Dear Mr. or Madame President,

First of all, congratulations on your big win! I hope that during your term, you decide to change the immigration policies for illegal immigrants we have and remember that words matter and immigrants are people who deserve just as much respect as American citizens. It is also vital that you assess the situation from a larger perspective. This problem stems from the lack of resources, jobs, and opportunities in Mexico and Central America. If we work on empowering and helping the people and economy in those countries, we can stop this problem where it starts.

In recent years, there has been an inflation in the number of undocumented immigrants in America. There were 11.1 million illegal immigrants here in 2014 and 52% of those people were from Mexico.  (Pew Research Center) This number is causing a severe decline in the number of jobs readily available for the citizens of the U.S. Undocumented immigrants will work for prices lower than U.S. citizens which makes employees want to hire them more than their fellow Americans. This can be fixed by a better naturalization process.

Not only is immigration causing a decrease in jobs for the citizens of America, these people aren’t paying taxes which is reducing the revenue of our government and, in turn, the wealth of our country. Immigrants also won’t pay these taxes unless they’ve gone through the laborious process to become a citizen. As president, you need to make this process easier and more inviting to our immigrants. If you were an immigrant and the process was simple but still effective, you would be more motivated to become a citizen and then be able to pay taxes. More taxes being paid eventually becomes more money for the government; more money to help fight wars and put towards education, cleanup of areas hit by natural disasters, and transportation and infrastructure in cities and rural areas among other things.

However, the issue isn’t only in the decrease in jobs and the process to become a citizen. Many people think what the force and protection we have on the border to Mexico isn’t enough. But the problem doesn’t lie in more enforcement; we don’t need a wall or simply more police at the border. Despite increased enforcement by Mexico, many unauthorized Central Americans are still reaching the U.S. via Mexico. If these people wanted to live in Mexico and Central America and they thought they had opportunities there, than we wouldn’t have this problem at all. We need to understand how to help the people already in Mexico and Central America and how to help them live in their own countries. We need to empower Mexico and help the people there have the same jobs and opportunities they could have in America.

Nevertheless, there are still a lot of immigrants in America and we can’t deport all of them. If you try to deport so many people, you are breaking families apart and causing grief for many people. Instead, investigate which immigrants are violent threats to the people and only deport those people. Most undocumented immigrants aren’t bringing drugs or violence into the U.S. and grouping them together is wrong. By filtering the immigrants into different groups will give those with no criminal background and families freedom and those you are criminals justification.

While changing the laws when it comes to immigration, my advice to you is that words matter. You are talking about real people, not illegal aliens, people who deserve to be respected. When you are creating these laws (to make the naturalization process simple, to empower Mexico and Central America, and to deport only those who are violent threats to the public, use respect and words that help make the undocumented immigrants feel welcome) it important that you think about how you will say them. If you use force or violent words when putting any of your laws into place, more people will fight against them. Overall, I hope you take this letter into consideration and change the current immigration laws to help the country.

Sincerely,

Lindsay