything about. Just think about that, you could’ve be living here since you were 6 years old and this was all you ever knew. However, you weren’t born here so that can all be taken away.
Alejandro first came to the United States when he was 14, he is now 38 years old. He came here with some education, but not the best since he did not finish high school back in Mexico. He crossed the border to the United States with some family-friends, so he wasn’t alone during the trip.
His first job was of course the stereotypical field working, but right away he noticed something off the gate; his pay was very low compared to the minimum wage of the state. He immediately brought it up to his friends, but they told him not to question it because they will deport him if he does so. That got him scared because his family had spent a lot of money to get him here and he didn’t want to risk it all.
Fast forward to 16 years of hard labor and hard work, Alejandro was approved to be a citizen after a little over ten years of putting in an application.
“I never even thought this was possible, to be honest I forgot I even applied for a citizenship,” said Alejandro.
I found this funny and sad because how can you forget about something as big as your citizenship. That goes to show you about how our country handles its immigration cases. This little piece of certification gave Alejandro infinite confidence, so he could live in the richest and greatest country without questioning if he will be here in a month.
According to Pew Research Center, when Donald Trump took away DACA, a visa allowing people to work and learn here provided to those who came to the US as children, he is going to leave nearly 790,000 recipients of the program vulnerable to deportation back to a country they barely know anything about. Just think about that, you could’ve be living here since you were 6 years old and this was all you ever knew. However, you weren’t born here so that can all be taken away.