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Mexicans have a right to be in the United States

Mexicans have more of a right to travel to and from what is now the United States than white Americans do.

Does anyone else find it rich that Americans want to stop Mexicans from crossing their border?

It’s odd because until 150 years ago, people who were indigenous to what is now northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States could travel as they pleased. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsen Purchase changed all that, slicing in half with an invisible boundary the traditionally territory of Indigenous peoples.

Same goes for the Blackfoot people. Until the 49th parallel was established, the Blackfoot people could come and go as they pleased between what is now Southern Alberta and Montana. In 1918, that all changed, and another invisible boundary arbitrarily separated families and friends and forced a foreign citizenship upon them.

It’s the epitome of colonialism to enter a land, take it from the people who had lived there for millennia, establish an invisible boundary, force a citizenship upon all those Indigenous people who live on your side of that boundary, then call anyone on the other side of that boundary who try to enter “illegal”, because they don’t follow the foreign laws you made up.

Frankly, Mexicans have more of a right to travel to and from what is now the United States than white Americans do.

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By Kim Siever

Kim Siever is an independent queer journalist based in Lethbridge, Alberta. He writes daily news articles, focusing on politics and labour.

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