Artifact Two

My second artifact on immigration comes from a BBC news report. Called "Broken lives of immigrants deported from US to Mexico," the report discusses the deportation of illegal immigrants from America. By March 20, 2014, almost 2 million people were deported just in the time that Barack Obama was president.

Illegal immigration is another part of immigration that has to be looked at. It is, in fact, what Reyna and her siblings were doing when they left Mexico with their father. Illegal immigration, of course, is simply when people immigrate somewhere without the proper documentation, such as sneaking across the border. That is the main reason for the existence of border patrol. Personally, as with the first artifact, I have no connections between this and my past experiences or goals.

Illegal immigration simply helps me understand, even more so than the legal counterpart, that immigration can be a huge impact on someone's life. The reasons for legal immigration can be the same as the reasons for illegal immigration, but in a way, illegal immigration has a greater impact on the lives of the individuals. This is because the fact that they do have to do it illegally might mean that the life they are running from is even worse than the life legal immigrants leave behind. That, to me, is fairly hard to understand. I have never really felt the want to migrate in the first place, but wanting or needing it enough to do it illegally would just absolutely never cross my mind. In that sense, it makes me feel like whoever migrates illegally must live a very harsh life, which I, once again, can't really understand.

Back to The Distance Between Us, Reyna and her family migrated to the United States illegally. They had to be very careful not to be seen, hiding in the trees or under bushes whenever they saw someone. After getting sent back twice, like some of the deportations in the news report, they finally got across, having to hide in a small cave from a helicopter on the way. Once they got across, they had to hide in the back of a car, laying down out of sight.

Most of the time, when I think about illegal immigrants I simply think of them as criminals, which just comes to mind when thinking about illegality. I think of people running across the border or jumping the fence, smuggling drugs when they go, which is a big stereotype. Before really thinking about it, reading this book, and watching this video, I guess it never occurred to me much that a lot of illegal immigrants are just people trying to get better opportunities for their future. In the end, a lot of them aren't much different than legal immigrants, migrating for the same reasons.