What is your opinion of people immigrating from other countries to America?

So, in The Bean Trees, Taylor becomes very close to two illegal aliens, Estevan and Esperanza. The married couple had to flee from their homeland, Guatemala to America in order to survive and to avoid giving their government certain information about their friends. Mattie, a motherly figure to everyone, took them in and they live with her.

Before this book, I thought if you don't live in this country, what are you coming here illegally for? We have enough people already! If you want to come to the country than do it legally. The book helped me realize we are all humans and we are all the same, and that geographic borders mean nothing. They are there to divide the world up and make finding places easier, and they should not be there to seperate everyone because of their race or ethnicity.

During a breakdown, Taylor says, "I don't know where to start Lou Ann, there's just so much damn ugliness. Everywhere you look, some big guy kicking some little person when they're down-look what they do to those people at Mattie's. To hell with them, people say, let them die, it was their fault in the first place for being poor or whatever, how dare they come to this country" (Greer 229). It made me see how good of friends Estevan, Esperanza, and Taylor became regardless of where they all came from and at the end Taylor helps them and they help her more than anyones ever helped me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I think that many of the laws are overrated. But, I guess they are also there to make us feel safe. Taylor says to Estevan, "You know what really gets me? How people call you 'illegals.' That just pisses me off, I don't know how you can stand it. A human being can be good or bad or right or wrong, maybe. But how can you say a person is illegal?" (Greer 261). Making it seem like all illegal immigrants are bad people, makes it easier for us to block them out of our country.

But this is just my opinion, I know we also keep people out to prevent new diseases from coming in and stuff, but what's your opinion on this whole situation? Also take into consideration that this book was written in the 1980's, so things may have been a little different back then, but then again the same.