By Kirstin Lee — 

While my heart goes out to these kids who are now living with the fear of deportation, I have to agree with what former California congressman Sonny Bono said, “What’s there to talk about? (Undocumented immigration) is illegal.”

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals was a program created by former president Barack Obama. DACA has recently been rescinded by President Donald Trump.

DACA was created to help children of undocumented immigrants through education.

DACA’s other purpose is to allow those children to get around laws regarding immigration.

Undocumented immigration is affecting the U.S. to such an extent that it needs to be talked about. There are laws in place to regulate immigration to our country.

Laws are being broken by choosing to let undocumented individuals live here with benefits that are exclusively for citizens.   

Abusing these laws, ones in place that weren’t intended to ease illegal immigration, is not how immigration should be handled.

The law is there to protect and serve the people of the United States.

The current immigration laws require vaccinations for diseases, no or insignificant criminal history and other requirements to keep citizens and immigrants already living here safe.

There are also requirements for future employment so they can provide for themselves.

Undocumented immigrants must have already contacted a U.S. employer before they can be legally allowed to enter.

That can be difficult when one is poor in another country and unable to afford  things like a functioning computer.

When an immigrant has been living here for years and has been a positive influence in our communities as pointed out by U of L’s own SGA, they are still at risk of deportation.

They aren’t helped in achieving citizenship.

Instead of “getting around” the law, we as citizens of the U.S. have the privilege and the responsibility to try and change the law.

We can do this through the avenues purposefully left open to us.

People who are desperate enough to illegally come and live in America need help.

But they don’t need help through disobeying the laws we agreed to live under.

Children that come to our country have the capability of becoming  great citizens and making a better America for future generations.

We need to fight for a law which allows private citizens to sponsor a child and perhaps their family in the US with the intention of becoming citizens.

We need to fight for laws that are ethically right.