The media, for some reason, tries to use these two labels to mean the same thing. In order to immigrate into this country, you have to be approved by this country. This approval comes with papers, with documentation. The undocumented are here without the approval of the government and are therefore illegal, they are not immigrants. There is no intent on the government to deport immigrants since everyone aside from native American Indians got here by immigrant relatives or by immigrating here themselves legally. We need to stop referring to undocumented illegals as immigrants because they are not.

I am an immigrant. I came here from Canada 67 years ago. I can not imagine being deported back to Canada, or even being worried about it. This is fake news. I have a friend who came here illegally 40 years ago, and he has been worried about it for 40 years. I am an immigrant (and now a US citizen). He is an undocumented illegal and not an immigrant. We are not the same. He broke the law and has to deal with the consequences, now and in the future. My son has a felony record. I wish that neither of them went down that road but they did. My son will eventually get that mark off his record, my friend may sometime in the future become an immigrant, but it won’t be easy for either of them. We need to stop referring to undocumented illegals as immigrants because they are not.

We have all heard of Immigration reform and that the system is broken. I am not sure that it needs to be reformed, but rather clarified. Immigration should be for the benefit of the American people. We need to clarify what the requirements are to immigrate to this country and how many immigrants at any particular time would benefit the country. Then we should enforce the law. If congress determines to pass a law that some of the illegals can immigrate, then they need to come up with requirements and quotas as to how this is to take place. Then we should enforce the law. Hopefully, then there will not be undocumented illegals, and this issue will just go away when we have secure borders. We need to stop referring to undocumented illegals as immigrants because they are not.

The immigrant population in this country legally needs to stand up for what they have accomplished. It wasn’t easy, but it was right. We don’t want people or the media to steal this title away from us. It also wasn’t cheap, so we don’t want it to be given away. New immigrants need to pay for it and work hard to earn this privilege as we did. We had to learn and speak English, the language of this country. We had to learn how this government works before we could participate in it as citizens. We had to integrate into this country and become supporters of the American way of life. We had and we wanted to love this country by supporting it with our attitudes and our taxes and we some day wanted to become part of the fabric of this country along with all the rest of the immigrants that now proudly call themselves Americans. We insist on everyone stop referring to undocumented illegals as immigrants because they are not.

Written by Bob Candy and published on iPatriot ~ April 2, 2017.

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