Mr./Mme. President,

I am a young woman about to graduate high school, living in liberal California writing this letter to you today concerning immigration and the immigration policy. Our immigration policy is all over the place and building a border wall will not be beneficial to us. Walls have been built all around the world to separate ‘Ours from theirs’, yet I believe walls like these create tension. They are the physical man-made representation of separateness, unwelcomeness, discrimination, marginalization, and an economic apartheid. I also believe that walls create these feelings by their very existence, leaving no room for conversation, rational thought, or debate. A physical wall that by its very existence separates you …

Our country is based on immigration, and most of the immigrants don’t have the connections or relationships to apply or be accepted for legal entrance. “Immigration policy should be generous; it should be fair; it should be flexible. With such a policy we can turn to the world, and to our own past, with clean hands and a clear conscience”(JFK). Morally speaking, I believe the wall should not be built because we should allow people of all backgrounds here in the U.S. and to stop being egotistical by building a wall to try and separate ourselves from everyone else. Statistically speaking, the wall is like Band-Aid. It doesn’t solve the problems that some hope to solve. It won’t deter anything, because almost half of all undocumented immigrants come by plane and not just from Mexico, where the wall would be built.

To stop the construction of a border wall I propose for a new policy. A new policy would be more beneficial and safer, “Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life” (JFK). We should have immigrants do service to the U.S. during the required five years of residency. To expand on this proposition, new immigrants would still get a job during the five years of having a green card, but there would also be certain hours like community service assigned to everyone so we could not only have people care for the nation they are soon to be a citizen of, but we’d also decrease the level of pollution in our environment that causes so many health problems. By taking action on this proposition, we would spend less money than we do on paid services, so we would have time to slowly preserve some money to help mend our eighteen trillion dollar debt. We would still spend some money on the tools needed, but just think that it’s not nearly as much as the wall would cost. This new policy could stand for years and years and it would not stand as a barrier made of hate that would mess up our relationship with our allies.

For these reason and these reasons only, our country would be one nation indivisible allowing liberty and justice for all. We should not turn our backs on places that have helped us, the barrier won’t work because as humans we strive to survive and foreigners won’t stop trying to have the life they know they deserve, the barrier is just a way to deal with problems without actually dealing with them. I hope you see that this barrier is not our only option to organize immigration. We need to speak out and say that we need a new policy so no one gets abused or discriminated against by a country once seen as a safe haven. A new policy is just what we need, we are still the America that is based upon immigration.

Sincerely, 

Claire