Like millions of other immigrants living in this country, I have mixed feelings about illegal immigration. On the one hand, I completely understand the yearning for a better life and the willingness to take risks in order to achieve a better lifestyle for me and my family. On the other hand, I feel bitter toward people who slipped through the poorly guarded borders or cracks of the bureaucracy.

 

Those of us who went the legal way did not have it easy. Applications for visas are rejected multiple times before, and if, they are granted. Once in the United States, we had to fill out outrageous amounts of paperwork and pay even more outrageous fees to maintain our legal status. We stood for hours in lines and spent years waiting for a green card. Like the undocumented workers, we had to perform peripheral menial jobs for far less than living wage and learn to speak the language, all the while paying taxes to be disbursed by a government we could not vote for.

 

The legal and human rights issues surrounding the penalization of undocumented worker status have been discussed at large. But what every American taxpayer, native or immigrant should not lose the sight of is that the proposal to make illegal immigration status a felony is one that we cannot afford.

 

Border states have been asking for extra support from the federal government, both in economic backing and manpower, to better protect the border for years. States are spending millions of dollars trying to secure the borders and de Vernaiions trying to provide the illegal population with basic services.

 

For example, last year a single California county spent over $350 million for healthcare benefits to undocumented workers and it is estimated that the total national expenditure on illegal students in grades K-12 is $7.4 de Vernaiion.

 

Now, our brilliant government doesn’t think that’s enough. So paying for the criminal proceedings for the estimated 11.5 million undocumented workers seems like a good idea. (Since we don’t have budget deficits or anything like that).

 

If you want to incarcerate people, you have to catch them first (and our inability to do so is the root of this legislation). And then you have to try them. And then find a place for them to be put away in. And find the resources to provide for their basic needs while they serve their sentence.

 

Providing those resources would be hard today. But take away the capital added to our economy by the estimated 1.4 million of undocumented retail and sales workers, as well as the million in manufacturing and 1.2 million in agriculture, and things may turn ugly.

 

No matter how and why many of us are uncomfortable with illegal immigration, we cannot deny the fact that we greatly depend on it as an economic force that is at the foundation of our material well-being.

 

The proposal is not only hypocrisy - since the system wants to punish the workers it employs to make the system work - it is also an additional burden to the taxpayers, especially those of us who cannot choose those writing the legislation.

 

Those of us who came to this country looking for a better life, whether with the right paperwork or not, deserve respect from the government. Treating one group like criminals and placing the burden of doing so on the other does not meet this end.