30 Days as an Illegal Immigrant

Can people change their mind in only 30 days? I think it is difficult to change mind completely if people have a lot of confidence about their opinions. In this show, a man named Frank George (Francisco Jorge) stays in tiny apartment with illegal family, the Gonzales for 30 days. The Gonzales family comprises seven members who are father, mother, three daughters and two sons in one bed room apartment. The parents and three older kids do not have papers, and two younger kids they were born in the U.S. are American citizens. Frank is originally from Cuba, and he came to the United States with his parents when he was seven years old. Now he is working as a Minuteman who patrols around American border and stop illegal immigrants from coming into the U.S. His idea for American immigration problem is that illegal immigrants are bad if they have any problems in their countries. If they want to immigrate to the U.S., they should come legally. He had very strong opinion about this problem. In addition, he did not accept any other different ideas of immigrants at the first time. For example, discussion about legal and illegal immigrants with Armida’s high school teacher, they argued very strongly. His idea is everyone should follow the American law. Other countries situations do not matter. However, his strong ideas changed gradually while he spent a time such as working as a day laborer, discussing about the immigration problem, and going to Golf lesson with the family. In addition, he noticed how difficult it was to live in Mexico when he visited Gonzales family in Mexico. In the end of the show, he started to think about illegal immigrants in regard to amnesty. Actually, he still has his opinion which he does not accept illegal immigrant. However, he left border patrolling to other Minuteman. He plans to pursue border security enforcement by appealing directly to politicians.

After I watched this show, I still think illegal immigrants are bad because they are breaking American law. Even though I saw the real situation of Mexico, I cannot agree with illegal immigrants. Both sides have ideas. In Frank’s opinion is everyone should follow American law, so every immigrant should come legally as him. However, the Gonzales family opinion is that they could not live there enough in Mexico. They did not have any choice at that time. They do not want to work as a day labor, and they did not think they are taking jobs from American. If they can, they get paper and get good job and live with their other family who are in Mexico. Armida said that pilgrims were illegal immigrants because they did not have any visa and permission from Native American. This idea is true, however, we did not have system such as visa at that time, and we cannot compare pilgrims and legal immigrants. I can understand both sides, but immigration problems are very difficult to solve. In Japan, we have serious problems about illegal immigrants as American. Illegal immigrants come to wealthy counties to get a job and earn money because they cannot get money and jobs in their own countries. Therefore, Mexico should take some action to solve the illegal immigration problem. It is not only American problem.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/56908/30-days-immigration#s-p3-so-i0