The U.S. House of Representatives wants to turn me into a felon. Why? Because I “help” my wife. I pay the rent (she pays the utilities and cell phones). I do the dishes and cook when she has to stay late at her job. I pay for her visits to the clinic. When she has a sore throat, I make her tea. When she feels sad, I read her a funny story.
And because I do this, the House wants to make me a felon, because my wife came into the U.S. illegally. When I met her, I didn’t know any thing about how she got into the U.S. But we fell in love, and when I proposed to her, she said “no.” I asked her “why,” and she revealed that she was “illegal.” I said I didn’t care; I thought it could be worked out later: maybe pay a fine, or spend some time in Mexico, or whatever. I never thought that by marrying her, and mutually supporting a household, I’d later become a felon.
I know there are those out there that will say: “But she came here illegally—she’s a criminal!” And I say to you: “FUCK YOU! She’s my wife, I love her, and I don’t care how she got here.” And I would further ask, “How has she hurt anyone in this country?”
–She has never utilized any public service, except for going to the park or the beach. She has never gone to a school, public hospital or clinic. She couldn’t (even if she wanted to) take advantage of any other social service. (Well, maybe WIC, but our baby died in uterus. And I paid for the abortion of the dead fetus.)
–She works (more than) full-time. She’s a nanny, and her employer is a rich family on the Westside. They adore her, because their two children relate to her even better than to their own mother (who is clueless with regard to children, it seems). She has me program the VCR to record Teletubbies and Barney and whatnot, so she can keep them engaged. Their parents are especially attached to my wife as a nanny to their children because she is making them bilingual. When they get into middle school, they’ll be fluent in Spanish—speaking and writing, because she teaches them how to write in Spanish.
–She apparently is paying (wage) taxes. She has a tax number, which nevertheless doesn’t serve as a real Social Security number. (Her employer says she really makes ten dollars an hour, rather than nine, because he deducts taxes.) I don’t know what that is all about, but I know that she can’t get a license to drive my car, because that number is not a “real” SSN.
–She definitely pays a lot of sales taxes, and she doesn’t send any of her earnings back to Mexico. She came here because her mother (who is now a legal resident) came here, and left her as a child with an aunt, in Mexico City. That aunt died. She saw no realistic prospect for independent employment, and wanted to be here with her mother and brother. So she came here.
–Despite all of this, she cannot become a legal resident, because she came here illegally.
And she’s my wife GODDAMN IT, and I’m a born in CA Unitedstatesian. If you want me to be a felon for caring for and protecting my own wife, then TO HELL WITH YOU!
I know that the House bill will probably not be passed as is, and that the Senate bill might actually give her the possibility of becoming legal. But I say to hell with you to all the knee-jerks and politicos who just can’t understand how complicated this whole issue is.