Not criminal, alien, or illegal. Human.

While it is widely known that immigrants comprise the majority of the population, there is a perception today of how they are bad to society and cheat their ways to America. In the early years of the new America, there were little to no regulations on immigration. And there was almost a type of slave trade of cheap workers especially from China that slaveowners in the south were importing in the masses. Through the late 1800s, Congress began a stance against immigrants coming into the country. They began looking at solutions of border control and deportation. The War on Drugs during Reagan’s administration greatly heightened the action against immigration into the United States. There were enforced searches and detention centers. This leads into the massive increase in the numbers of those incarcerated in the United States. Just to know the history behind our current issues is very interesting. I feel like there have been too many shortcuts concerning the policies enacted that aim at targeting immigrant communities, rather than the grand scheme of things. There are many structural issues that remained unaddressed, yet legislatures chose to blame the foreign born and confine them for entering the country.

The structural issues of blaming immigrants rather than addressing the deeper issues is rooted into our current society. Especially with the current administration’s attitude towards immigrants; calling those from Central America criminals and those from the Middle East and Northern Africa terrorists. With Canal compromising mostly of immigrant families, this is a very sensitive time. To be constantly criminalized by the country’s leader and his followers is a scary aspect to their life. They are threatened everyday with arrest and deportation, afraid to even open their front doors. The students I interact with at Canal Alliance may seem to be living every teenager’s normal, prepubescent life, but they have so many worries in their way that get in the way of studying and doing homework. On many occasions I’ve had simple conversations with some students about the current administration where they have expressed unease over the enforcement of Trump’s policies. Though they don’t overtly show their emotions, they deal with these situations first hand, having to fear loss of a family member or being targeted by someone in their community. Even with my parents both having papers, when Trump was first elected, I felt fearful because they are immigrants.

In a Washington Post article titled, ‘Disaster waiting to happen’: Thousands of inmates released as jails and prisons face coronavirus threat, there is a video showing ICE detainees protesting and threatening their own suicide by tying bed sheets around their necks and standing on a ledge. This image is haunting and shows the severity if this life and death situation.Public health and corrections officers have warned that cramped and unsanitary conditions could turn into a petri dish for the virus, not only for the inmates, but for the officers and their communities. Criminal justice reform advocates have pleaded with Trump to grant clemency to release inmates with underlying medical conditions. Fourteen senators from both parties have sent letters to the Justice Department to help those inmates out of the 2.3 million incarcerated in the United States. They did not agree, however with more pleas, Trump has considered releasing all non-violent elderly offenders from federal prison. Local and state prisons have gone ahead and released their own inmates at risk