How do I feel about legal and illegal immigrants? My thoughts on legal immigrants are very simple. They worked hard enough and were patient enough to earn the right to become legal in the United States of America. No one should give them any issues with being in America. Every single person who lives in America today does so because his or her ancestors once immigrated into this country. We owe our freedom today to their hard work. There’s no reason that legal immigrants should be treated any differently then citizens that were born in the United States. My thoughts on illegal immigrants are a little more complicated. This issue has been debated endlessly for the past few decades and has created a divide in the country. I think that the United States of America should do everything in their power to prevent illegal immigrants from coming into the country; however, if some people do succeed in sneaking in, then them being here isn’t that big of a problem. People completely opposed to illegal immigrants make the argument that they take our jobs and pay no taxes. They say that hard-working, legal citizens are paying taxes to support cheating, illegal immigrants. I agree with the tax argument, because legal citizens should be paying for the government services that illegal immigrants receive; however, I disagree with the argument that the illegal immigrants are stealing jobs from us. What jobs do illegal immigrants have that we actually want? The jobs that illegal immigrants have pay minimum wage and most of the time less than that. You never see an illegal immigrant come into the country and take a job from a 45-year-old businessman who just got fired from the bank he worked at. Illegal immigrants are not the reason the United States’ unemployment rate is way too high. How do u explain the fact that the jobs that these illegal immigrants get are all available? If they were “stealing” jobs from hard working Americans then the hard-working Americans would have the jobs. They don’t. Most Americans are not willing to do what the illegal immigrants do; therefore, they are not stealing anything from us, besides our breath in arguing about the subject. Obviously it is still illegal and wrong for these people to be in the country; however, if they do manage to get past border control and they have a job that helps people then I am not against them staying in the country. All they want to do is create a better life for themselves and family, and they do not affect my life in any negative way, so I am honestly indifferent to them being here.

What religion do I follow, and why do I practice this religion as opposed to others? I had never really thought about why I was Jewish, as opposed to Catholic or any other religion until I read this question. I could answer the question by simply stating that my entire family is practicing Jews, that I went to Hebrew school until 8th grade, or that I had a Bar Mitzvah. All of these are reasons that I am Jewish; however, after reading through them, I still don’t consider any of them to be the reason why I consider myself a Jew. My dad always told me that being Jewish was more then just about believing in God and reading the Torah. According to him, being Jewish was about having an identity as a Jewish person, as opposed to having an identity as a religious person. Judaism meant more then going to temple and believing in every single thing the religion taught. I thought about these words from my father, who is a practicing Jew, and I realized that this was the reason why I thought of myself as a Jew. I am just now beginning to believe that Judaism is not a religion for me, but an identity that is unique to me. I am not at all religious, never go to temple, and never practice any Jewish holidays, yet my identity as a Jew is still intact. There is a reason why a lot of my friends are Jewish, that I sometimes feel a connection to Jewish athletes and musicians, and that I care a lot about the state and well being of Israel. My identity as a Jew and all of the strings that come attached with it is what separates Judaism from the other religions in the world. Now, you might be saying that I would have never had a Jewish identity if I hadn’t gone to Hebrew School or if I never had a Bar Mitzvah. I whole-heartedly disagree with that. The only thing from my childhood that had a true effect on shaping my beliefs were my father’s words of advice regarding religion and what it truly meant to be Jewish. The Jewish identity that I have is shared throughout my whole family. Not only does having this identity make me feel more complete as a person, but also it allows me to be closer with my entire family. I probably would not have good relationships with my grandparents, cousins, and aunts and uncles, who are all practicing, religious Jews without my strong Jewish identity. It gives us a similarity and something to bond over. All in all, I have a Jewish identity because it gives my life direction and gives me an opportunity to be closer with my family.