My Trip To Washington D.C.

There was recently a nationwide march to Washington D.C. in an effort to push the Obama administration to act on immigration reform. I was lucky to attend this once in a lifetime experience. An estimated 200 buses departed from Illinois, along with allies from other states to rally on the National Mall lawn. On this 14-hour journey I had so many thoughts cross my mind. I thought of how similar our march for immigration reform is to the March on Washington in 1963. Considering experiences between undocumented immigrants and African Americans were not exactly the same, we still see a pattern in poor education, housing, limited opportunities and dangerous rough labor conditions.

With this immigration reform, some of the modifications I would like to see are as follows;

*Equal and fair education for all. Many children grow up in the United States and are brought here because of their parents hopes for a better future for their children. Approximately 65 thousand undocumented children graduate high school each year. Almost none are able to attend college because of the financial burden, even though they invested their lives and education in our system.

*A halt in the seperation of families. As I said before, many families are being torn apart. Everyday thousands of families are broken because of our unfair and complicated laws and many children born here have to live and work for their family back home in another country. What we are doing is not American. We are limiting resources and opportunities for these children of our future with already limited resources and opporunities. It is impossible to live without fear of being seperated from your family without a trace.

*Refugee support. Now I am not as aware on the laws and trials of refugees and rights. But I understand that our process to get refugees to succed on their own consists of one-months rent, a couch, and some utnecils. Many of these refugees come here from horrid living conditions or war. Many of them have never set foot in a culture such as this of the United States and many do not speak English. We need to establish a system that can better support these refugees and families to help them adapt and learn a way of life in the United States.

*And a more comprehendible practical citizenship process. It is unfair how, for some people the citizenship process takes longer than 10 years and for others, it takes less than 2 years. Not to mention, how paper work gets 'lost' and the expenses are so high.

I know that it is impractical to dream of a utopia and citizenship for all, but as of now i can say that reform is needed in these areas and changes need to be made.