Children Growing up in Unauthorized Homes
Illegal immigration is a topic widely uncomfortable subject that most people really have barely any knowledge about. Yet, it’s one of the major political conflicts today. Stuck in this vicious cycle are the kids of these illegals, who have no say in what happens to them or what they do. There are the children that came here with their parents when they were young, and then there are the children who were born here, but are nonetheless growing up suffering the consequences of their parents’ unauthorized status. There are about 11.5 million illegal immigrants living in the United States today. Illegal immigrants are define as those who live within the country without legal authorization to do so. There are many ways one can became “illegal”, such as overstaying the time period specified on a tourist or student visa, or entering the United States without inspection, like crossing the border (Hoefer et al). Research has shown that, the population of unauthorized migrants is larger now than at any time since the United States began trying to regulate immigration in the early twentieth century; while the United States represents five percent of the world’s population, it has approximately twenty percent of all unauthorized migrants in the world. Although “illegal immigrants” account for about a fourth of the overall U.S. immigrant population, they dominate the immigration debate and are at the heart of the politic debates. As a result, we find ourselves at a national immigration impasse with every attempt at comprehensive immigration reform having failed over the course of the last decade. Caught in the middle are the children of these immigrants, youth who are coming of age and living in the shadows. An estimated 5.5 million children and adolescents are growing up with unauthorized parents and are experiencing multiple