Summary Of This Land Is Their Land By Barbara Ehrenreich

In one of the short pieces from the book “This Land is Their Land” by Barbara Ehrenreich, Ehrenreich brings up the topic of illegal immigration. Anyone in a country illegally should not be allowed to work or live in that country freely. Illegal immigrants are not the only problem that has created a job crisis in America, but they are a large part of the issue. Radical ideas such as building a wall have arisen due to the massive amount of illegal immigrants. America is considered the land of opportunity, but it is an opportunity that is not given to everyone. Though finding a job in today’s America can prove challenging, some of the blame can be put on rising tuition costs for students, leading to an inability for most middle class Americans

They use public restrooms and roads while never paying for them like true citizens. That topic is one another time though. The topic Ehrenreich writes about in her story is whether illegal immigrants are the source of our country’s job crisis. She argues that those who say illegal immigrants are stealing their jobs have usually hired illegal immigrants themselves to do the jobs “no one else wants to do”. These jobs include mowing lawns, painting houses and roofing them. These are all tasks that most Americans believe are below them and view it as demeaning to perform such tedious tasks. This process is likened to the way dogs eat out of trash cans. They survive doing what others won’t. These Americans who appoint themselves above these jobs usually resort to the cheapest labor they can find: the very immigrants they protest about. In some cases, these immigrants receive no money for their work but have no way to fight back. Ehrenreich says that “That’s what makes undocumented workers so attractive to unscrupulous US employers: When you rip them off, they have no recourse at all”. It is unfair to say that illegal immigrants are stealing American jobs when they are jobs most Americans are simply too proud to do themselves. Many who complain of illegal immigration are hypocrites, as they hire the same immigrants to do work for them. This level of hypocrisy would almost be comical if the matter at were not

There is stiff competition for nearly every job in the world today. Sometimes Americans are simply not as qualified as other immigrants who are here legally or at times other Americans outwit them. I believe that the true root of the job crisis is that the price of a quality education has reached the point that most people simply cannot afford it or are so crushed by debt when they graduate that they cannot get on track to live a life that they deserve. Higher education costs have risen substantially over the past several years. The cost of college tuition has reached the point that only the wealthy can truly afford it, leaving most middle and almost all lower class Americans without a fair opportunity to receive the knowledge that would help them get the jobs they need. This plays into the fact that the rich are becoming even richer and the poor are becoming even poorer. The widening gap between rich and poor in both the United States and Mexico has left the lower and middle classes in both countries fighting for the same