When I was in the flower business, we had an employee, Esther, who prepped the flowers.
Esther was an immigrant from Central America.
She paid for her way into the United States, she endured what the men who promised her entrance did to her. It was not pretty.
She left behind her daughters & her family so she could send money back to them.
Her country was in turmoil – her cosmetology business destroyed.
She needed to believe in something – she believed in the American dream, the same dream the current speaker of the House of Representatives is so found of calling upon in moments of weeping.
Esther never weeped – she cleaned flowers, she cleaned houses, she worked a cart at a cafeteria, she took English lessons, she went to cosmetology school.
Desperate, she paid a peer to marry her. He later died of AIDS.
Esther got her citizenship without the benefit of paying anyone, she got her cosmetology license, she married a good man.
And she and her husband bought a house in my neighborhood.
Esther did jobs no one wanted to pay anyone to do if they had to pay their portions of Fica & Medicare taxes.
Once she got her green card, she paid into the system & is no doubt paying since that day.
I want people like Esther in our country. People who give back.
So, Cecilia, what do you do with an Esther, who entered illegally, worked illegally, eventually obtained citizenship legally?
Is she part of the group of illegals you claim to fear?
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