This Country Needs Immigrants. Protesters....not so much

            Seeing the buses carrying hundreds of immigrants being turned away was disheartening to say the least. These immigrants have traveled often thousands of miles over land and have crossed tremendous barriers to arrive to the U.S for hope of a better life with economic security. However, they are not only met with resentment, but with a disturbing protests that further delays the handling process.

            In order to gain a better grasp on the flow of immigrants, the policy has adopted to bus the immigrants to temporary housing in Murrieta, California. However, when these tired immigrants (many of whom are alone and do not know of their immediate future) arrived in Murrieta they were turned away by protesters who espoused anti-immigrant messages and demanded the buses leave.

            Although many have painted this out to be a reasonable response against the lowering of property values or the injection of poverty, the reality is that many of these protesters (those on the anti-immigrant side) are irrational and illogical. They often chant “USA” as they feel that it somehow gives them an edge up in the immigration debate and believe that the immigrants are there to take over the community.

            These are people, like you and me, but who have suffered much more. Many come from South America and have traveled the better part of a year to enter Texas where they were actually met with less resistance. The anti-immigration protesters at Murrieta are not helping this country by rejecting the immigrants. They are not helping their town as it becomes painted out to be a harbor of racism and bigotry. Finally, they are certainly not helping the immigrants who were forced to be turned around only to be driven even further.