Force of Friction Essay

Humanities P. 4-5
Coach Clark
Kevin Villa
12/06/15
What would you do if you were all of a sudden forced to leave your home,
belongings, and family? Whether day or night, at home or at work, hundreds of people
experience this. Specifically undocumented migrants, who can never be at rest for the
fear of getting caught and being deported. Throughout the years, millions of
undocumented migrants come from around the world in search of something.
Sometimes money, education, family, and so on. But because of the way the system is
setup, they are all methodically sent back to their country of origin. This in itself is a
violation of what the country is built off of, Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Therefore undocumented migrants should be allowed to stay in the U.S. once they are
here.
Family means a lot, especially in Latino cultures where they are always together.
But this cant be the case in places such as the United States, where they are
constantly being separated because of their legal status. During a guest speaker
presentation a man named German Bezares, talked about how family can be the
reason as to why people migrate. He stated that some families, have parents who leave
their children behind in their country of origin, in order to come to the U.S. in search of
work. But the children often tend to suffer because of the lack of a paternal figurehead.
This means that once the families do get together they are once again happy and
usually in a better place than when they started. But, the only problem is that since they
didnt come to the U.S. legally, they are usually sent back to their country of origin. Thus
making them go back to where they started. Undocumented migrants should be allowed
to stay because what if you were in this same situation where you might be separated
from your family? The logical thing to do would be to stay, but you cant. The
government is not only deporting people but it is also breaking families apart.
As a part of coming to the United States, getting work can become a primary
objective, usually to support family members or to earn money. Although the work that
they are able to get isnt in optimal conditions. For example, in Mrs. Clarks class, she
showed her students a documentary called La Cosecha, it was about undocumented
migrants working in agriculture. It focused mainly on what they did as workers and what
would happen to them. On average, migrant workers tend to make a very low annual
income of $17,500.00 for working in agriculture. Working conditions would sometimes
be unsafe, especially since the fields are sprayed with harsh chemicals. With this in
mind its possible to see that the undocumented migrants are working in even the worst
of conditions. They dont do it because they want to, they do it because they have to
and because there are no other alternatives. Thus its safe to say that undocumented
migrants should be allowed to stay because if they had chose a job in agriculture
instead of the ones they had in their place of origin. One can assume that they must
have even worse jobs back from where theyre from.

Undocumented migrants come to live a better life. Another documentary that was
presented to the students was called Which Way Home. It was about how, many
migrants come to the U.S. and the treacherous journey they have to take in order to get
there. Throughout the film, the production team sometimes would ask civilians why they
were going and some said to find work, others to reunite with family, and some to leave
their old lives behind. This reveals that the undocumented migrants come for a number
of reasons. They dont come to use government benefits, take jobs, or smuggle drugs
and weapons, as many people are lead to believe. One can clearly see that
undocumented migrants dont come to cause trouble, but to live an ordinary life, like any
other person.
After successfully making it into the U.S., undocumented migrants become a part
of the U.S. and thats a right that they deserve to have.This may seem like a small
problem that some families have to go through, but it can have a bigger impact both
socially and economically. The small things begin to add up and soon there can be
disruptances in the economy. As well as the way that society works because
undocumented migrants do have an output on it and they do have positive effects. And
both the economy and society, affects just about everyone. They can affect our society
because they also share their culture of being with family. They affect our economy
because of all of the work that they do. All of it is part of them living life, not as
immigrants, but as people. Therefore, they deserve a chance to stay, maybe it wont be
a perfect system. But neither is the current one.