Dear President Elect,

Deportation has become more and more of an issue. Let me tell you what’s going on right now. All immigrants come here seeking the American dream, they come because they want a better life for them and their families. Sometimes they come illegally and they live in constant fear of deportation and separation because they know deportations are occurring and fear that they could be next. Sometimes, because of fear of deportations, children routinely confuse the police for immigration officials. Undocumented immigrants should not be separated from their U.S. born children, families need each other for support. As the next president, I hope you help to stop deportation.

Deportations devastate families and communities, separate families and sometimes leave many U.S. born children with unauthorized parents in the care of the government.. “Deportations leave many U.S.citizen children with unauthorized parents in foster care often for no other reason than the undocumented status of a parent at cost of nearly $26,000 per year for each child. The federal government now deports nearly 400,000 immigrants each year, creating a humanitarian disaster in which families are destroyed and communities torn apart” (immigrationimpact.com). According to Elise Foley, “the Obama administration deported a record 438,421 unauthorized immigrants in fiscal year 2013, continuing a streak of stepped up enforcement that has resulted in more than 2 million deportations since Obama took office…” (pewresearch.org). Most of these immigrants who were deported in 2013 have one or more U.S.-born children. These families were separated as consequence of deportation they had to leave their children, wives or husbands and return to their home countries.

Illegal immigrants are important to the U.S. economy, they benefit the U.S economy. “According to the Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, there were 8.4 million unauthorized immigrants employed in the U.S., representing 5.2 percent of the U.S. labor force…” Many of the jobs that these immigrants have are jobs that Americans won’t do. Jobs that nobody would like to have. They are concentrated in low-skill jobs, and low-paying. The Texas Comptroller Susan Combs stated that, “without the undocumented population, Texas’ workforce would decrease by 6.3 percent” and Texas’ gross state product would decrease by 2.1 percent. Furthermore, certain segments of the U.S. economy, like agriculture, are entirely dependent upon illegal immigrants.” (thehill.com) This shows that unauthorized immigrants play a very important role in the U.S economy. Those immigrants are representing the 5.2 percent of the U.S. labor force. So that means that without them U.S. workforce would decrease. Some segments of the U.S. economy are dependent upon unauthorized immigrants.

Some people who are against immigration think that all undocumented immigrants should be deported, especially those who have children since they are living off the government. Also some people feel that these immigrants are “criminals” and “not paying taxes”. But this is not true, most undocumented immigrants are not criminals, they are just working hard to give a better future, a better education to their children and help their families economically in their countries. Also, they pay taxes in spite of their undocumented status. As undocumented immigrants they live in constant fear of being deported and separated from their loved ones but still contribute to the economy.

Undocumented immigrants should not be separated from their U.S.-born children. It is important because family should be to together and they need each other for support. When parents of U.S.-born children are deported, their U.S.-born children go to foster care or they stay with another family member. But sometimes the U.S.-born children leave with them. We need help to stop deportations. Illegal immigrants are important in the U.S economy, they benefit the U.S economy by paying taxes, and contributing to the communities. These unauthorized immigrants live in constant fear of being deported and be separated from their loved ones. These children who are U.S. citizens grow up afraid of the police because they think they are immigration officials. There are many of hard-working illegal immigrants that come seeking for the American dream (to get a better life and help their families.) We need help to stop deportations.

Sincerely,

Jhoseline V.