Immigration

About two years ago, my sister registered herself in the military. There have been stories coming out about many families having being split apart, and it’s been happening for years, and there have been protests, however, it’s mostly a problem for the Latino/Hispanic community and little to know about other races/ethnicities and that’s why it isn’t a big topic in the U.S. With immigration, there are so many different problems and situations affecting everyone in the country and so many different policies and programs depending on various circumstances and government policies made by the president and ICE. Not everything involving immigration is relevant to the news and that’s a big problem, such as this issue regarding those immigrants that have children that voluntarily signed up to be in the U.S Military and now have to be deported and separated from them. The only person that has the right to change any laws or policies regarding the military or immigration is the Commander in Chief, the President of this term. I chose to write a letter to him because it was an appropriate way from him to receive my message, I explained what my thoughts were regarding the issue and what the issue with his decision to revoke a policy that semi-helped immigrants stay in the country, The reason why I said semi is because it wasn’t all that effective either but it was the best thing to help those immigrants with a little more time. I explained to him the research I found and how revoking this policy is unfair and has to be recognized only because there are people fighting for you and this country and now you’re taking away their family and separating them. I went to explaining a societal impact that deportation has on communities and how global migration can affect our country in the future, that research was from Ted Talk. Speaking and sending out my message might convince or show him another side of the perspective of this nation wide issue and this may allow him to review a new policy that him and many other important figures of the military. My other audience is mostly focused on the Latino/Hispanic community along with the small percentage of other races and ethnicities that are mixed into this same issue. Now is the time to speak up all together, many people might not be aware of this situation because it doesn’t regard many others, however, sending out my message in a speech is a perfect way to be heard around many others that understand. It gives a chance for many others to hear about the issue and stick together because the more people that enforce a problem, it will be heard sooner or later. Stating the facts and telling the stories of many others will get attention and it might lead to a change.

Letter

Dear Commander in Chief,

This letter is concerning the deportation of immigrants in the United States of America. You might think you already know what you need to know in making the decision in forcing millions of immigrants to be removed, however, I am writing this letter to further educate you about the issues in the small communities you might not be aware of. I would like to remind you what this country was built on, immigrants, throughout the past century millions of immigrants have been entering this country in search for a better life, not only to leave their own country but to work and voluntarily take those jobs that other citizens wouldn’t take, and to have a family, that those children become more educated and have the opportunity to be successful. Many of those children grow up to make the decision to join the military. In an article I was able to find statistics using data from the U.S. Census Bureau that shows information based on the immigrant veteran population focusing on ethnic background. “The racial and the ethnic composition of foreign-born veterans is much more diverse than that of U.S.-Born veterans”, meaning the amount of diversity in the military is increasing compared to how it was years ago, having mostly native-born or white. “Among U.S.-born Hispanic and Asian/Pacific Islander veterans, significant shares came from immigrant families: 57 percent of native-born Asian/Pacific Islander veterans and 46 percent of U.S.-born Hispanic veterans had at least one immigrant parent.” The significant amount of people that join the military also have an immigrant parent in the household, keep this in mind. I am aware that your intention is to “Scale back a program that protects undocumented family members or active-duty troops from being deported,” and that Parole in place, the name of this program, helps immigrants be placed in one-year increments if they are a primary family member, however, that is not enough because only a limited amount of immigrants will have this protection but again only in under rare circumstances, even if granted, it only allows them to adjust their immigration status to only stay in the U.S temporarily. Margaret Stock, an immigrant attorney, who represents recruits and veterans in deportation proceedings say “It’s going to create chaos in the military”. An immigrant attorney made a statement that, “The troops can’t concentrate on their military jobs when they’re worried about their family members being deported”, what would this mean in future references knowing troops are out in other countries risking their lives protecting this country, while they are fighting for this country, this country is betraying them and removing their families away from them. It’s important for you to understand what message your sending the country and also the impact it has on the soldier emotionally, listening to Ted Talk, a guest speaker Duarte Geraldino talked about the missing information we choose not to see when it comes to debate about immigration and it’s something I think you should listen to. He talks about the social circles that immigrants have around the communities and how it can affect society and the country as a whole as deportation increases. He studied global migration went on to say, “When the social circles are weakened, a country itself is weaker. Rather than focusing on individuals, we should focus on the circles around them, because these are the people who are left behind; the voters, the taxpayers, the ones who are suffering this loss. And it’s not just the children of the departed who are impacted. You have brothers and sisters who are separated by borders. You have classmates, teachers, law enforcement officers, technologists, scientists, doctors who are all scrambling to make sense of new realities when their social circles are broken.” This will soon impact you, the country was built on immigrants, having them removed would have some sort of effect on the country whether it’s economically or socially, it is you job to take charge of this country and make it better. I want you to understand the issues that come with you making the decision of you wanting to withdraw a program that helps immigrants in this nature or not even considering to try and make another program that help immigrants. This is an important issue in our communities, and to those serving in the military, that help this country. If you were to consider changing your mind, my goal is to pass a program, or act, maybe even an actual law to help any immigrant stay in the U.S with those primary family members in the military, deployed or not. I’m speaking out to you because you are the only one that can make a great change like this and help hundreds of thousands of immigrants stay here creating a better life for their children as well as seeing their young ones serve in the military and protect this country.

Speech

I want to speak about an important issue that I am concerned with as well as the Latino/Hispanic community and so many other immigrants that will soon see a resolution, as its my goal to see a change in the future. As parents, we should be proud that our children have committed themselves to the military to protect and serve this country. As parents, we should be able to stay as close to those soldiers as possible, they can be deployed at any time and them leaving is not a good experience, but the fact is, we are excited to see them come back. These soldiers go and fight for this country, they expect to return home to their families. How can that happen when there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants being deported. There are millions of undocumented immigrants in this country and many others that have a temporary stay, which goes by fast and it’s very difficult to regain that paper in time for that expiration date. The issue is, there’s many immigrant parents that have their children in the military and yet they face the tragedy of being forced to be removed from the country. Here are the facts, “Additionally, almost 1.9 million veterans are the U.S.-born children of immigrants. Together, the 2.4 million veterans of immigrant origin, either because they themselves are immigrants or are the children of immigrants, account for 13 percent of all veterans,” cited by a migration information source, these are the statistics of those in the military and their origin, that much can be shortened down to hundreds of thousands of immigrants having to leave and those all have someone serving in the military. We are lucky enough to have a policy that can help families, the Parole In Place, which allows military family members, who can not adjust their immigration status, to stay in the U.S temporarily. The objective was to minimize disruption to the life of a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine, if a soldier was deployed, they wouldn’t have to worry about their parents being deported. The trump administration wants to scale back this program that protects undocumented family members of active-duty troops from being deported as well has declining all questions to discuss the reasoning of ending this program. Carlos Luna, founder and president of a green card veteran chapter of the League of Latin American Citizens, said the ending of parole in place is yet another example of what he called the Trump administration’s “war against immigrants”, “There are fewer and fewer opportunities for these people serving the country and their veteran family to go through the ‘legal channels’ and stay here in the country, which for many is the only place they’ve ever known,” Luna said. How can we let this go by, even in the future, many more policies could be revoked. However, as much as this is a huge complication for many immigrants that this can help, this isn’t as effective as what many would think, these protections are only available under rare circumstances. I believe the intentions of creating this policy is just but the variables that allow some immigrants to be granted of this policy is unlimited and unfair “In the last several years, Parole in Place has been used sparingly, and has not protected all of the dependents of service members from deportation. The federal agency responsible for all adjudication of immigration cases does not track the number of waivers or deportations of service members or their dependents that it has processed.” Many are aware of the circumstances that comes along with it, but many can’t take advantage. My position here is to push forward and stop the withdrawal of the immigration policy that supports those with primary family members in the military and better that policy making it more effective and taken advantage of. To be heard. To educate many that aren’t aware of this, families should not be ripped apart and we need to make some changes to immigration policies.

Bibliography

Zong, Jie, and Jeanne Batalova. “Immigrant Veterans in the United States.” Migrationpolicy.org, 30 May 2019, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/immigrant-veterans-united-states.

Ordoñez, Franco. “Trump Wants To Withdraw Deportation Protections For Families Of Active Troops.” NPR, NPR, 27 June 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/06/27/736362986/trump-wants-to-withdraw-deportation-protections-for-families-of-active-troops.

Geraldino, Duarte. “What We’re Missing in the Debate about Immigration.” TED, June 2017, https://www.ted.com/talks/duarte_geraldino_what_we_re_missing_in_the_debate_about_immigration.

Ordoñez, Franco. “Facing Deployment While Fearing That Family Members Will Be Deported.” NPR, NPR, 12 July 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/07/12/739841785/facing-deployment-while-fearing-that-family-members-will-be-deported.

Copp, Tara. “Military Families May Soon Lose Key Immigration Protections.” Military.com, 2 July 2019, https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/02/military-families-may-soon-lose-key-immigration-protections.html.

 

 

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