Dream and/or Nightmare?

Immigration. South-North/East-West.

I've been an immigrant, and I'll tell you, it didn't feel like it was a good thing. I've always been a bit naive, and when i moved to Spain en 2005 i expected the experience to be something like the one i had had in Minnesota, when i was 13 and then when i was 15, as a middle and high school exchange student.

Of course being a teenage foreign exchange student isn't the same as being a university exchange student, and of course it isn't anything like being a middle-aged unemployed desperate undocumented immigrant. But I still imagined my year-stay in Spain would be different. I didn't know many Spaniards and was very unaware of the impact that undocumented immigrants, especially African undocumented immigrants, had already had in the average Spanish mentality and in their attitude towards foreigners.

I don't know about the "being an immigrant" before my time, but for what i read in history books, it was never such a great thing, but it was also never as un-great as it is now.

With Silvio Berlusconi (Italy's Prime Minister) talking about a "project" that would make illegal immigration a crime punishable with jail time (up to 4 years)and the U.S. Immigration Forces operations multiplying and strengthening the measures against undocumented immigrants, being an immigrant seems anything but appealing. The other day I hear on tve (Spanish tv) Spanish professionals talk about also punishing illegal immigration with jail time. And it's not like other European countries like France, Germany, Sweden and Great Britain, haven't already adopted similar measures. They have. The question is: is this the smartest thing to do?

Every sovereign country has the right to choose who to let in and for how long. We each make our own rules (based in a few universal principles). That's the way it works. The problem is, that as simple as it is, this are very complex times- and we need to come up with new, fresh and smarter solutions. We need to look at the bigger picture. It isn't even a question of "humanity" or "solidarity" (although it would be nice); it is about being able to coexist in peace and contentment in this world that continues to prove itself to be completely co-dependent and on the verge of disaster.

Harsh immigration measures clearly have "collateral damage". This damage might make the effort not even worth it. Countries have every right to fight illegal immigration, but they shouldn't do it in ways that intensify xenophobia and racism. This is a high price to pay that can surely lead to bigger problems.

People need to understand that even if undocumented immigrants are acting outside the law, illegally, they are not criminals. Most of the people that take this chance, leaving their homeland, their family, their identity and overall their lives, they are solely doing it in the hopes of giving their family a better life. I mean, do you think that anyone would want to leave their own home to go to a strange country, to live in hiding, constantly scared and excluded? I don't think so. Most illegal immigrants are nothing but hard working people trying to make a decent living, most times not even for themselves, but for their loved ones. It hurts me to see them made out to be criminals and thieves...it isn't fair.

Last month 389 Latinamerican undocumented immigrants were caught by immigration forces while working in Postville, Iowa (U.S.); 287 of them were Guatemalan. They were abused and mistreated. Most of them have been deported back home, and 42 of them remain in prison, after a 5 year-long sentence was dictated on them for the the offense of falsification of documentation and theft of identity. The sentence was later reduced to 5 months thanks to the efforts of Guatemalan Lawyers trying to help.

Day by day, Guatemalans and other Central and Latinamericans pay quantities that go over 3,000 euros to get -illegally- into the U.S.; most of them are caught on the way, and those who make it are aware that there's no safe place, since they can be caught while in the supermarket, the street or at work. Last year 23,062 Guatemalans were deported from the U.S.

So much for the American dream...it's more like a nightmare.