Immigrants have become faceless over the years

Does anyone remember when immigrants had faces, names, families and were your neighbors? The times have changed.
It used to be that immigration was not only an issue that people tried to figure out how to fix, but one that had a face. People knew an immigrant. Lived next door to one. Worked with one. Knew the kids of an immigrant family. It was a personal issue. These days, immigration has become faceless. It is a numbers game, whether the country is deporting or approving immigrants. Gone is the personal aspect of what it means to be an immigrant in the USA.
Politicians have reduced immigrants to votes, used their children for fodder to net new votes, speak of them in terms of how well deportation efforts are progressing, despite the fact that families are ripped apart on a daily basis and left with just one parent, and cry loudly about the necessity for a secure border, when such a thing is physically and financially impossible.
Immigration is no longer personal, a problem another friend or human being with rights has, but an issue fueled by misconceptions, racial prejudices, fear and politics. We are all one in terms of being human. When we, as a nation, treat others as different and separate, the nation comes to a standstill.
Immigration debate used to be based on facts and figures, figures that spoke of which kids did well in school and which did not, which had higher crimes rates, and which lived mostly on welfare. The facts and figures included everyone, not just certain ethnic groups. While figures of this kind do exist now, they are not regarded a real, human issues. They are discussed in the abstract, as if it were a puzzle to piece together and the whole picture could never be completed, because a piece was missing.
Political discussions, and those on coffee row, focus on the illegal immigrants living in the country and what to do with them. In reality, the greater issue is immigration reform as a whole, and how it affects America now and in the future, not immigration reform as it applies to those living here illegally. The picture is much broader, but people seem to have lost sight of the whole issue, instead of attempting to deal with a portion of the real, larger problem.
The nation and our politicians are missing the point on immigration reform. It is not an abstract concept. It involves real people that have the potential to make the nation even greater, help boost the economy, broaden its cultural complexity and teach others that even though they may be a different color, color does not matter. We are all human and all have human rights. Those are the facts of immigration reform.
Abstractions and facts are two different things and need two different approaches. It is incredibly short-sighted to focus on striving for an ideal something as a whole dealing with immigration reform, rather than reach small goals that build toward a larger, more cohesive something. Perhaps though, at this point, some movement is better than none? Who is to really say?

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