Thread: Open letter from Conrado a DREAMer

http://www.dreamactivist.org/blog/2010/ ... o-dreamer/


Open letter from Conrado, a DREAMer
April 23, 2010 in News Article, Opinion Piece by Flavia

An open letter from a DREAM Act student, on immigration reform:

My name is Conrado, and I am an undocumented student in the US. I was brought to this country when I was 13 years old, and in the past 8 years of living here, I have made this country my own; my home. All the while, however, I have lived with only a single constant: NO. Turning 16, and hoping for a driver’s license, they told me NO. Applying for my first job, they told me NO. Wanting to see my dying grandmother in Brazil, they told me NO. Applying for college, they told me NO. Asking for financial aid, they told me NO. Trying to be a good citizen and contribute to the beauty and strength of America, they still tell me NO.

I send the world this letter today because, as Fannie Lou Hamer, leader in the civil rights movement once said: “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.â€Â

We have only absolute respect and compassion for the differing plights within the Immigration movement.

But you have no respect or compassion for the Americans who have been paying your way all these years. Now go home!

heres what I want to know, has he gone to his own parents and said

" you disgust me, you put me in this position, and now I have to pay for the consequences of your actions "

has he let his parents know how he feels about what THEY didd to him ?

somehow, I doubt it

Conrado every morning when you wake up and you are still here you have broken American law. You try to make an argument that you were not responsible since you came here as a child. Well you stopped being a child at the age of 18 several years ago. That you are still here is your fault, you are culpable and your responsibility is to leave. It should bother you that there are people in your home country that never broke our immigration law that people like you are expecting advantage and preference over. You should go back and give to them by teaching them the academics that we the American citizens paid most of the cost of for you. The international employers who might hire in your legal community in Brazil need bilingual people like you in order for those who speak only Portuguese to get help understanding their instructions. If you are still here past 18 under those circumstances you do not have an American sensibility.

I have my own DREAM ACT..for my daughter (daughter of a legal immigrant) to go to college and not have to compete with illegal aliens for what little financial aid there is.

For all students here illegally, as well as their illegal alien families, I have no more sympathy left for you. Return to your countries of birth and make demands there, we have enough of our own to take care of especially in tough times.

NO DREAM ACT EVER!!!!

An open letter from a DREAM Act student, on immigration reform:[/b]

My name is Conrado, and I am an undocumented student in the US. I was brought to this country when I was 13 years old, and in the past 8 years of living here, I have made this country my own; my home.

Notice right off the bat what a selfish American hating brat he is.
"I made this country my own". No asking permission from the people already living here, who were forced to pay his way. Well Bubba we aren't paying any longer, get the heck out, go make Brazil your home!!!

Quote:
We have only absolute respect and compassion for the differing plights within the Immigration movement. How could we not? My mother and father still live in fear, separated from their own parents and brothers and sisters, knowing that at any moment they could be separated from me or from each other. The split families are our own. The raids hit our jobs. It is our brothers who cannot speak up when their employer takes advantage of them. It is our sisters working the farms for longer than the law allows, for less than minimum wage. Our fathers deserve justice. Our mothers deserve justice.


IF the above young person were to read this post on this forum, I might reply something like this:

Young person. Life is hard and harder for some than for others and sometimes much much harder.

Do you have respect and compassion for the differing plights of natural born American kids and citizens that cannot get a job, or go to college because those seats and jobs have been taken up by those who are here illegally? Your parents knowingly took the risk that someday they might be deported and that their children might suffer the same fate. It is not the fault of America or it's legal citizens, though it is always sad that children have to suffer when parents make bad decisions or mistakes. I've done some of that suffering and mistake making myself, believe it or not!

Raids are done for a reason, the enforcement of the law. You are a US educated person. Stop and think what this country would be like if we just let laws go because someone in the family might suffer. The resulting chaos would make this country (and has too much already) one you and your family would want to flee (another country to flee from). What good does it do for a country to lower its level to that of third-world poverty stricken countries by allowing lawless chaos? Would that help your children, grandchildren, family?

I am not unsympathetic to the plight of the world's poor. We certainly have enough poverty in this country already and the problem is growing. But this country cannot take on the world's poor. It is just one country that is drowning in debt. Its citizens are struggling to put food on table, losing jobs, homes, and whole families are now living in tent cities, out of vehicles or wherever they can find a place to lay their heads and they get hungry too. There are not enough jobs to go around. What about the American dream for Americans and American kids?

And the argument that it is mostly the poor immigrants (legal and illegal) who are doing the grunt work is not factually correct and simply does not hold water. Actually, recent studies have shown that actual agricultural work done by immigrants is only 3%. The rest is done by hardworking natural born and legal citizens. And so it goes for other grunt work type jobs. And legal citizens cannot afford to work for the meager wages that corrupt businesses pay (under the table a lot of the time) that illegals can. We have been pushed out of the very social safety net programs that we worked for and paid into for years. We do not get free medical care, housing, food stamps, etc. just because we have papers, that makes it possible for low wage illegal immigrant workers to survive on the lower wages. Can you see why so many Americans and legal immigrants are upset now?

Are you knowledgeable regarding the 1986 amnesty in which Americans were promised that it was the last time an amnesty would be granted? So much for that. It only resulted in millions more entering this country illegally, more chain migration that is to the point that it is helping to destroy this country's economy is at an unsustainable point now. The boat that is the USA is sinking under the weight!

Justice? Your fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and families and friends do indeed deserve justice. They came here illegally and when of if they get caught, that law I talked about that was violated, and needs to be applied (that is justice) just as it would be applied if I were to go into another country illegally. The resulting damage that my family would have to suffer would be my fault, and mine alone.

Do I blame you so much as you were young when you were brought here? No. Again though, that justice you speak of still needs to be applied according to the law and according to whatever law was broken. Lawless countries are not good places to live. Laws are put into place for a reason. And a very good point was made by Richard on this forum. You are now educated and can go back to your home country where you were born and do a lot of good there. Therein lies some justice at least for what you have suffered due to the actions of your parents (not this country or its people).

Again, life is hard and you nor any other immigrant or immigrant person or group legally or illegally here has a monopoly on that. You sound like a good young adult but you do have other options than to demand justice for you or your parents that is not due you or them. Demands made, especially with the attitude that so many illegal immigrants now have, to get what is not yours are not only not just not right, it only makes those of us who are struggling outright ourselves angry.

I pray that perhaps someday in the future things will be better for all people of good heart and the different countries of the world can be free of grinding poverty (that is a utopia, isn't it! unfortunately not reality at this time), but in the meantime, if you have read this, please give it some thought because I'm truly sorry for anyone that suffers and that includes you. But suffering does not make breaking laws right. It may make the breaking of laws an act of desperation, but it still does not make it right and has consequences.