By: Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
My son met his wife, Alejandra (Sandra), at the University of Toronto where they were both graduate students. Sandra was Hispanic and her father was an English teacher.
My son was there on a full scholarship, as she was. Soon the romance blossomed and they married on January 10, 1998, at the Roman Catholic Transfiguration Church in New York City (she was Catholic).
After they married, the immigration officer implied she married my son to get into this country, and it would not work. Obviously, this was not their intention as the marriage has lasted 25 years.
My son was born in Detroit; Sandra, in Logrono, in the La Rioja province of the Basque Country of Northern Spain. They both wanted to live in the United States.
Then the nightmare began. They could not apply for immigration in America so had to fly to some other country, stay in a motel, then apply.
Once they showed up at the immigration center at 8:00am and waited and waited for most of the day.
At 5:00pm they were told they would have to leave and make another appointment, so they left and made another appointment, costing them several hundred dollars.
After several years of this hassle, they gave up and both my son and my daughter in-law obtained positions as professors at a University in Oslo, Norway, where they taught for six years. My son had no problems living and working in Europe. As the spouse of Sandra, my son could work in any country that was part of the European Union, which was almost every European nation.
Six years later, and an offer to teach at the University of Washington, they were finally able to immigrate to the United States where they have lived ever since.
I often read about the millions of illegal immigrants that flow through the U.S. southern border each year. The total immigrant population in America hit a record of 46.2 million in November 2021, the highest number ever recorded in American history going back to 1850.
The number of immigrants in the country grew by over 1.5 million between November 2020 and November 2023 alone. Hispanic immigrants accounted for 924,000 or 61 percent of the growth since last November.
An Hispanic acquaintance of mine earned her master’s degree in some very technical field, but could not work here in spite of the high demand for her skill.
Without a work permit the many millions of immigrants cannot legally work here, so live off the government for who knows how long. They are given free room and board, plus free food, and medical care, plus free education for their children, and even pocket money.
They even get free transportation from border areas to places where they can find a place to live. I have to wonder why so much has changed in the last decade since my daughter-in-law married my son.
For most of the immigrants, we have no knowledge of their health status, their criminal background, their education, or other relevant information.
We do know that they smuggle literally tons of illegal drugs, including fentanyl, into the United States. For the last 12 months ending December 2021, the CDC projects 107,000 to 109,000 drug-induced deaths occurred, up by 16% from the previous year.
Over 72,000 (66%) of these deaths involved fentanyl and other mostly illicit synthetic opioids, often in combination with other drugs.
Other problems include sex-trafficking as well as exploiting children. The flow of illegals has recently increased since the government has removed large sections of the wall, allowing many more persons to walk across our paper border.
Many wonder why our borders are now largely open to anyone that wants to get lots of free stuff and services.
No wonder there are so many people crossing the border each and every day to come to America! And in the end it will cost taxpayers an estimated trillion dollars.
I just returned from a book speaking tour in Indianapolis and my host payed my hotel bill. A family, also staying in the motel that did not speak English had all of their expenses paid by the government.
I would very much liked the government to have paid for my five day stay in the motel instead of my supporter.
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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,800 publications in 12 languages and 60 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,500 college libraries in 27 countries.