Reflection 1: Our Country & Our Solutions

The 21st Century. A prosperous century that focuses on equality and innovation. So how do we incorporate this into the rising flow of immigrants from South America? The U.S Government has many ideas, none of which are the a solution. As opposed to taking action, the different parties and politicians idle and argue over the subject of immigration that is currently taking place at the southern U.S border.

One of the first to make a move was Rick Perry, Governor of Texas. He deployed 1,000 troops to the border to work alongside law enforcement. He states in a BBC News Article that "he had to act because the federal government had failed to secure the border". With the increasing number of troops, the deportations increase as well. However, it is not the deportation of those who have already crossed, but those that have just managed to cross, or personnel that are considered dangerous. Yet as we attempt to "secure" the border, the more we seem to meet with failure. For the problem is not in securing the border, but ensuing a better living environment for the residents that continuously attempt to secure an abode in the US.

The people who cross, children especially, are leaving cities filled with gangs, overpopulation, and poverty. Many hope to find a better life in the United States. We do nothing to discourage them from entering. Gangs begin to cross as well, and we must than deal with the fear that sweeps throughout towns as shootings take place throughout neighborhoods.

In the book, The Distance Between Us, Reyna Grande describes her crossing from Mexico to the U.S. and she discusses how her family's new life in the U.S. is a better life. However, her crossing is fraught with perils, and is burdened with the prospect of getting caught, and than deported. Too get deported means to return to a life stricken with poverty, of not always knowing when you will get a meal.

For Reyna Grande and her family it meant to live in conditions riddled with epidemics of many natures. And to contract an illness meant to attempt to cure it with home remedies, many of which weren't sufficient enough. For Reyna's family and for many families coming from Latin America and Mexico to the U.S., money was, and still is, very hard to come by. The reason for this, Reyna Grande states on page six of her book, "The year before, the peso was devalued 45 percent to the US dollar." In that one sentence, the reason for the rising flow of immigrants becomes more obvious. Throughout the timeline in the book, the peso devalued even more, driving Reyna and her family from her homeland, where she came from. Yet she never forgot where she came from.

With the peso's value devaluing at such a rapid rate, and jobs becoming scarce, the source of much of the problem, seems to start with the foreign governments. As one article states, we in the U.S. are going about this in the wrong way, "Our foreign policy priorities must shift, and we must invest more talent and resources in collaborating with Latin American governments to fix their broken countries, economies, and societies." Yet the U.S. instead continues to send troops to the border, who in turn can not keep up with the flow of immigrants pouring into the United States. This in turn allows more gangs, weapons, and drugs to enter the US undetected and unhindered.  The solution to the problem lies within the cooperation of the Americas.