America is a country built on immigration and it continues to flourish because of the variety of culture and people that flock to this country.

When congress threatened to tighten up the borders and consider illegal immigrants felons red flags went up in the Hispanic community. Immigrants and supporters have held protests and hunger strikes because they disagree with congress and they would like to see laws that would make them legal as well as be able to bring family members into the United States.

It’s not enough that immigrants from Mexico risk their lives in an attempt to work in the U.S. for low wages but now our government is hatching a plan to make their plight even more difficult. Once immigrants end up in the U.S. it’s not exactly a world of opportunity either. All we have to offer them are low wage jobs that usually include long hours of strenuous labor.

The blame can’t be placed entirely on congress. After all, they revised their immigration reform to try and devise a way to make the 11 million immigrants in the U.S. legal while making sure they still tighten the border. No, the blame can also rest on the shoulders of U.S. employers who love to exploit immigrant workers by denying them decent wages and health care.

Since congress is trying to make good on immigration reform by trying to establish illegal immigrants as legal they should also work on initiatives to improve their rights as workers. U.S. employers should be held to high standards and if they violate basic worker’s rights then they deserve to face costly fines. If congress wanted to prosecute illegal immigrants then perhaps they should look into employer’s practices and see what laws they’ve been abusing.

The issue of immigration affects a great number of people and protests have had not just thousands but millions of people come out in full force. Illegal immigrants face issues that most people don’t even think of, like making enough money to send back home in order to provide for a family that they barely spend time with because they have to work so many hours in the U.S. It’s unbalanced and illegal immigrants should have the basic rights that anyone else does if they’re employed and contributing to the economy.

This isn’t about relaxing about the borders and opening the flood gates. This is about equal rights for the people who come to the U.S. and make up a significant percentage of the population who deserve to treated like citizens-not slave labor.