Second Chance

I don’t know why American Presidents have a sour charisma towards the citizens of their South American neighbors. I mean, what have they done to deserve such treatment?

I guess it’s not about what they have done which earned them the ire of millions of Latin Americans. Instead, it’s more of what they haven’t done to promote the rights and welfare of those who have migrated to the United States. Latin Americans are by far the fastest growing minority in the country. It won’t be long before their number could influence things in government.

I’m one with the President in his call for a law that would regulate the entry of Latin American migrants, and protect the rights of those who already made it through American soil, whether legally or otherwise. Bush is pushing for a guest worker program that would allow migrants to acquire a limited working visa. These people would soon be granted an option to extend their visas and eventually acquire U.S. citizenship.

Majority of the members of the Senate are quite cold on the Bush’s proposal. They contend that granting illegal immigrants with working Visas is tantamount to condoning their illegal act of entering U.S. soil without going through the prescribed process.

I hope the impasse would not take years to resolve. I think they’ve already realized that penal sanctions do not and would not deter Mexicans and other Latin Americans from crossing the border with the hope of making it big in the country. I had several Latin American classmates in college who admitted that their parents crossed the border illegally to look for a better future in the United States.

I’m sure many were not as lucky as my classmates’ parents. I’ve heard stories where Mexicans tried to beat the authorities to the border, only to be caught or shot in the process. You could just imagine the shock and grief that their relatives felt after they’ve conducted a simple people search on them.

America should start drafting a comprehensive program or law which would facilitate the acceptance of immigrants from Mexico and the rest of Latin America. If the country has accommodated many similar requests for working visas from Asian and European countries, then why can’t we do the same to our closer neighbors?