The reason illegal immigrants were allowed to be here for so long, many of them decades, has to do with our government’s unwillingness to address the problem of illegal immigration. One reason they were reticent to do so in the past is because business is held is high esteem in this land. Wealthy people hired immigrants to landscape, garden, nanny, and house clean at reduced wages and they did not want to give that up. Many businesses in construction, agriculture, dining and other service industries relied on low immigrant wages to make a profit. So illegal immigrants married and had children over those decades. It is unreasonable to create a problem of this magnitude and then suddenly solve it by breaking up these families in order to punish those who were used for the personal gain of business owners and wealthy home owners. Right now, due to deportations, many farms are struggling to get help with picking, a problem that was forecasted at the start when this President started his crusade to deport people. If you are wealthy, then you should be paying your help a fair living wage. If you are in business and the only way your business can survive is by paying less than a living wage, then you should not be in business. Too many on this app imply that the problem of illegal immigration is just the fault of those who entered illegally, but after being tolerated without real action for so long, the responsibility for creating the current situation lies with the many that have been involved. When someone breaks the law that does not give another the license to treat them inhumanely. I know some people want situations like this to be black and white so they do not have to think or work at a humane solution. But if the shoe were on the other foot, probably those same people would whistle a different tune. Let’s create a path to citizenship for those who have been here for decades and have spouses and children here. And let’s stop pretending that America’s many problems are caused by these immigrants. My ancestors were treated badly when they came here in the early nineteen hundreds and blamed for numerous problems. That pattern is longstanding and keeps the heat off those in power. If you are one of those who espouse that the people at the bottom of the power structure are to blame for all these problems, please reconsider. Those at the bottom of the food chain are not the cause of these problems, but rather the pawns in the situation. Many of them are simply trying to survive.