America’s Anti-Immigrant Road Rage

Because Latin American countries enjoy the billions of dollars that their countrymen in the United States send home, they should take note of how many of their benefactors are being treated by American officials.

Despite their numbers – the Urban Institute estimates that more than nine million undocumented immigrants live in the US, a number that exceeds the entire populations of countries like Costa Rica and Nicaragua – the undocumented worker has long been North America’s favorite punching bag. Damned on Sunday, they are hired for work on Monday.

Attacks on immigrants went into high gear in February, when the US Congress passed a bill that will make it illegal for any state to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented workers. No one in America is even writing about this or taking much notice because few care about those who are in the US illegally. Undocumented workers pick America’s crops, clean Americans’ houses, and serve Americans their food, but their fate simply does not matter to many US citizens.