Illegal Immigration is... Good? Bad?

The beginning of my freshman year in high school, my English teacher assigned for everyone to create a speech that argued a claim about an issue in the world. I chose illegal immigration in the United States. It was just around the time of the 2016 Presidential election, so it was already a hot topic, especially thanks to the then Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. He, of course, believed that Americans should not be harboring any “illegal aliens” in the country, claiming that they were stealing American jobs and increasing crime rates, among other wild not fact checked accusations. In fact, he used it as a platform for the majority of his campaign, proposing reforms in I.C.E and demanding the erection of a wall along the Mexican border. I have to admit, it was entertaining while it lasted. I mean, who doesn’t like some unabashed lying to spice things up in an otherwise dull election? I, for one, wouldn’t have realized an election had happened at all if it weren’t for Donald Trump.

Personally, my views differ greatly from that of the current president. Though I do agree that illegal immigration is a great problem, especially in not being able to keep track of who’s in our country, we shouldn’t be using such aggressive tactics to discourage more illegal immigrants from coming in and getting rid of the ones we already have. After all, deporting someone and separating families can destroy lives. When I first learned about these ideas that people have for resolving the problem of illegal immigration, I was so confused! It just seemed so illogical and immoral to me! So in an attempt to understand, when writing my speech for my freshman year English class, instead of defending illegal immigration, I challenged myself and tried to step into the shoes of Donald Trump. What I found there was interesting. Many of the arguments that people had, such as the fact that illegal immigrants were stealing jobs or that they might have criminal records that we cannot verify, were, to an extent, genuine fears that could explain why they would want to retaliate in such a manner. However, these arguments were either clouded by prejudice or did not take into account all the factors that might play into it. For instance, not all Mexicans are gang members or rapists and the fact that most of them might not be very proficient in English and therefore couldn’t steal jobs.

In the end, Donald Trump is President and many of these insane and unethical policies have already been put into action. Seeing as it is being supported by what seems to be such a large portion of our population, I can’t help but feel like a “ partly cloudy patriot”, even though I’m not even American, but Canadian.