I know about your laws against us. I know about your 700 miles fence. But they can't keep out starving people. You can build your wall into the ocean, we'll swim around it. You can build it a mile deep into the ground, we'll dig under it. You can build it a mile into the sky, we'll climb over it.
I've been across that desert so many times after coming here and being sent back I know each stone and mound of dirt. Sometimes dirt is my best friend. On the worst days I've sucked water from it. Eaten bugs and dead animals to survive, getting so sick one time I threw up blood.
In my country, if you have a job you're lucky. If you loose it, you might not get another one. And if you loose your job and you're over thirty you'll never work again. I don't have enough money to bribe officials and business people to keep work. At the boarder, we'll run between your cars selling whatever we can get our hands on. Even a few of your dollars can feed us for weeks.
Here I've seen your kids complain that they are sad, everyone's got an iphone except them. In my country, on special occasions like my birthday, my mom would give us a couple eggs. She'd dress 'em up nice, but seeing the want in my sister's eyes I'd always share. Your kids get Ring Dings and Yoo Hoos for snacks. We'd get fruit that was laying around so long it was starting to change a rotten color. Just having shoes was a treat for us. I don't ask for much.
To get across the boarder, I've spent thousands of dollars on men who squeeze money out of you like they're racing to skin a jack rabbit because they haven't eaten for weeks. I've had your lawyers take thousands of dollars for a green card they knew they'd never give me, explaining weeks later that the money was gone "Because that paperwork is expensive."
I've worked in your factories where companies make lots of money off us as we sweat all day without air conditioning or fans. We pay your social security and Medicare without ever a chance of getting any of that money. We pay your gas tax, food and clothing tax, but I don't know where that money goes. Don't know. Don't see it.
I know your president wants to work some amnesty deal where we admit we're illegal and we go back to our country to wait for a visa. I'll never turn myself in because I'll die before I ever see that promised visa. Even family and friends who have their green cards have to wait three, five, ten, eleven years to see their kids. One time when I was back in my country, my neighbor came home to get her daughter who looked at her mom stranger than a stranger in the street.
I know you want to control us. You want to protect your country. But you took what was ours long ago. You forced us to come back illegal. That ain't nice but I'm not angry. I just need to get some work and send money back to my family. I only wish I could get my story out to more of you. I know what I'd say. I know what I'd show you. Pictures of my kids with tears in their smiles. They're brave but if they wake up scared at night or don't know why they get so sad and lonely I'm not there to lift them with my arms and heart. And that hurts. I know you know that's true.
I don't want you to give me much. Just let me work, send money home, and know that I'd do just about anything to keep doing it. And I don't even want to stay in your country. I've got nearly enough money sent home and saved to buy a little house and some land. That's all I want. That's all I want. I hope you understand. Look in your kid's eyes and if they reflect back to you any hope, that's all I want. Some of that reflected hope shinning on me and mine. Nothing big. Nothing much.
God bless.
An Illegal Immigrant, a human, just like you.
