What would you do to feed your family?

Question

Would you cross a border? Would you face a hostile people that imagine you are criminal because of your facial features and your dark skin? Would you face the desert and the bandits and dangers it provides? Would you risk incarceration in foreign country? Would you run the risk of being shot by ignorant hunters? Would you live in a tiny house in a tiny room cramped with 10 other men? Would you exist on beans and tortillas to send your family money that is worth so much more in your country? Would you work for next to nothing and barely have money for more than two changes of clothing and a pair of work boots? Would you cramp yourself into a car meant for 4 but carrying 6-8 for an hour long drive to work at 530 in the morning? Would you brave the cold to sit in the back of a pickup truck to get to work? Better yet would you drink your own urine crossing the mexican deserts just to get here?
How far would you go to take care of your family and give your kids HOPE?

How many people will answer the question and how many people will send hate mail?

The only real purpose is to see what you'd do in a similar position. I've never come out and stated my position. It's about thinking it through.
BTW that Joel guy, there is a lot of anger in what you say but really it was just a load based on perception and deeply lacking in all but one fact-diversity.
So What Would You Do?

And the other guy you really believe they risk it all to get a new TV??
Nobody yet has said what they'd do. You just keep spouting rhetoric.

Answer 1

I certainly wouldn't rob the food mart if I got hungry.

I want a better life, I'm not going to break the law to get it though.

Answer 2

I'd go a lot farther than a misdemeanor if I really had to. But I'd understand that part of the sacrfice I'm making would be facing the consequences of breaking the law.

But, really, vanishingly few of the illegals who make it to America are just trying to feed thier families. It is not easy or cheap to get here. It takes time and resources - and money - to get here. Whether you're sneaking across the border, being smuggled in a container or overstaying a visa, you've likely spent enough money in doing so to feed a familiy in a poor country all year. In the case of 'desperately poor' illegal immigrants, some of thier family may well have /gone hungry/ to scrape together everything they needed to make the trip. Not because they would die if they didn't, but because they'd /gain/ if they did.

It's not about survival, it's about greed. Greed of the poor to be less poor, rather than the rich to be richer (that's on the other side, the illicity employers who exploit the illegals), so still, certainly, less agregious, but still, not justification.

Answer 3

Vegetable soup using a vegetable base - I make a vegetable broth and add random spices and chopped vegetables and cooked pasta or rice to my liking. Very simple, hearty dish! Salads - soooo many possibilities. Why not try a cauliflower salad, which is basically chopped cauliflower, capers, chopped red bell pepper, and balsamic vinaigrette dressing? Pasta with sauteed onions, mushrooms and zucchini, with a soy cream sauce (boil 2 tbsp vegan margarine, add 2 tbsp flour, then add 1 cup low fat soy milk, bring to boil stirring constantly, then add spices/wine/soy cheese/whatever you'd like). You can make almost anything vegan or vegetarian - there are a lot of great meat alternatives (usually soy based) that help with that! For example, you can substitute ground beef with soy "ground beef" in shepherd's pie! It's really delicious. :)

Answer 4

Most people come here illegally because they can earn more than they do in their home country. That does not mean that they were starving in their home country, they just weren't getting the new tv or the fancy clothes, so they come here to steal a job and send money home. And I have scant sympathy for illegal aliens who sob that they have 8 brothers and sisters to feed. Why would anyone have more children that they could support in the first place?

This is an answer to your question -- can you see that, or will you think it's hate mail because you disagree?

Answer 5

Mexico is not Sudan. Let's keep things in proportion.
It is natural, and admirable, for a father to want a better life for his family, even if that requires extreme, or illegal measures like emigrating under false passports.
But what action is morally right by an individual must needs be opposed by a national government that has the general welfare of two million existing citizens to protect.
Basically, I agree with your humanitarian sentiments, but I suggest that good government involves cruel, practical decisions.
And may our gods help us all to do right!

Answer 6

I'd just go cannibal.

You know, I might actually take the whole feeding the family thing somewhat seriously if they actually looked hungry instead of overweight and didn't keep popping out kids they supposedly can't feed.

Answer 7

I would first work to better my life in my own country. However, if there were better opportunities elsewhere, I would seek to legally enter that country to utilize my skills more effectively. In either event, I would avoid starting a family until I could afford to support them properly.

BTW, instead of posting whiney rants on YA, why don't you work to change the countries where these illegals are coming from? After all, if their own countries weren't such abject disasters, maybe they wouldn't want to endure what you have described.

Answer 8

I wouldn't have children I couldn't afford to provide for.

Or he should stay in his country and work three jobs like my father did to provide for our family because he didn't want my mother to work.

Either limit the number of mouths to feed or work more in his own country. Or better yet, join with the millions of illegal immigrants go back to Mexico and revolt against your own government.

Answer 9

You are incrediably insulting. This country has one of the largest population of diverse peoples in the world. This country has the largest immigration that the world has ever seen..... And here YOU sit whinning about what?

You are whinning because Mexico will not take care of its people. You are whinning to American Citizens, casting dispersions, criticizing, fabricating... and we don't have anything to do with a problem you say exists. You need to talk to MEXICO... not the United States where millions of people from many lands live. MEXICO. And if y ou want to come in, you need to apply, and obey our laws from the very beginning rather than the incrediable insult of simply ignoring our laws.

Forum, most of the people who come here illegally, do have family at home. They usually quite a job to come, and their income will be sent home to .... save... that they may have, for instance, a big home in the near term.

They always work for less money than American Citizens, and they always put an American Citizen out of a job. And things are getting worse too... with the recession, either an American works, or the illegal aliens work.

So now I ask you all.... why isn't this guy at home doing the job he had before he quit. And why isn't he talking to the Mexican Government about improving his life style.

His story is silly, and probably true. If he were legal in Mexico, he would be in far, far better shape, and our people would be doing that job. Sooo.... let that happen. Send the illegal aliens home. Enforce the law.

Answer 10

Amanda H

Illegal aliens do not "assure the safety of their children", and they are not "protecting their children" by breaking a country's immigration laws. They are here ILLEGALLY, and the lives of their children as such is UNSTABLE, UNDEPENDABLE, and does NOT contribute to a child's emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and psychological well-being. As a matter of fact, it will eventually DESTROY their "well-being".
They are subject to deportation at any time. Period. Their children, entering adulthood as an illegal alien, HAVE no future. They will have extreme difficulty in every facet of their adult lives. They probably have little or no knowledge of their native country, thanks to their parents, and are not truly citizens of the country they now know and love. If they are deported...due to being here illegally, thanks to their parents....then what???

What kind of parent sends their children into adulthood as an illegal alien?? The same type of parent that didn't respect another country's laws in the first place. The same type of parent as the criminals that fill our prisons today.

Not the type of "super hero" "super parent" you are trying to paint a picture of in your "bleeding heart" post...

YOur last sentence is oh so true. And if you think about it, you will realize it as well.

"And, truthfully, if you aren't protecting your children, you ARE NOT a parent. Giving birth does not make you a parent any more than playing the Operation game makes you a doctor."

Answer 11

Thanks for the question.

I would remain in the country of my birth and start a rebellion to fix the social policies that made my family hungry and desperate.

If you're looking for rhetoric, here it comes: Mexico has big problems. These problems need to be addressed by Mexicans and fixed in Mexico. President Calderon, if you're reading this, get off your duff and get a move on.