Growing up, I always hated the terms "illegal immigrant" and "illegal alien." Personally, I feel like no human is illegal, they should be called the rulebreakers, because they broke the rules in order to come into a foreign country to pursue their dreams, goals, or ambitions. We as humans shouldn't be called illegal, it's a derogatory term because at the end of the day we're all the same, we're made up of the same matter, with the same hopes and dreams. Just some chose to pursue them differently.

Growing up Chicana has always been hard for me. Especially growing up in the suburbs where Mexicans were a rare sight.I don't think there was a day in high school where someone didn't ask about my residency status. With questions such as "Where's your green card?" or "How did you cross the border" constantly thrown at me or the big "Consuela why haven't you cleaned my house?" It literally was ugly, and at one point I literally hated my heritage because of it. I remember at one point my mom wanted to go on vacation to Vegas to visit my aunt for a couple weeks and took us out of school a week early before winter break, well since we were gone for a long time rumors started spreading around that my family had crossed el río grande to renew our visas or get visas in order to come back. I remember how infuriated I was when I was told about this nonsense. It's ridiculous how people can be so racist to this day.

What inspired me to write this article was my little sister talking to me about how this kid at her middle school approached her about her getting deported back to her home country as soon as Trump takes office. LOL, like, what? We were born here, either way, America needs Mexicans to run. Without us, America wouldn't be what it is today. It makes me so mad because I love my heritage, it's beautiful. The culture is beautiful, the architecture, the food, the music, and the people are all beautiful. We, as Hispanics, are hard working compassionate people, and Trump shouldn't be used as ammunition for racism.

Imagine America without Mexicans. It’s a cold, gloomy day. The clouds have taken over the sky and the streets are filled with crowds and people praying. The economy has collapsed. Businesses are closing left and right, there’s not enough money coming in, there’s an apocalypse rising, the demand is growing higher and higher but there’s no one to provide it or do the labor to work for it. The one-percent’s riches are dwindling paying for expensive cleaning services due to the fact their maid was sent back to her home country, after losing a large quantity of their money and give up on the cleaning facilities, and all of their employees for that matter they are forced to clean their own house, take care of their own kids, and they are the first to collapse since they are not used to waiting on themselves. Millions of houses go under foreclosure because businesses are closing due to lack of employees working and not enough money to keep them running. The people are hungry, but the demand for food is big and it’s not available because no American wants to be in the presence of harmful chemicals needed to grow the food supply that GMOs yield and there isn’t money to fund it. Without the support of illegal immigration, America would completely collapse, despite the fact that the people didn’t come the correct way and some people arguing that they are “stealing” our jobs. We need them to survive. In the article “Welfare Effects of Illegal Immigration” written by Theodore Palivos it highlights the positive aspects that illegal immigrants contribute to the United States, whereas in the article, “Illegal Immigration,” written by Wilfred J. Ethier, it highlights how illegal immigration isn’t as good for our economy as it seems, and how a mass deportation would improve our economy. I am for illegal immigration and I believe they have the right to be in this country as much as we do, especially when most of them pay taxes and have been calling this country home for more than 20 years.

Illegal immigration or an illegal immigrant is an immigrant who wants to come and actually comes to live and work in the United States, without being approved of to enter.

According to the article by Palivos, “Welfare Effects Of Illegal Immigration,” illegal immigration is present in almost every country, adding up to 15-20 percent of the population being illegal immigrants. It’s also stereotyped that mainly those of Hispanic descent are the ones who accumulate the large portion of illegal immigrants. Mexicans only making up 59 percent, are followed closely by Asia and Central American immigrants who each come in with 11 percent (total of 22 percent) of the current illegal immigrant population.

Also stated in the article is that legal immigrants living in the United States make approximately 40.8 percent more than illegal immigrants do, given they may do the same jobs, or that the illegal aliens may do more dangerous ones and get paid less. The article also talks about how the illegal immigrants endure foreign labor which is illegal in the United States and basically slavery; considering they’re paid pennies for the hard work they do every single day only to send according to reliable data 49 percent of their earnings abroad to their families back in their home countries.

The article not only acknowledges the pennies these immigrants make, but it also notes that the illegal aliens also pay taxes to the United States government, not only that but studies show that the main recipient of government assistance are the white people in 2014 39.8 percent of their population on government assistance, followed by 25.5 percent of the black population on Welfare, and 10.9 percent of the Hispanic population. It’s a dramatic difference between them, considering that the legal immigrants residing in our country constantly accuse the illegal immigrants or “Mexicans” a term used loosely of taking advantage of government assistance provided to residents of this country, where most of them don’t even take advantage of it.

In the article “Illegal Immigration” written by Wilfred J. Ethier, it highlights the negative aspects of illegal immigration. Emphasizing the “stealing” jobs component from those who are unemployed and struggle in finding a job. In the first line of the article it clearly states: “Illegal immigration is the major international economic issue facing the United States.” Ethier talks about how in 2012, researchers at the Cato Institute estimated that a mass deportations policy would reduce economic growth by around $250 billion per year. Giving those at the very bottom of the pyramid income distribution, specifically those without a high school diploma a chance to earn higher wages in the absence of undocumented immigrants. Given that they take over the jobs that undocumented immigrants do. However, undocumented immigrants benefit the economy, because again they work the jobs no one else wants at a cheaper pay. It also highlighted that between 2000 and 2007, for example, it accounted for more than a sixth of the increase in our total civilian labor force. The illegal part of the civilian labor force diminished last year as the economy slowed, though illegals still comprised an estimated 5 percent of our total civilian labor force. Unauthorized immigrants are a flexible component of our workforce. Ethier also made a statement in his article writing “Illegal aliens cost more in government services than they contribute to the economy.” After doing some research and reading the previous article “Welfare Effects of Illegal Immigration” written by Theodore Palivos, Ethier’s statement is false. Every study done on the economic impact illegals have on the U.S. illegals' shows the opposite: undocumenteds actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services.

Given by proper research illegal immigrants benefit our economy and our society. They give back to our country, the only mistake they made was the way they arrived. Calling a mass deportation would only break families apart. Imagine coming home one day and your parents being gone. How heartbroken would you be?

It's time that Mexicans and all those of Hispanic heritage are accepted as individuals for who they are, not for what they've done or for what they're labeled as.

I was born in the U.S.A., and I am as much American as you are.

But before American, I am Mexican. I'm proud of it.