My source is an article called “For kids, crossing the U.S. border illegally involves fear and hope”. Written by Luz Lazo. On October 1, 2019.

           In this article it states a young girl and her family experience crossing the U.S border. An 11 year old girl Wendy traveled with her parents and her older sister in May. They traveled by foot, car, and crossed the Rio Grande River. It took them approximately 1 month to arrive at the U.S border from El Salvador. During this course Wendy with her father have gotten split up from her mother and older sister. Later Wendy and her father surrendered to the U.S. Border Patrol officers. After they were taken to an immigrant processing center in Mc Allen, Texas. As Wendy explained she was taken away from her father and put into a big room with no windows and other immigrant girls and women. Where she stayed for four days and only ate ham and cheese sandwiches. Within these four days she wasn’t able to take a shower and neither was there enough space to lie down on the floor due to it being very crowded. Also at night she would use aluminum foil as blankets. At the end of the four day Wendy was reunited with her father and flew out to Washington to be with their relatives that would host them. After going through a similar experience Wendy’s Mother and older sister joined them in early June at Maryland. However, after this long journey Wendy’s parents discuss the reason they left their home country was because they didn’t earn enough money to support their families and were also afraid of gangs. Although Trump’s administration has announced that those who enter the country illegally will immediately be sent back to their countries or to Mexico while the U.S. government considers their immigration request.

        After reading this article about Wendy and her family going through this harsh experience to come to the U.S. Which I disagree with in how this young girl and her family were treated since they surrendered to the U.S. Border Patrol officers to the day they were released. The conditions they were in are unbelievable and inhuman. According to the article, Wendy states, “During the day, she said, she mostly sat in silence and prayed quietly”. They were in a big room with no windows to even see a bit of sunlight. They slept on the floor and there wasn’t even enough space to sleep and they would cover themselves with aluminum foils. Also they weren’t properly being fed healthy food and not enough. However, I don’t understand how our country is allowing this type of unfair treatment towards undocumented people. I understand our government doesn’t want undocumented people entering illegally to the U.S. Although we also have to understand that these immigrants don’t do it because they want to cause problems. But because they have families they need to support and they just want to offer a better future for their kids. Which I see no harm in and also no need for all this injustice being made throws them. They experience enough risk traveling from their home places to the U.S. These undocumented families do this is because they’re are in some really big need. For our country to be harsh and try to close the doors on them.

        In this article a rhetorical factor I like was that it was about an actual family that had first hand experience of what actually happened in the U.S border. Another factor I like was the pictures the author included of the family and how they’re doing to this present day.

 

“I was afraid I was going to drown,” said Wendy, who now lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. The entire trip was long and scary, she said.”