Illegal immigrants

 

 

We hear about illegal immigrants as if it is a category of subhumans. Those who complain about them are often living relatively comfortable lives: they have a roof over their head and food in their stomachs. Their levels of material comfort may vary from basic to luxury. 

The term illegal immigrant (II) is bandied about. Very few stop to think that each II once had a mother and father. They may have sisters and brothers, sons and daughters. At one time they may have had a home or a farm. Life made their lives intolerable. It could be because of bombings, gangs, economic upheaval. 

Their lives became so bad that they risked their own lives to try and get to a safer place. Depending on where they came from it could have been by dangerous boats or unforgiving desert. 

Each one of those IIs have hopes and dreams just as we who live in pretty homes have. I see them as courageous even if their courage comes from desperation.

I have what I have by an accident of birth. Being born into a middle class family I would get the education I needed to have good jobs. I have never been in a war zone. The places I lived never were part of a civil war that destroyed everything. Corruption existed but not to the degree that they have in other places. My opportunities were greater because where I lived did not have another government pulling the strings that limited my opportunities. 

All that makes me lucky and legal. As I said an accident of birth is the only difference between legal and illegal.