By Karina de Freitas
The U.S must help all immigrant children.
These children have come here looking for support and hope for a better life. Most of the children have traveled from Central America. They have been suffering due to poverty. Some have been forced to work and to sell drugs. The parents of these children can’t give them a life that children should have.
The undocumented immigrant children who have been detained by the U.S. immigration system can be interviewed up to two hours. Journalists report the children have shared stories of extreme violence, and fear of being caught up in gangs. Forty-eight percent of the children “shared experiences of how they had been personally affected by the augmented violence” at the hands of “organized armed criminal actors, including drug cartels and gangs, or by state actors.” Recently in El Salvador there was a very public massacre and dismemberment of children as young as seven who had refused to join the gang. So it was a message to show who is in power, who is in control.
These children had to walk thousands of miles to get to the U.S. Some children died trying to get here. They are just looking for hope, we need to help them. They are just children, they didn’t ask to born in that kind of life or in this world. We are all human. If there is some compassion inside of us, we will help them in any way we can.
If every state here cooperates and helps, if they can be helpful and open their hearts for these poor children, I’m very sure in the future we will be so blessed because we did something good. These children will grow up to have a better life, everybody wants that. Suppose you were living the same way, your children have no school, no food–they have to work instead having a life that a child should have. Would you let your children suffer? Would you allow your children to be involved with criminals? No I don’t think you would. You would look for help; you would do anything to help them.
Do you know how much these children have been going through in their life or even to get here? Do you think they wish to live like that? Do you think they would come here if their life was better?
These poor children deserve a good life as much as we all do. They worked to get here and they are just children, they don’t know how beautiful life can be, they are living a nightmare. These people aren’t coming here for economic opportunity. They are fleeing for their lives. We should do something to help them.
I know is difficulty to help someone who is not born in your country. They will have the same right that you have they will go to school with your children, they are going to live. Once again they are just trying to survive; I know you would do the same thing. So let’s do something and give them a reason to live again.
