Recently, the media has been covering the “caravan,” over 1,000 immigrants, who have traveled from places such as Ecuador and El Salvador. This system is used for families fleeing danger and searching for a better life for their children. The president of the U.S. has made it very clear that these people are not welcome in our country and has said things in order to make those who voted for him proud.

The president recently went on to say that he would be signing an executive order to rid the children of immigrants who are born in the U.S. of their rightful citizenship, a right that is otherwise known as the 14th amendment. Now if being born in the United States doesn’t make you a citizen of the country than what does? 

I grew up in California and have been raised in Carlsbad; never once have I ever committed a crime nor have I done anything to harm white people or this country. I am not a threat, much like many children of immigrants. This country is my home and to hear that the president doesn’t deem children such as myself worthy of citizenship tells me all that I need to know. This country has never really seen people of color as equal. Many of the people who are traveling with the caravan, many being young children, are innocent yet they are being targeted for the sole reason of being brown. 

My parents came here for a better life and they both have worked incredibly hard to provide for us. They haven’t committed crimes and they certainly haven’t hurt anyone. They work jobs that no one else wants to do and yet they are “stealing them”. I was born in the U.S. 17 years ago, yet I might be rid of my citizenship status because I am considered a threat to the only country I have ever known.

What makes me less worthy of citizenship than anyone else? There are people whose parents came here from European countries and they were born in the United States making them citizens, so will they have their citizenship revoked? The answer to that is most likely not because they are white and they are not feared or hated for who they are. 

We live in a country that prides itself on the freedoms it grants people and that our nation is made up of different cultures yet we refuse immigrant children to live a life where they survive to be older than age 10. We split families apart and send four year olds to defend themselves at their immigration hearings. It has become apparent that only specific people are allowed their freedoms and their rights, and it is not people of color.  

Our humanity has left us. When did it become okay to refuse a child in need or even harass people for being born in a different country or having a different color of skin? It has never been okay but somehow we have managed to normalize this. It is suddenly okay to tell someone to go back to their country or not to speak their native language because it makes them uncomfortable. This isn’t tolerable behavior nor will anyone put up with it any longer. The future will come with a fight that we won’t back down from. That is a promise.