Author: ucasas1

The White House’s position on undocumented immigrants is that “they are all criminals.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has repeatedly stated that all illegal immigrants are criminals. She groups violent offenders with all undocumented immigrants, including children.

The justification for the current treatment of undocumented immigrants is that “they broke our immigration laws.” Whenever a politician, media pundit, or anti-immigrant activist approves of the denial of due process to the undocumented, they always end their position with the words: “they broke our immigration laws.” I am convinced that people do this because they have no idea what the United States of America’s immigration laws are.

I state this because people present the idea that the breaking of any of the American immigration laws is a serious crime. Therefore, abductions by unidentified masked men, denial of due process, and incarceration in concentration camps are appropriate. What are our immigration laws? And are they severe crimes under federal law?

The two most common immigration laws broken by undocumented immigrants are entry without inspection (EWI) and overstaying a visa. It is estimated that 54% of undocumented immigrants enter the United States without permission, EWI. I realize the idea of people entering without permission infuriates many citizens. However, strictly looking at this violation through the eyes of the law. An EWI is a misdemeanor.

It is difficult to find a common comparable crime in federal law. The best reference point I can provide is speeding on a federal road. Federal roads are not common around the country. The George Washington Parkway in Virginia and Washington, DC is a federal road. Speeding on the GW Parkway is a federal equivalent of entering the United States without inspection.

To simplify, an EWI is a federal misdemeanor equivalent to a Class B misdemeanor at the state level. Entering the United States without permission is the equivalent of breaking the speed limit. During Trump’s presidential campaigns, he often referenced a “catch and release” policy held by Obama and Biden for immigrants caught at the border. However, for most of modern history, the United States has similarly treated EWIs as routing traffic stops.

Border patrol agents would catch illegal border crossings, provide the trespasser with a citation that would lead to a court hearing, and let the individual go of their own free will. Similarly, when most people are pulled over for speeding, they are given a citation, and a follow-up court date can be assigned if the individual doesn’t pay the fine.

A key difference is that if you pay the speeding ticket, no court appearance is necessary. All EWIs are required to attend court. The main point that I want to make is that about half of all undocumented immigrants are guilty of a misdemeanor. An EWI is a criminal offense, but a far cry from a felony, which is how the undocumented are depicted.

I also want to note that I’ve been driving in the United States for 30 years, including the GW Parkway, as I live in the DMV. I would say that nearly 100% of drivers in this country break the speed limit daily. Speeding tickets are rare in comparison to the frequency with which this Class B misdemeanor is violated. And citizens are not held accountable for the retroactive infractions committed that a police officer did not cite. It is hard to believe that Americans are as passionate about following the law as they are about referencing “our immigration laws.”

The second most common immigration infraction is overstaying a visa. This is the immigration infraction that Melania and Ivana Trump most likely committed during their courtships with Donald. Unlike an EWI, it is not a criminal offense. Overstaying a visa is a civil offense. It is estimated that about 46% of undocumented immigrants are guilty of this civil violation. Again, there is no perfect equivalent. The most similar infraction would be a parking violation.

Not a parking ticket, but parking illegally without receiving a ticket. This is the infraction that I am guilty of. Sometimes when I give a talk on immigration, I use this analogy. It’s like I park my car every day in a no-parking zone, but I don’t get a ticket. I realize this idea also enrages many on the right. Let me clarify that while I am not currently paying a citation. I do pay taxes. And based on the tax returns we have seen of the president. I pay a hell of a lot more in taxes than Trump does. I pay into a social security and Medicare system that I have no access to. Immigrants like me do pay during our time here.

I also use the parking violation reference because, like speeding, I see people violate this law daily as well. From my perspective, Americans seem to choose which laws to love and which to conveniently ignore. There is an immigration law that is a felony.

Going back to an EWI. You can commit a felony one of two ways if you receive an EWI. The first is if you simply do not attend your assigned court hearing after receiving an EWI. Similarly to not paying a speeding ticket and not attending court for that infraction will have more severe consequences. If a recipient of an EWI doesn’t attend their court hearing, they are now charged with a felony that will lead to removal orders. The second way is if you do attend your EWI court hearing and are given an order to leave the United States. If you do not leave the country by the date the court sets, that individual is now guilty of a felony.

There are an estimated 1.5 million non-citizens with outstanding removal orders. The estimated number of undocumented immigrants in the United States is in the low teens of millions. Roughly 10 to 15 percent of illegal immigrants are guilty of an immigration felony. Using the law as a reference point, grouping every undocumented immigrant with those who have removal orders or are guilty of a violent crime is as logical as grouping every American who has committed a misdemeanor or civil infraction with those found guilty of a felony.

I realize this may feel like semantics to many. However, the abductions of people by unidentified masked men, the denial of due process, and the incarceration of people in concentration camps are conveniently justified by casually labeling anyone this administration deems undesirable as a criminal. That is an actual egregious use of semantics.

I do not include violent crimes on this list, along with other crimes like drug or property crimes, because they are not a violation of immigration laws. Those are crimes that anyone can commit, not just the undocumented. I do think it is worth noting that the data tells us: U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes compared to undocumented immigrants.

More importantly, undocumented immigrants want to see illegal immigrants guilty of violent crimes deported from the United States as well. We have no sympathy for murderers, drug traffickers, and human traffickers. The undocumented are particularly vulnerable to these criminals as they often reside in the same communities. We just don’t want to group with them any more than car drivers want to be grouped with convicted felons. The issue for the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy is that the number of illegal immigrants who are guilty of violent crimes is only in the tens of thousands.

I do have sympathy for anyone whose only crime is an outstanding removal order. I don’t know their story. I don’t want to judge people in ignorance. I realize life is never that simple, and people can have good reasons for why they ignore the removal order. No more than I want to judge people who call undocumented immigrants: subhuman, illegal, or just don’t care what happens to them as long as they are deported. Again, I don’t know how they got to a place where they couldn’t see the undocumented as their neighbors. I want to love both groups and serve both groups, as they are my neighbors

The truth is that Americans can easily change their immigration laws if they want. Americans could make all immigration infractions felonies. I actually would prefer if racial profiling became a legal law enforcement practice. Not because I support discrimination. But because I would like to see ICE agents remove the masks, and because it would be less confusing when a federal agent arrested you just because of your race. My real preference is that all these draconian practices stop, and we could return to the rule of law. However, if the current Gestapo-like practices are going to continue, then just make them legal. Ultimately, it is up to us as to what type of society we want to be.

We are the ones who have to decide who is our neighbor, and what type of neighbors we want to be. If the abductions of people by unidentified masked men, the denial of due process, and the incarceration of people in concentration camps are exactly what you voted for. I can’t fault you for that; it is not my right to do so. Just don’t try to justify what is happening with lies. Don’t pretend to love the law when you don’t follow the law. Don’t pretend that one misdemeanor or civil infraction is far more severe than another misdemeanor or another civil infraction. Don’t justify atrocities behind the guise of laws you clearly don’t understand. And don’t pretend that the current immigration raids are not discriminatory. Be honest and transparent, nothing you yourself don’t demand of others.

For my part, I grew up in America. My parents brought me here when I was 8. I have spent my entire life here, loving this country. As an adult, I have always gone out of my way to buy American-made goods. Not out of a sense of patriotism, but because I care about jobs here. I care about my neighbors. Over the past decade, we have lived through an anti-immigrant movement that created a deep conflict inside undocumented Americans like me. I grew up believing that beneath all the rhetoric, Americans are good and decent people. With deep roots in Christianity and an unwavering faith in Jesus Christ. Trusting in God, defending freedom, valuing courage, and believing that any person here could realize the American Dream if they worked hard enough for it.

I grew up pledging allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I have never broken that pledge. As I watch the Constitution continually being violated by the executive office. I am left wondering, how does my country feel about me? And how do I feel about my country? Are we only to be your neighbors when the mood suits you?

Over the past week, I’ve heard a lot of noise regarding the mass deportation ICE raids. I realize this can feel scary for people to see and hear about. As an undocumented immigrant, I am asking you not to let social media cause you anxiety and lower the quality of your daily life. The rhetoric on the news and social media is meant to create emotional reactions in each of us. That emotional engagement keeps us glued to their content, which is all they want. Not to inform or empower us, but for these outlets to influence our perspectives.

During Trump’s first term, I allowed his rhetoric to cause damaging havoc in my life. I was stressed about the idea of being deported. I was angry at his Christian supporters; I believed them to be horrible hypocrites. And I stopped exercising my faith because I couldn’t reconcile Christianity with all the anti-immigrant talk. All that stress and anger was hurting me, not his supporters. And certainly not Trump, who has no idea I exist, nor does he care that I do. I also lost what was most important to me, my faith in God.

I learned from that experience that I can choose to silence the noise. I can choose not to allow the daily media rhetoric to drive my emotions and state of mind. I no longer use social media to scroll and read posts and stories. I understand that for many, social media is a daily habit they do not wish to end. But you can decide not to let sad stories about immigration, and other similar topics determine how you feel daily.

I understand that seeing the news of the daily raids, as people are taken from their homes and their loves is sad to watch. We knew this was coming. This was a critical issue in the presidential election. The current administration did promise to do mass deportations. Understand that deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants is highly improbable. The administration needs to make it look as if mass deportations are ongoing.

From what I’ve read, the Biden administration deported hundreds of people a day. Trump is outpacing Biden, but not by much. If Trump were to average 1,000 deportations a day, it would still take 30 years to remove 11 million migrants. If efficiency improves and the administration somehow doubles that daily deportation total, it would still take 15 years to remove all undocumented immigrants.

Putting aside the devasting economic impact of losing all of America’s migrant workers. Any real mass deportation act by the United States government would be so expensive it is nearly impossible to fathom. The ICE raids are about making Trump’s base believe he is keeping his unrealistic promise. They are also great for creating anxiety and fear.

The immigrant community is indeed in a state of threat. The compassion and sympathy so many are showing undocumented immigrants in this country is wonderful to see. However, if your compassion is causing you to lash out and further divide our nation. I am asking you to show restraint and be patient. We are going to see several heartbreaking things over the next few years. This isn’t the first time the human race has experienced a season of intolerance and division. It is not even the first time the United States has been at the center of discrimination and scapegoating.

We have gotten through difficult times before and we will get through this. Perhaps not the way many of us hope. And certainly not without many wounds and scars inflicted on the poor and the migrants. On the other side of this will be our humanity. We can come together as a people and continue to build a better world for future generations. At this time, it is important not finger-point at those with opposing viewpoints. It would help us all to try to understand their perspective.

Know that many in this country are not having it anymore. I have witnessed many well-thought-out and compassionate arguments, asking for logical humane solutions to the immigration problem in the USA. Only to have those pleas be responded to with anger, profanities, and demands that immigrants get out of their country immediately. Many people have had it with this issue. They have no interest in humanizing immigrants. They want to see migrants be removed from society at any cost, financial or emotional.

I realize we can choose to demonize people with this attitude. Or we can be their neighbors. It won’t be fun to watch, and even quite painful for immigrants like me to experience. But the only thing that is going to help these people is that immigrants are not the cause of their problems. To watch the Trump deportation show and observe that migrants were helping our society, not directly responsible for their unhappiness.

We need to watch the ICE raids with compassion but in silence. The current ICE raids are targeting immigrants with some type of criminal record. What is unique about these raids, is that in the past ICE only arrested the targeted criminal. Now ICE is taking an undocumented immigrant they come across, along with the targeted individual or individuals. It is hard to watch hard-working migrants being rounded up like hardened criminals. However, the staunch Trump voter sees no difference between the two. In these early days of the ICE raids, any frustration we express about the deportations will sound like support for criminals to the right.

A time will come when we will need Republicans, Christians, and Trump voters to listen to reason. None of these groups will listen if all they’ve heard is our frustrations and accusations. We will sound like the proverbial boy who cried wolf. More importantly, because we never took to understand their perspective, they won’t want to understand ours.

What I have learned in my life is that once we get to know each other, it is difficult to hate one another. Almost everyone I know has learned to be sympathetic to undocumented immigrants because they have gotten to know me. Even the people I know who are hardliners against undocumented immigrants, don’t consider one of those people. They rationalize to themselves that I am somehow different and not the criminal the other 11 million are.

Most people I spoke with who believed deporting all immigrants was the most important issue in the 2024 presidential election, did not know a single undocumented immigrant, let alone have any type of relationship with one. It is easy to demonize the stranger. So, let’s stop being strangers. Anyone who voted for Trump is our neighbor. Maybe we won’t be afforded many opportunities to be neighbors. However, the good thing about the Trump presidency is that it will create plenty of opportunities for us to need one another.

Don’t spend your time building walls with those who have opposing viewpoints. Extend a friendly hand and leave it available if ever they are willing to reach for it. Many will probably spit at your hand over time. But those that don’t will eventually get to know you and me. It has been my experience that as people to get to know and understand one another. It becomes difficult to blame and accuse them for our own problems. Perhaps we won’t become good friends, but we can start to find a middle ground again.

As far as undocumented immigrants go, I know many. I have spoken with them about the stress and anxiety of the current administration. I was surprised to learn that most of my undocumented friends are not as stressed as my American citizen friends. The main reason is life is really hard in this country for immigrants. Most live in poverty and work in nearly slave-like conditions. Immigrants are concerned with the daily grind of not just working, but finding enough work to feed and house their families. They go through all the same challenges every American does. The price of eggs is killing them as well.

They deal with the stress of living a hard life with no realm dreams of their own. They sacrifice so much for the chance that their children will have a better life here than the one they would have had in a different country. I was most impressed with their response to the possibility of getting deported. “If it falls to us to back, then we will go back.” In their home countries, they will have to grind as they do here. Their children’s lives may not be as good in their home countries as they might have been here. But they will find a way to make the best life for their families wherever they end up.

Most of the undocumented immigrants that the United States is fortunate enough to have; are hardworking, courageous, and love their families. Most of their lives will probably not end with a white picket fence and the simple dignity so many Westerners take for granted. Things that I also take for granted. However, while they still have breath in them, they will each love their children in a manner that everyone on earth should love their families. We should all be so lucky.

Tis the season to share our unwanted political opinions. I would have preferred not to write this, but if we don’t use our voice, we become part of the problem. If you have the right to vote, please vote. Despite popular rhetoric, some of us can’t and don’t actually vote.

This was easier to explain when Biden was the candidate. Immigrants survived 4 years of Trump, and we survived 4 years of Biden. We also survived 16 years of Bush and Obama. Watching politicians make promises is the definition of insanity. Every four years candidates tell their subordinates what they want to hear. And every term is essentially the same. Politicians make decisions based on what will serve them best.

If you can look at the last 8 years without polarized eyes. If you can remove yourself from your hatred of the opposing party. It is easy to see that our elections are just vast pendulum swings of rhetoric with critical similarities in the results. Biden’s and Trump’s presidencies were both plagued with a pandemic during their terms. Both experienced rapid inflation due to that pandemic.

Unemployment was around 4% through most of Trump’s presidency until the pandemic caused a huge spike. Unemployment has now returned to around 4% and will likely level off to the mean in the next 4 years, despite who is president. The national debt grew by more than $7 trillion in each of Trump’s and Biden’s terms.

There were 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States at the beginning of the Trump presidency. That number roughly remained the same in both 2020 and through 2023. It is also true that during that period and before, undocumented immigrants’ crime rate has been much lower than citizens and documented immigrants.

It is all just rhetoric, and the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans. Democrats are constantly using the LGBT community and women’s reproductive rights to demonize Republicans. Neither side ever truly focuses on leadership. Both sides constantly leverage specialized groups to mobilize their base against the other side.

After 37 years of living in this country as an undocumented immigrant, I know that no matter who wins the presidency, the people will inevitably lose again.

What makes this election unique to me is January 6th, 2021. If you believe that Jan 6th was no big deal, I can’t communicate with you. If we can’t agree on what we both saw happened that day, then the facts won’t matter to you. If you believe 2020 was a stolen election, then you will accept nothing other than your own reality and it is impossible to reason with you.

I live in the suburbs outside of DC. I remember talking with people in my community in 2020 and expressing my concern that Trump would not leave the White House if he lost. I was reassured by Washingtonians that the Constitution provided safeguards to prevent Trump from staging a coup.

They were right, the system worked and Trump’s attempted coup failed. The concern is that Trump now knows what the safeguards are, and will have 4 years to prepare to defeat them.

I’m not worried about the next 4 years. Tell yourself you are voting for women’s reproductive rights. Or that you are voting to lower your grocery and gasoline bills. Tell yourselves that the world will end if your candidate doesn’t win.

I’ve listened to both sides of the aisle. Neither side communicates. Both sides believe the candidate they oppose is pure evil. Both sides cannot phantom the other’s point of view. In the end, we are just swinging the pendulum further and further from one polarized side to the other.

The only issue that really matters is the 2028 election. Whether Trump wins or loses in 2024, he will be on the ballot in 2028. But if he wins in 2024 he will be running for a third term in 2028. The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution reads: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice”

Trump will also violate this section of the Constitution. He will say two things: one, this country has never been better than during his presidency, and two, the world is in turmoil, and it is necessary that Trump run for a third term. The best predictor of future behavior is prior behavior.

What the 2024 election has taught us, is that Trump owns the Republican Party. It was laughable how easily he defeated other Republicans in the primaries. They will give Trump the nomination without contest. The Democrats’ objections will be equally feeble. They will be outraged by the violation of the 22nd Amendment and will build their candidate’s campaign around that violation.

What the 2020 election has taught us is that a record number of voters will turn out to defeat two consecutive Trump presidential terms, regardless of the Democratic candidate. Like in 2020, Trump will overwhelmingly lose the 2028 election, and he will again deny the election results.

However, in 2028, JD Vance will not certify the election. The mob that gathers on the National Mall in January 2029 will be armed with guns. Every secret service agent assigned to the presidential detail will be a Trump loyalist who will not escort Trump out of the White House. Trump will stay president despite losing both the popular vote and the electoral college.

When that happens free and fair elections will end in the United States. From local elections to Senate races, other politicians will start seizing power by force as early as 2028. After 2028 voting will no longer matter, as those in power will determine the winners of elections. America will become a pseudo-democracy like Venezuela and Russia.

I am certain that neither Harris nor Trump will have a good presidency over the next 4 years. I also think it is okay if Trump wins. If the electoral college selects Trump over Harris that would be the Will of the People. If that is what a majority of the States elect, then the system still works the way it is supposed to.

But don’t pretend you support Trump out of patriotism, love of the Constitution, or even faith in God. Just admit the truth. You are willing to trade free and fair elections, and the will of an electoral majority, for a guarantee that the individual in charge thinks exactly like you.

I’ve delivered this speech at high schools dozens of times. I decided to put pen to paper in a sort of speech and publish it. I have been mentoring young people for twenty years now. I am not sure what amazes me more; that virtually all of us struggle to determine what we want to do with our lives, or that it took me decades of teaching before I could understand my purpose. The key for each of us to understand what we are meant to do with our lives is to learn how to align three different components of our development. We need to discover what our dreams are, what our purpose is, and what is our Why.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited with the saying: Life is a journey, not a destination. The idea that the journey, not the destination is what matters resonates with me. However, recently I read an excellent book by Grant Cardone, where he makes a convincing argument that attaining your goals is what we should focus on regardless of how we get there. As I have learned in life, not only can opposing viewpoints be both true and beneficial, but more importantly the willingness to embrace contradictory values is critical to emotional intelligence.

With that stated, when I speak with teenagers I want them to understand that their dreams, and all of our dreams will change throughout our lives. Even the way we label them can shift. Whether we think of them as dreams, goals, our destiny, or something similar; I believe that the way they shape us is what is most relevant in our youth. Many teenagers dream of fame and wealth as adolescents, which is not a bad thing, but as our scope broadens our dreams narrow into specific goals. Whether we achieve any of our goals or not, eventually we all develop new dreams and new goals.

No matter how unfathomable a kid’s dream is, I always encourage them to go after it with all their resolve, courage, and grit. Learning to work hard is a journey that requires no particular destination. Hard work will eventually pay off for everyone willing to do it. We should also not be afraid to fail; on the contrary, we should develop a tolerance for failure early and often. Failure is one of mankind’s greatest teachers. Lastly, developing perseverance will separate us from the masses. Far too often people settle, stop having dreams, and never pursue their purpose. Life is hard; everyone knows this because it’s true for everyone. Even in ideal conditions, life is hard, and for many of us at times life seems impossible. Continuing to dream, working towards our goals, and attaining some of our desires will be a determining factor whether we are simply happy or not.

In the end, the dreams we attain will create the memories we most enjoy sharing with our loved ones, but the dreams we pursue and fail to achieve will develop the character we need to achieve our goals. We will take far more journeys than arrive at our destinations, but without all of the journeys, we will miss our destinations. The dreams we pursue are the first factor in understanding what we should do with each of our lives.

I like to ask high school students if the world is full of problems. This is a rhetorical question, as the world is overwhelmed with problems. Then I ask them, where do they think all these problems come from. For the most part, the challenges we face as a species are manmade. I am an undocumented immigrant, or an illegal alien, as some people like to label me. But who made me illegal? Am I illegal in the eyes of God? Does nature consider me illegal? Has the universe deemed me an illegal? I am only illegal because a series of men arbitrarily created laws and borders to separate neighbors and label us different, foreign, alien. While on an intellectual level, I can regard such labels as indifferent, in reality, they have had a huge negative impact on my life. I cannot escape the manmade problems of my kin.

Kids typically ask me, if adults created most of our problems why can’t we fix them? I respond by stating that a better question is why we created them in the first place. My answer to this question is as follows: most people on this planet are not fulfilling their purpose. Call it God, the universe, or destiny; every person on this good earth serves and has a purpose. The problem is most of us are not serving our purpose. The difference between our dreams and our purpose is that our dreams are meant to serve us, and our purpose is meant to serve others. Jim Carrey once said, “How will you serve the world? What do they need that your talent can provide? That’s all you have to figure out.” So many of us ignore our purpose that humanity suffers.

How do we discover our purpose? The best thing about our purpose is also the worst thing about our purpose. Our dreams and our purpose are almost identical. We can discover our purpose in this life. The problem is our purpose will be different enough from our dreams that we will not want to do it. My dream, what I choose to do with my life, and what I love doing more than anything else is to help others. The reason I love helping others is that it makes me feel so good about myself. In other words, helping others is not about them; it’s about me and how I like making myself happy. But that is not my purpose in this world.

I have more than one talent, but what I am truly gifted at is encouraging others. I remember the first time I learned that I was so disappointed, it seemed so passive and lazy to me to just encourage others. What I had to learn is that the reason I didn’t like is that encouraging others made my efforts about them and not about me. My purpose is different enough from my dream that I have to work at it every day to make sure I am not selfishly ignoring my greatest talent. The reward for fulfilling our purpose is that it helps us understand what we are supposed to do with our lives.

No matter how much we desire our dreams and are willing to fulfill our purpose without a Why we will not have the grit and resolve to see our dreams through. So what is our Why? Our Why is the external motivator that will give us the drive and perseverance to not give up when we encounter inevitable overwhelming challenges, but more importantly, keep our focus during the monotonous marathon that is our journey during the pursuit of success. I like to tell students this story when I explain how to discover your Why.

I wake up at 4:30 AM every morning for work. I do it because I know my hard work will pay off. Even though I love my work and my life, and I am happy; I still hate waking up early. I am not a morning person, I detest the mornings and I am miserable when I wake up. However, there was a time in my life when I was so excited to wake up in the morning that I sometimes would wake up before 4 AM. During this time in my life, I only got to see my best friend at 5 AM in the morning. She and I worked at the same gym and Monday through Friday we got to spend an hour together before the club opened at 6 AM. It was the highlight of my day. I used to hate weekends because we only did morning shifts during the week. The worst day of my week was Friday because I knew I would go three days before seeing her again. Fortunately, that’s not the case anymore, but the best way I can explain what your Why is, is to ask you: What is it in this world that would cause you to not only wake up at 4 AM or earlier every morning but so excited to start your day that you feel it is the best part of your day?

I am embarrassed to write this now, but I used to arrive at the parking lot 15 to minutes early because I did not want to miss one second with her. Every day when she pulled in she would ask me, have you been here long? I would always pretend that I arrived a minute before her. Your Why is whatever in life makes you act this way and keeps you acting this way throughout the years. I arrived at that empty gym parking lot for over a year before my immigration status forced me to leave that job. I would have continued to do for as long as my Why was there to motivate me. For most of us, our Why will always include other people.

The only way to determine what we are supposed to do with our lives is to discover and align our dreams, our purpose, and our Why. It will require us endless hard work, grit, and perseverance. But when we do we get a Steve Jobs, a Malala, a Mother Theresa. When we do the world is never the same, it is much much better.

Dedicated to my favorite Clemson Tiger. Go Get Em Lindsey! Don’t let life’s challenges get you down too long. “You’re going to make a wonderful adult.” Le Petit Prince

This week, through social media, I was exposed to an image of a Latino toddler who was crying behind what appear to be a cage. The image provided little other information and the multitudes of people who posted it, captioned the photo with outrage over the treatment of undocumented immigrants by the Trump administration.

After taking the time to look for the source of the image, I learned from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/toddler-cage-photo/ that the photo had nothing to do with the Trump administration, nor was the child in a cage. For several weeks now I’ve seen many inaccurate attempts to accuse the Trump administration of holding immigrant children prison style conditions. And that’s where we are in America; people will not act until images and videos of horrific injustices are made visible to the country.

People are trying to shame the masses into outraged over the conditions immigrant children are being held captive in. For whatever reason, we need a literal visual of the terrible act before we can decide that an injustice has occurred. For years we knew that domestic violence was present in the NFL. It wasn’t until a video of Ray Rice striking his fiancée appeared that we took it seriously in our society.

Regardless of how horrific, or not horrific, the conditions these immigrant kids are living under, the conditions are not what is damaging these kids. The desperate angry arguments made by Samantha Bee and others are not depicting the real inequity that DHS and ICE are inflicting on these families.

The most horrific abuse these children are experiencing is simply that they have been separated from their parents. Even the degree of violence in which these kids are parted from their mothers is not as grave as the actual separation, and will not leave the same lasting impression. Every time one of us tries to shame others by using images of inhumane conditions, we demean and divert from the actual suffering these kids are living daily. We shouldn’t need breaking news or images to realize that Jeff Sessions’ actions have already gone far beyond cruel.

Because abuse and malice is not the worst thing a child can experience. The worst thing children can endure is separation and anxiety from being parted from their loving caretakers. My mother came to the United States one year before me. She left my brother and I with my father’s mother for an entire year so that she could prepare a home for us in what would become our new country. It broke her heart to see her 7 year-old son desperately cry for her as she left.

She chose to sacrifice a year away from her children so she could build a better life for us. What she didn’t know, and would not learn for several more decades is that she left her youngest son to endure a year of abuse and torture.

Over the next year my grandmother molested me dozens of times if not hundreds. My grandmother led me to believe that I needed to keep this secret so that no harm would come to my brother or my mother. Wess Stafford once said that children will endure an unlimited amount of pain to protect their loved ones. For my seven-year-old self, this statement was true. I endured what no child should have for a year with the promise that I would see my mother again one day.

On August of 1987, I was reunited with my mom as an 8 year-old boy. Despite the terrible things that I experienced, I only felt joy in being held in my mother’s arms again. I waited 27 years before I told her what had happened to me the year she left to help build our new life in America.

I waited because the abuse and malice I endured was trivial compared to the joy of having my mother back in life. The real suffering I endure was being separated from my mother for a year. And as a little boy I didn’t understand why we needed to be apart. I just needed my mother.

I am sickened by the idea that some, probably many, of these kids are enduring mistreatment from government officials or foster caretakers. But I know the anxiety from the separation of their parents is what is really causing damage and pain. These kids are not patsies for us to politicize our disdain for the current administration. They are children, who are currently enduring the worst thing a child can experience, the loss of their parents.

We shouldn’t need and image or a video of the conditions these kids are living in to know that what is happening is inhumane. I was raised to believe that Americans value family above any government, law, or policy. If we are not already outraged by what DHS and ICE are doing to these families, than no image should have the capacity to change our minds. We have already decided that these children and their parents are criminal and unworthy of compassion.

By allowing these families to be ripped apart, we’ve already lost the capacity to see them as humans or valuable. There is no point in trying to humanize their plight through images of poor conditions and inhumane treatment. By doing so we disregard the real pain they are suffering. If we are not already outspoken about what has happened to these kids, we have already demean the damage that they endure.

Whenever we are introduced to someone new, a label is used to describe who we are. I don’t like labels; I’ve carried one in particular that I don’t care for most of my life. I arrived in this country in 1987. Thirty-one years as an undocumented immigrant, it is a lifetime. Yet it has put me in the unique position to relate to both citizens and immigrants. I was 8 years old when I arrived; I had a typical American childhood. I assumed I would be going to college. Then reality hit, as an immigrant, I would not be allowed attend school. Thank God for Junior College, they’ll take anybody. I spend the next four years at Montgomery College; hiding feelings of shame, not asking anyone for help, not reaching out to others; feeling alone, scared, and worthless.

 

At that time people like me were called illegal aliens. Illegal alien is a powerful term, both hateful and a complete fallacy. By labeling immigrants as aliens, it made it easy to turn us into villains. Aliens are foreign, different, not from this land, easy to hate, easy to blame, and easy to discard. But we are not aliens, we are human; we are people just like you. As humans, we can still be labeled criminals, illegals, lawbreakers, bad hombres, not the deserving of sympathy. People that use these labels don’t understand our own immigration laws. I cross the border legally on a tourist visa, 6 months later my visa expired and I became something called out-of-status.  But as a minor, I could not break the law. It wasn’t until I turned 18 that I started breaking our immigration laws. My crime is similar to the crime of most DACA recipients. By overstaying our visas we commit a civil offense, not a criminal offense. Essentially my status is the equivalent of someone parking their car illegally but never getting a parking ticket. That is our terrible crime, a common civil offense.

 

Yet in my youth, the term illegal alien weighed heavily on me. The first time I considered suicide in my life was the spring of 2001. Most of my friends were preparing to graduate from college. I saw no path to a future, and I kept asking myself what am I going to do without a college degree? I stopped thinking of myself as a person, and I started thinking of myself as a number, an invalid number, just another Illegal alien. Instead of reaching out for help I decided to end my life. You know what I didn’t do? You know what never even remotely cross my mind? Move back to Mexico. This is my home and it never occurred to me to leave my home.

 

So one day I got to my car and decided to drive it into the Potomac River. When I failed to execute my plan I felt even more worthless even in that I was a failure. I don’t know how, but somehow my mother must have known. A few weeks later she drove up from Florida and dragged me to the University of Maryland admissions office. She started bothering everyone inside the Mitchell building. We were repeatedly told that we didn’t have an appointment and that we needed to come back another time. My mom refused to leave, I was humiliated, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Eventually, a kind admissions director stepped out of her office and spoke with us. My mother told her the entire truth and begged her for help. I thought this is the stupidest thing in the world. That admissions officer had no reason to help us. She handed me a Maryland application and told me to fill it out. When we got to the in-state status section, I ran into the problem that got me rejected every time I applied to a 4-year School. There were only two boxes I could check.  I either had to check a United States citizen box or an alien resident box. I qualified for neither. I needed an alien resident number to go to college. The previous summer my mom had gotten married and was now a legal alien resident. The admissions officer asked my mother for her alien resident card and told me to fill out her number on my application. Two weeks later I was admitted into the University of Maryland.

 

I was given an opportunity; I was given a chance to realize my dream. The road would be difficult I would have to overcome more challenges, but I was given a path to success. I would have to complete 70 credits and come up with $3500 in tuition every semester. I was advised that I should spread out my 70 credits over five or six semesters. However, $3500 was more money than I had ever seen in my life; I was going to find a way to do it in four semesters. Against my counselor’s advice, I got special permission to take 19 credits my first semester at Maryland. Over the next two years, I kept a full schedule of classes with no less than 17 credits per semester while working at least 40 hours a week at minimum wage. Living on my own I had a 45-minute commute to and from school. I had no access to loans, grants, or scholarships. I had to pay every dime of my tuition up front and in cash. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

 

I want to tell you about the happiest day of my life because it wasn’t graduation day. The happiest day of my life was 5 weeks before graduation. The University of Maryland has something called the Terrapin payment plan. It allowed me to break up my tuition into monthly payments. In April of 2003, my grades were good enough where I knew I would graduate. I was about to place my final $700 payment on a credit card. I still remember walking into the Lee building, the financial building; standing in line waiting for that nice Filipino man to accept my final tuition payment. And I remember thinking, I did it, I did it. Even if it takes me the rest of my life to pay off that credit card, there wasn’t anything anyone could do to take my degree away from me. I had finished the race, I had kept the faith. The next month I walked with my class completely debt free.

 

When people hear my story they told me how remarkable that accomplishment was. They think it’s even more remarkable when they learn I am an undocumented immigrant. The funny thing is while I was going through it I never considered what I was doing to be particularly remarkable. For me, I had a goal and I could only focus on completing that goal. For me, success was the only option. I share this part story with you because it taught me one of the most important lessons anyone can learn. The only thing necessary for anyone to accomplish something remarkable something outside of the scope of what they believe they can do is to make success the only option. Tony Robbins once said when people are given the choice between success and death most people will choose success. In order to realize our dreams and accomplish incredible feats, we have to go after them believing that success is the only option.

 

This can be harder for citizens than immigrants. One of the wonderful things about America is that hundreds of millions of people have access to comforts most of the rest of the world can only dream of. These comforts make it difficult the risk our dreams.  As an undocumented immigrant, I have an unfair advantage because I don’t have a choice. I have an MBA from the University of Maryland and I can’t get a job as a sales clerk at Best Buy. If I didn’t build a business I wouldn’t have a job, I wouldn’t have a life. It’s not a fluke that so many entrepreneurs are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. For people like me, success is the only option.

 

This leads me to the second lesson my journey taught me. Immigrants are the key to the fulfillment of the American dream. I had a conversation once with the brilliant professor name Michael Yahuda.  Michael is a British citizen who was raised in Israel; he spent most of his adult life in England, and now lectures around the globe. Michael knows how much I love this country and how I believe America is the greatest country in the world. He once asked me why I had this opinion. I told him this is the land of opportunity, the Constitution; our system of government makes it the best place in the world to live. He responded if the Constitution is so great how come it has never worked anywhere else?  I ignorantly responded because no one else has ever tried it. To which he corrected me, many countries have tried and failed. I felt like a fool and lost the argument.

 

A couple years later I had a meeting with another friend name Joe Moore. Joe is a brilliant attorney and successful entrepreneur. I met with Joe a week before my story was published. I wanted my friends to hear it from me that was an undocumented immigrant, not read it in a newspaper. Joe is one of the last person’s I told. Joe was a strong Mitt Romney supporter. I didn’t think Joe would understand my situation. I couldn’t even look him in the eye as I apologized for who I truly was. He responded, what are you sorry for!? The anger and his voice shocked and also woke me up. What was I sorry for!? I had done nothing wrong. And at that moment I knew that I would never again apologize or feel ashamed of who I am. I am proud of the man I became. Then Joe said something the change my perspective. Joe said to me, Uriel America it’s not the greatest country in the world because the smartest people from around the planet come here. America it’s not the greatest country in the world because the wealthiest people from around the globe come here. America it’s not even the greatest country in the world because the most beautiful people come here. America is the greatest country in the world because the bravest people from around the globe come here. Joe said, think about a mother in South or Central America, a child in hand making the journey across several nations; including the entire country of Mexico with drug lords and crime. Only to arrive in a country where she doesn’t speak the language, she doesn’t know anyone and has no way of knowing how she’s going to provide for her family, with the sole purpose of giving her children a better life. America is the greatest country in the world because those courageous mothers, like my mother, have sacrificed everything so their children to build a future for citizens and immigrants in the United States.

 

The American dream is for both citizens and immigrants, but without a constant flow of new immigrants, that dream could die. It has been my experience that the American dream works best when immigrants and citizens reach out and help one another build the country. I have a small business. It is nothing special. I am a simple man, living an average life, in my small corner of the world. But my business does serve my community of Bethesda Chevy Chase Maryland. We are located about a mile From Walter Reed hospital, where our wounded veterans go to heal. We have partnered what’s a yellow ribbon fund to invite our veterans to heal their bodies and their spirits by learning the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. A few miles further away is the San Miguel School of DC, a Catholic school for underprivileged boys. San Miguel brings these boys to our academy to learn skills that they would otherwise not be able to afford. We also provide regular women’s self-defense seminars to teach valuable skills that will help the women in our community avoid becoming a victim.

 

We do these things for free because we believe it is the right thing to do. I’ve learned that doing the right thing is the most important thing I can do with my life, no matter the cost. Over the past two years, I’ve spoken to thousands of students about immigration and following your dreams, which has made me very public. Every day I look at the door and wonder if today is the day. If ICE will walk through my door, place me in handcuffs, and rip me away from life and my home.

 

However, doing these talks have taught one simple truth. As long as this country is the land of opportunity, immigrants like me will do everything we can to make America the greatest country in the world. We will fight, we will sacrifice, and we will endure, to keep America great; because for us, success is the only option.

 

I like Nate Boyer a lot. I was impressed and moved by his interactions with Colin Kaepernick. Nate is also an American warrior, who humbly served this great country and has my esteem gratitude and utmost admiration. I do appreciate his message of unity and his desire to bring us together. But yeah, no! It is about Trump.

I believe kneeling for the anthem is a flawed protest that I will not engage in. However, when Trump vulgarly used it to label peaceful protesters as miscreants, Trump drew a line, not others. I’m choosing to stand on the other side of the line.

Trump’s side has always desired a literal divide in a border wall, mass deportation, a Muslim ban, government interference in women’s birth control, “law and order” in black communities, deregulation of environmental protections, and silence from the media and other critics.

We’re not sure what more has to happen before nice white Christian folks accept that this bigot is perpetuating the divide, but no white person is telling us how to find common ground with the Nationalist Front and their sympathizers. Again, they’re not interested in cleansing other whites, at least not yet.

While most Kaepernick critics are not white nationalists, they’re also less troubled by a president who proclaims that there are very fine neo-Nazis in America than a president who calls black activist SOBs.

This is about right or wrong. I’m happy to have the side I stand on labeled the wrong side, as long it is the opposite side of white supremacists. The same way I’m happy to go to hell, as long as Trump supporting evangelicals are not there. We’re not finding a middle ground with those passionate about having us gone. We have had many face to face with them, and have seen their inability to overcome their fears as well as their vast capacity for hate.

There is no common ground between minorities and the Klan. Eminem said it best: if you’re still struggling to decide which side of the line to stand on. Please allow me to invite you to stand on the Trump side as we’re not interested in your neutral support. Eminem didn’t state it quite that way, respectfully, I rephrased it a little.

I realize for some, this perspective is outrageous, offensive, and fabricated. However, is it truly that repugnant and flabbergasting to believe that a country whose short history includes the genocide of natives, the enslavement black people, the denial rights to women, and countless other prejudicial atrocities; would still have many white supremacist waiting for a politician to promise them a return and realization of a dormant fearful hate?

If you’re still looking for a middle ground and compromise, please stand with Trump on the other side of the line. I never thought I would find something to appreciate about neo-Nazis. But I appreciate their directness and candor.

There’s is no middle ground for them. We’ve already looked them in the eyes, realized we are the scapegoats to their fears and have experienced their hatred. We’re not going to try to defeat their hate with an olive branch of love. We’re going to combat their hatred by doing the thing that infuriates them the most. We’re going to exist and live the best lives we can, or we’re going to die trying.