Dear President,

In the journey that I undertook to the United States, I see many children without their fathers and nobody caring for children. We suffered a lot because we didn’t have much food to eat, and we shared the little food that the ''coyote" gave us. We had to walk long distances under high temperatures, and most of the time we slept in the bush. Also, many children were lost when immigration officials, “Border Patrol,” followed us. It was a horrible experience. I’m from El Salvador, a student from BIHS. I am one of those young children who crossed the border in 2014 to escape the danger in my home country. I believe that you should give a path to citizenship to the child immigrants of Central America because we lived unsafely in our home countries and we are escaping gang violence. To send us back to our countries would be to send us back to die.

It is clear that gangs are making life very dangerous in Central America. According to Alfonso Chardy of The Miami Herald, in 2014, “More and more young people [were] leaving Central America and coming to the United States. Gangs in many central American countries are making life unsafe for people". My family made the decision that it would be safer for me to go to the United States. This is very hard because my mother is still back in El Salvador. I was not the only child who had to make this trip. “In all, at least 51,705 minors from Central America entered the United States illegally during the 12 months through Sept. 30, 2014 — two and a half times more than the previous year” (Chardy, 2015).

My life in this beautiful country is difficult because I live in the dark because we don’t have legal papers and sometimes we find discrimination for not being documented. It is hard to live knowing that sometimes ICE could come and keep you and send you back to your country. There is a woman from Honduras named Cindy Figueroa Castro who said, “Immigration authorities keep requiring me to report my whereabouts, and that affects my ability to get a stable job” (Chardy, 2015). Many people come to the United States looking for a better life, a safe life but we face a problem with immigration and this makes the life horrible because every moment you think that you will be caught.

Through the evidence that I recollected and my life experience, I have possible solutions that you can make to help us. The government should make more lawyers available for children to get a green card or something legal to be able to live in this country. Another solution in which can you help is in bringing health insurance and we can have the same rights as you. We are not bad people, all we want is to live safely, without worries that in a moment the ICE can catch us and send us back to die. You as president have the capacity of help to us to have a better life and to fulfill our goals.

Sincerely,

Frank

References

https://newsela.com/articles/migrant-minors/id/3307/

https://newsela.com/articles/children-centralamerica/id/7976/

https://newsela.com/articles/family-detention/id/11199/