Argumentative Essay On Mexican Immigration

Carlos Garcia returns home from a long day of work in the tobacco fields. He has just enough money from today’s work in his pocket to buy dinner for his wife and children. He ponders how he will be able to pay this month’s rent and provide his children with 3 meals a day. Later that night, as he is watching the evening news, a report airs on illegal immigrants being deported in his area. He shoots his wife a concerned look, they both wonder if their family will be next. Unfortunately, this is a reality faced by many Hispanic immigrants. Hispanic immigrants are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as “a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race”. Hispanic immigrants come to the

Mexico, with half its population under 30, is struggling to find enough jobs for the young people who enter the workforce each year (“Mexicans”). Mexicans have often seen a better opportunity for work in the United States. These immigrants “are commonly hired at wages below the legal minimum, working in unsafe conditions, and facing inhumane and discriminatory treatment” (“Immigration and Naturalization Service”). Many immigrants find work as a migrant worker, in fact “25% of 1-2 million farmworkers in the U.S. are undocumented immigrants” (Passel and Cohn). Tens of thousands of migrant workers travel to North Carolina each year to harvest tobacco (“Conditions in Fields”). A team of researchers interviewed some of these migrant workers, “One in four-22 of the 86 workers interviewed- reported that they were paid less than the federally mandated minimum wage of $7.25 per hour” (Conditions in Fields”). With that hourly wage, “the average income for a crop worker is between $10,000 and $12,500” (“Conditions in Fields”). That income makes it extremely difficult, especially for families, to live a comfortable