The Distance Between Us Artifact #4

This article is about a U.S citizen (an 11 year old boy) who was held in custody because there was confusion over his citizenship. This article reveals the attitude towards immigrants, and the overall carelessness of the situation.

In Artesia New Mexico, an 11 year old boy and his mother were held in a detention center for over a month. Both of the boy's parents are immigrants from Central America, but the boy's father is a U.S citizen. Even though the boy was born outside of the U.S, immigration law says that since his dad is a U.S citizen, the boy is too. Both the boy and his mother have been released. The article didn't say how they were arrested in the first place, but they were most likely coming from their country of origin to meet up with the father.

This case brings to light the entire issue with the immigration system we have in the U.S. With hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming into the U.S, it is nearly impossible to process all of these people to check if their legal or not. There are also weird laws that we have to pay attention to, like a person can come into the country if they have this sort of relation, but not this sort. It's impossible to show the amount of attention required for each case, which is how a U.S citizen ended up being detained for so long.

This is the sort of thing that immigrants like Reyna live in fear of. They don't want to be arrested for trying to get a better life. This is why coyotes exist, so immigrants can get into the country and have a chance of getting in. I think we need to change the system so that it's more efficient and we can be more careful about who we are letting in, and how they're getting in. We should also make getting into the country more accessible, so that people don't have to sneak in.