How far is heaven?
Uncomfortable immigration questions
(NOTE: This Reddit post by u/outterspacecat addresses some uncomfortable views about the US Immigration “System” - a Kafkaesque patchwork of laws that propels many migrant laborers the US depends on into a shadow world that criminalizes their presence without addressing who will perform the tasks they do that few US citizens will - for the meager wages they are paid.)
“When I was 19, my stepfather bought up a few properties around our depressed town of Susquehanna, Pennsylvania — one of them right next door to our own. It was early spring of 2003. The air was still cold, the ground still muddy, and Heaven by Los Lonely Boys played on every station like a soft, constant prayer. “How far is heaven?” they asked.
I didn’t know it then, but that song would tattoo itself onto a memory I carry like a stone in my pocket. We eventually lost all those properties, including the home we lived in. But before you rush to judgment, you should know: my stepfather grew up poor on a pig farm in Puerto Rico. He had a sixth-grade education and a lot of pride. Buying those homes was his attempt at building something — a way to give his family what he never had. He was doing the best he knew how, with what he had, right before the world went sideways. The recession would wipe it all away. One afternoon, a maroon van pulled into our gravel driveway. A man stepped out and asked, in mostly Spanish, if the house next door was for rent. He had cash in hand — and nineteen other men in the van behind him. My stepfather struck a deal then and there.
They moved in that same day. No lease. No credit checks. Just a handshake and a need met. We were grateful. Desperately so. My parents could hardly keep food in the house at the time. The rent money — always paid on time, always in cash — was a lifeline. When you're on the verge of losing everything, a full mailbox and a folded envelope of cash feel like salvation. They needed shelter. We needed a miracle. And for a little while, we gave that to each other. That’s how I came to spend a season of my life next door to a group of undocumented laborers — mostly from Mexico — who had come north to work in the local stone quarries. One house. Nineteen men. No safety net.
The first one I truly saw was my age — 19 — wrapped in a winter coat that looked decades old. He was quiet, serious, and shouldering more than someone that young ever should. He had a family to support back home, and a job here that barely covered it. There was a quiet dignity about him, and it marked me.
Then there was the man who showed up at our door one evening, holding his stomach, crying on our couch in visible distress. Something gastrointestinal, maybe worse. But what do you do when someone is in pain and can’t go to the hospital for fear of deportation? All we had to offer was Pepto, warm water, and concern we couldn’t convert into solutions. That was the system working exactly as it was designed to: pushing people into invisibility.
And then there was Fernando.
I can still see him at their kitchen table, shoulders shaking. His son had just been killed in a car accident back in El Salvador. There was no way home. No goodbye. Only a phone call and a wave of sorrow he tried to contain but couldn’t. I watched Fernando wipe his face with a hand still wrapped in a bandage from a quarry accident a few days earlier — smashed fingers and a shattered heart. That image will stay with me forever. I remember thinking: This is what sacrifice looks like. This is the human cost no policy paper can quantify.
People love to talk about immigration in cold, clean terms — legality, borders, policies, quotas. But when your kid is hungry or your life is unraveling, you don’t wait for a golden ticket — you move. You survive. I think of that maroon van. The boy in the tattered coat. Fernando’s trembling hands as he grieved for his child from another country’s kitchen table.
It’s Father’s Day. And I can’t help but see the thread that ties them all together — doing whatever it takes to care for your people — not because it’s legal or polite, but because it’s necessary.
I also think about how easy it was — and still is — for people to look away. We say, “Why don’t they just come the legal way?” as if it’s a straight, fair, affordable line. It isn’t. It’s often a door that never opens unless you already have privilege on your side. But when your kid is hungry, when your future is disappearing, you don’t wait for a golden ticket — you move.
It started as a song on the radio. It became a prayer I couldn’t unhear.
“Cause I just wanna know how far… Yeah, I just wanna know how far… How far is heaven?”
Who will perform the work of illegal aliens in the US (that citizens do not want to do) if we manage to deport them all?
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Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
I’ll tell you this Jack, but Americans would do those jobs if the illegals weren’t willing to do it for next to nothing in wages. Remember the Oakies during the Great Depression? None of them were Mexican, they were all white people. At one time white Americans did most of the farm work. But as Bernie said, open borders is a Koch brothers plan.
Growing up in Scotland, I saw firsthand how immigration shaped our communities. My earliest memories are of hardware and grocery stores owned by Indian and Pakistani immigrants. These weren't just shops; they were community hubs, often the only places open late or on holidays. While the term "the Paki's" was a common, albeit now recognized as derogatory, childhood descriptor, these first, second, and third-generation immigrants filled essential niches, providing vital services and boosting the local economy.
As the EU expanded, we saw a new wave of immigrants, particularly from Poland and Romania. If your plumbing needed fixing, it was likely a Polish immigrant at your door. They, too, quickly became integral to our communities, bringing different skills and filling roles that locals often did not want to do.
This dynamic evolution of immigration, however, took a sharp turn with Brexit. Living in the US, I watched with disappointment as the results came in. I remember asking my dad how he'd voted. His casual reply was a gut punch: "Brexit. I'm sick of all the Eastern Europeans selling 'the Big Issue'."
His comment, focusing on a perceived minor inconvenience in his little town ("The Big Issue" is a street newspaper sold by homeless individuals), highlighted a narrow view. It felt like we were cutting off our nose to spite our face. My dad in his 70's, and many others of his generation, voted to "get rid of the bloody immigrants," and in doing so, inadvertently prevented a generation of young people from being able to freely travel, live, and work across the EU. The broader benefits of EU membership, especially for the young, were sacrificed for a perceived immediate gain, a stark reminder of how personal sentiments can have far-reaching, unintended consequences.
With prices rising, and a lack of workers in manual trades, is it any wonder that the UK has just recently signed a new agreement with the EU to reestablish broken ties, trade. working relationships and defense.