Sherley Hinds Gomez
Tom Reynolds
College Composition I
December 17, 2015
Undocumented Immigrants: The American Scapegoat
Humans have a tendency to blame outside forces for inside issues. History has repeated accounts of imposing responsibility on a certain group of people. In the wave of patriotism followed by the 9/11 attacks on the United States, the American people were left terrified and worried their lives were at danger. In the midst of the panic, the American public raced to find a culprit. The Muslim attackers paved the road for a new opening of discrimination toward the Middle Eastern people; they soon became the face of terrorism, even though only a few actually took part in the attacks. In 1919, the Treaty of Versailles left Germany as a war-forsaken wasteland. The economy plummeted and the desperation for change soared. The Nazi Party appealed to the German public and the Weimar Republic was too weak to hold up with the chaos. In the midst of the desperation, Adolf Hitler raised his hand and pointed at the Jewish population. He blamed them for the problems and humans abided to giving the problems a face. Blame will never go away because people try to find the culprit when an issue arises. One large group the general consensus has agreed to use as a scapegoat for the recessing economy is the undocumented immigrant of America. Several justifications have been used to support the claim, ‘undocumented immigrants are the cause of a troubled America’, but none of these justifications hold true.
Millions of Americans personally have felt the affects of the declining economy. They look up to their politicians, hoping their leaders have a reason and a direction for change. Conservatives have distorted the minds of the American public by giving the receding economy a face. Twelve million undocumented immigrants are put at fault for the nation’s economic problems. This claim is furthered by provoking anger. They are angered by the unemployment rate...