i recently posted a comment on the Chicago Tonight story on a friend of mine. The question asked was whether undocumented youth should be given a pathway to citizenship. The link to the story is From Mexico to Chicago: An Undocumented Teen’s Story
My answer went as follows:
Every undocumented person should be given a path to citizenship. If we are talking about caring for our neighbors and communities then you have to recognize that undocumented immigrants are part of every facet of society (whether we’ve been here for a day or 17 years). We’re not strangers, in fact, we might be your classmate, or co worker, or the person that smiles at you on the bus. We pay taxes. We volunteer at events. We tutor kids in our community. We laugh. We learn. We fall in love with people and places (We also make mistakes of course) and we will fight to stay with the people we love. Crossing the border is an act of love. It is not easy or fun. Being undocumented is frustrating, specially when all you want to do is be given a chance to work for the benefit of our families and communities (which includes neighborhoods, states, the whole US and i like to include the world and its ecosystems). But we are not given that chance. We are fighting to have that chance, and to shape a society for the better of everyone that lives in it, citizens and non citizens alike. So we will fight for it. And we won’t leave. I love you (you who i have not met, and you who i have) too much to leave.
