Dear Next President of the United States,

My name is Andrea Hernandez and I believe that immigrants are a big part of the U.S that belong here as much as any other American does. Without immigration many remaining Americans won’t be able to produce the same amount and quality of work that immigrants in American produce and the nation would end.

I’m an immigrant that came to the United States 13 years go from Guadalajara, Jalisco with the dream of being something big in life. My parents came with the desire of a better paying job that could help them support me and my sister. My dad currently gets paid $35 and works all 40 hours in an Union due to the years of experience. He’s always been a hard working man, always giving me and my sister what we need. Out of all those years that we have living here in America, I have not seen my dad stop working and that’s because he’s of course taking advantage of the good pay he gets here. My dad is not that person who is “taking away” citizens their jobs, in fact he’s helping America by making the streets of this country better. With all those years of experience how are you supposed to find a person who does the same quality of job my dad does in a short amount of time? Or how is a person who doesn’t even have experience going to do the job? Now, I did not come to this country to just be here without taking advantage of the opportunity life has given me. As an immigrant student who thought of just finishing high school and nothing further because of the social security, now has DACA. I’m not here to ”take” citizens their jobs, I’m here to help the community of the United States. I know that there is many Americans as there is immigrants who are just here doing nothing, so that being equal why take immigrants their opportunity?

Immigrants are beneficial to the United States. Just like there is lazy immigrants, there is lazy Americans, just how there is productive immigrants there is productive Americans. Many immigrants come to the US with the American dream just like I me and my family. When DACA was released in 2012 there was a law where the person had to have clean criminal record, so I mean, does this mean we “are sending our worst”. We didn’t come here to make America great, but now that I think about it we are already making America great again by taking the advantage of the opportunity we have. Those who have DACA are taking life serious, I mean can you not tell? Since receiving DACA, it is shown that young adult immigrants have become more integrated into the nation’s economic institutions. 61% of DACA recipients surveyed have obtained a new job since receiving DACA, over half have opened their first bank account, and 38% have obtained their first credit card. Additionally, 61% have obtained a driver’s license, which has likely widened educational, employment, and other options for these young adult immigrants. “In 2014, 10.5 million immigrants had a college degree or higher, representing about 29 percent of the total 36.7 million U.S. foreign-born population ages 25 and over. College-educated immigrants are more likely to have advanced degrees than their U.S.-born counterparts. In 2014, 14 percent of the college-educated foreign born held professional or doctorate degrees, compared to 10 percent of their native-born peers. Both groups were almost equally likely to have a master’s degree (28 percent for the foreign born and 27 percent for the native born)”

So are you going to find people in a short amount of time that do the job that those immigrants already have experience on?

Immigration labor will sink . “If only it were that easy — that the only consequence of driving unauthorized farm workers out of the U.S. would be a few more pennies on the price of lettuce or an extra nickel for an avocado. In fact, the likely upshot would be far worse and would cut far deeper into our economic well-being.” No one in America is going to take advantage from taking away immigrant farm workers. The cost of this won't be pennies, it will run to billions of dollars. This is because immigrant workers aren't a "cheap labor" alternative, like many Americans think, in fact they are the only labor available to do many jobs that Americans cannot do. If they were to be eliminated, most of them wouldn’t be replaced. Instead, the economy would drop along with many other jobs often filled by more skilled Americans. In 1960, half of all citizen men in the U.S. labor force dropped out of high school motivated to take unskilled outdoor jobs in agriculture and construction. Now, there is less than 10 percent of the native-born men in the workforce that want that high school diploma they threw off. The economy still generates plenty of unskilled jobs, and most unskilled immigrants don't replace American workers. They don't just work on farmland, but also chambermaid, busboy and others that would go empty if immigrants were to be eliminated. They take place in those jobs like foremen, accountants, waiters, chefs and more at the businesses where they work and others in the surrounding community. Many think that by raising the wage any American would take the job but not really, especially if it's a farm job. This is the type of job that is done outdoors and must get done no matter how hot or cold the weather is.

There isn’t gunna be as many jobs. In 2007 12.2 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the U.S. but it increased in 2014 with 11.3 million. Those who are working made up 5.1 percent of the nation’s labor force in 2012, and if you take these workers away, you're removing 8.1 million workers from the American labor force which is more than there is and there are not enough Americans who will fill all the jobs undocumented workers have now. There were 8.3 million unemployed workers in the U.S. and in there were almost the same amount as the number of undocumented workers in July. Some of those workers would have to stay jobless, which means some jobs would go unfilled meaning there will be jobs lost for Americans. According to economists, every farm job supports three to four others up and downstream in the local economy. What about those people who make and sell fertilizer and farm machinery? Those who work in trucking, food processing, grocery stores and restaurants? Do we really want to lose those jobs too? No one in America is going to benefit from expelling immigrant farm workers. Remember the cost won't be pennies it will be billions of dollars.

That's exactly what will happen if unauthorized farm workers were to be expelled from the U.S. Not just more expensive produce, but the decrement of American labor. “Instead of milk from a nearby dairy, the only kind available would come from abroad, and it would be irradiated or powdered. Meat would come from Brazil, shellfish from Thailand, fruits and vegetables from New Zealand — and that's the good, expensive stuff. There would be plenty of inferior products too, and much less of anything would be fresh.” So president, why get rid of immigrants if we are great resource for the country? Many of us came to “the other side” to be someone in life, to reach our dreams. Many of us have been in this country for many years, doing farm work that no American is going to replace in a few days, nor the quality of work that we already have experience on. So really think about the words being said in this letter.

Sincerely,

Andrea H.