On the Perilous Road to America

In the past several months more media pieces surfaced about the long, dangerous, and often fatal journeys people have taken to come to the United States. Photographs show the dangerous journeys on tops, bottoms, and sides of freight trains. Hundreds, maybe thousands, die each year in the southernmost states of this nation. One state recorded its highest total of found dead illegal Hispanics by October, 2005--in the hundreds! That does not include other states, nor the ones not yet found. It seems that, correctly or incorrectly, the U.S. Government by not dealing with the border issues swiftly and decisively, has sent the wrong signal to those south of the border. The deperate poor see a green light to chance it, along with their families, putting them all at risk to come here. These people must cross rough deserts, with high heat, no food, no water, with lots of rattlesnakes and scorpions, and they face a greater gamble at being successful making it into this country than winning money on a slot machine. They live in horrid squalor; they lack the necessary immunizations from childhood diseases our government requires, especially for children to attend school. And when they get here, many of them have to shack up, 5 to 20 deep in apartments in many parts of the country. They lack knowledge of basic English, they don't know the rules and social expectations of American culture, and more than likely have limited job skills. When President Bush said they take the jobs no Americans don't want--he basically said they were third-class people who would do the dirtiest, dehumanizing work. Many of them when they work for people get stiffed of what they have earned and have complained they don't get even minimum wage. A guest worker program is not what this country needs--what this country needs is to stop the flood of people into this country for the time being. It needs to decide that, if it wants a guest worker program, then make the people prove they can pay their way to support themselves here first. But before establishing such a program--see to it that Americans get first dibs at the jobs, so they are not being shortchanged the chance to have paying jobs to keep themselves out of unemployment and homelessness, which both have grown by leaps and bounds. If the U.S. Government cannot ensure safer means for people to travel to live in this country from Latin America, then it has a duty to protect them from making the journey--so doesn't the Government of Mexico. These people have suffered so much in their own countries--please don't add any more to their misery. And if you think it's not a problem, go read how the governors of the four border states enacted emergency legislation to seal and patrol their borders. Too many hospitals have been forced into bankruptcy due to the high costs of paying for the medical care for all the illegal Hispanic immigrants who were hurt during the journeys. They should not even be doing this!!! Today, please send a copy of this post to your Congressional delegation and ask them: Mr./Ms. Congressperson, can you go to sleep tonight in peace knowing this is occurring every hour of the day, all day?? And ask yourself the same question as well. This situation affects all of us and there is no excuse for it happening. Not one.