Shooting the Flock: The Vicious Cycle of Immigration in the U.S.

Shooting the Flock

The Vicious Cycle of Immigration in the U.S.

                  As the child of immigrant parents, I have a vague idea of the trials and tribulations that come with immigrating to a new country from their first hand accounts. They each came here under different circumstances, and neither truly intended to stay, but in the end they made a life here, one that was infinitely better then the one they led in Mexico. That’s all Mexican Immigrants really want, no matter what the exact circumstances, they come here in pursuit of a better life, one that the United States seems to advertise to the rest of the world constantly, only to deny it to people who weren’t born here. I have to say, I never realized just how evil the United States was until I started taking this class; we’re just a bunch of bullies that have been picking on Latin America and Latin American citizens for decades, whether it be in their home countries our the U.S.

                  Now, I knew very well that the U.S. exploited illegal Mexican immigrants, but what really shocked me was that they were doing so on both sides of the boarder. Ever since the passing of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), U.S. companies like Smithfield Foods have been exporting pork to Mexican states, lowering meat prices to the point that a large amount of local butchers were put out of business. In fact, over 120,000 jobs were estimated to be lost due to the importation of pork from the U.S., some of these hard working Mexican citizens were struggling to make ends meat already, and with Smithfield putting them out of work, they had little to no choice but to immigrate to the U.S. Once here, they took whatever work they could find, most of the time they were stuck with the odd jobs that U.S. citizens didn’t want to do, at criminally low wages, like David Ceja, an immigrant who came here after his family was forced to sell their farm. He couldn’t find a solid job for three months until he came to North Carolina, where he, believe it or not, worked for Smithfield’s Tar Heel packinghouse, the exact same corporation that put him out of a job in Mexico. (http://www.thenation.com/article/165438/how-us-policies-fueled-mexicos-great-migration#) This is a cruel irony that many immigrant workers faced; some corporations even offered them work visas so they could personally exploit them for cheap labor. While these visas were only temporary, those that came with them usually stayed, as they had nothing to go back to in Mexico.

                  Undocumented Immigrants come here for a better life, and all they get is more hardship. They take degrading jobs for meager pay and live in constant fear of being deported, a fear that is very much justified with the harsh regulations of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A single infraction, no matter how minor, and ICE detains them for god knows how long before they are eventually shipped back to Mexico. To reiterate, U.S. policies leave thousands of Mexican citizens out of work, practically forces them to cross the boarder, legally or not, to avoid starvation, they work crummy jobs just to make ends meat, and then we hunt them down and throw them back into a country where they have nothing left to return to, I always thought my parents had it hard when they came to this country, and it turns out they were the lucky ones. (Pic from: http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/062812_immigration_backlog/feds-try-streamline-immigration-case-backlog/)