Dear Future President of the United States,

Throughout the many debates and speeches, I have witnessed a topic that is repeatedly talked about and is a huge factor on which candidate to pick this year, the topic of Illegal Immigration. When deporting immigrants, it breaks up their families, leaving kids with no mother, and will ruin not only their economic standing, but stops the life they were looking forward to having.

Every year, children get ripped away from their families, some to never see their mom or dad again. They have to be put into foster homes, and pretend everything's okay, when inside they are hurting and missing their parents. It happens so often, yet sometimes families don’t get split up. Instead they face poverty, with no employers wanting them and no schools accepting them. Their living conditions worsen, having to sit outside in the cold winter days, trying to protect their children from the dangers of the streets. By deporting the Immigrants or even letting them stay, we can’t say that it’s their fault for the way they are living, that we are simply doing what they knew would happen, it’s us to blame for the way they are treated. If we worked together with immigrants, and focused on fixing the problem instead of pushing it away, it would give us the chance to help keep families intact and happy. It would give them a chance to have a brighter and better future. Throughout your term, I hope to see a change in the way we treat immigrants. They deserve better than sitting out on the streets, they deserve a chance to see the true beauty of America.

Armando Ibanez, an illegal immigrant that crossed the border 14 years ago, had to face this hardship with his mother and two younger siblings. His journey is mentioned in CBS’ “"You have to live in fear": One undocumented immigrant's story” with him talking about the difficulties he faced along the way. While he was coming to America, he was faced with the problem of having little to no food to eat and he still, 14 years later, is unable to go to a four year university. We have to remember that these people are human, they want to live a normal life, but can’t due to their country’s current state. As president, I would hope that you would see these stories and make a change in the way we handle this problem. They shouldn’t be forced into making minimum wage, they should have the choice of going to school, being our next top doctor or lawyer, and having a family of their own. They should be treated equally to any other American.

The problem we are seeing has a possibility to get better and maybe even fixed, yet we are unable to do that, when the process to get a green card makes it extremely difficult to live in this country legally. Immigrants have to wait months to years in order to get a green card, yet alone find a house and a job to work at. So if they are able to skip that waiting period, obviously, they would take the chance to do so. If we want to lower the amount of illegal immigrants, the first step is to make an easy approach to becoming a citizen. They shouldn’t have to sit and wait, nor feel that the only option is to sneak in illegally. It is unfortunate that they have to face this difficulty, with some having kids as young as 1 years old. This is one step that I hope to see you as a president make. With little to no illegal immigrants coming after we fix this part of the problem, and not having to shut people out of the country if it works, it gives America the chance of both parties being somewhat satisfied. It’s a great compromise that benefits everyone, instead of just one or two points of view, and that is what we need in this situation.

Illegal Immigration is an important thing to discuss and I know that this will be one of your top priorities while you are in office. I am looking forward to see how you are going to deal with this problem, and hope that you are able to understand how difficult it is to live the way that many immigrants have to. Thank you.