Essay
                                                     Crossing the Border

     In July 2001, Mexican president Vicente Fox asked president Bush to consider granting legal status to about three millions undocumented Mexicans. U.S. congressman luis Guitierrez backed a bill that would legalize immigrants who could prove U.S. residence since 1996, business and labor pushed for a guest worker program, wherein Mexicans workers could freely come and go across the borders but would not be allowed to stay in the U.S. permanently, after september 11, 2001 U.S officials told the Mexican government that because of terrorism fears, the immigration laws were unlikely to change anytime soon. 

    Meaning more Mexican immigrants are willing to risks their lives for a better life. Is it worth it? there are 8.5 million Mexican born in the United states, three million of whom are undocumented. the Mexicans immigrant population is highly concentrated, with 78 percent living in just four states and nearly half living in California alone.  Global exchange states that the number of immigrant death has increased over 600 percent since 1994. Several thousands have drowned in canals and rivers and have died of dehydration, hypothermia and heat stress in the desert. Some have been shot by ranchers in Arizona and texas, in the year 2000 alone, 369 immigrants perished trying to cross the border.

    The history if immigration to the united states is in many ways, a record of ethnic and racial conflict, almost all new immigrant groups have faced a degree of resistance ranging from quiet disapproval to blatant discrimination and violence before being accepted as part of the American population. Between 1942 and 1964 the Bracero program provided U.S. with hundreds of thousands of Mexicans workers as a way to meet the labor shortages of world war II and beyond, by 1945 more than 63, 000 Mexican immigrants were working in the railroad industry.

    These workers, for the most part lived in substandard housing, worked long hours under terrible conditions for poors wages and experienced racism and abuse from American employees and local citizens. Things haven't change much in a half-century for many Mexicans immigrants in this country too often they continue to live in substandard condition occupy the most difficult jobs, work long hours and still experience employer harassment on a regular basis. 

   Congress should have pushed for a guest worker programs, wherein Mexican workers could freely come and go across the border. Due to the close proximity of Mexico to the U.S. and the noticeable difference in qulaity of life, it is  no wonder why so many generation Mexicans have illegally crossed the border. they come to achieve the American dream. Some are satisfied by just achieving a small slice of the

American dream, because even this is usually better than what they could achieve at home.