BA students take a stance on immigration

Julie Norris

Senior Devon Zheng, right, talks to classmate Tanner George between classes. Devon isn’t a proponent of the Trump Wall.

Sidney Patterson, The Lead Editor

BA freshman Joyce Zheng, a U.S. citizen whose family hails from China, thinks it is unfair to limit immigrants of certain nationalities from entering the US while others still have access to citizenship.

“If you limit on immigrants from certain countries coming in, I think it’s a bit unfair to other countries that used to come into the US,” she said.

President Donald Trump has bolstered both supporters and detractors with his stance on immigration. For the safety of US citizens, he issued an executive order to put a halt on immigrants of primarily Muslim countries from entering the country, a move that was overturned by a judge. In the instance of Mexican immigrants, he had plans drawn up for a wall along the south border.

While BA has only a mere 400 students in the high school, the classes share a small percentage of students who aren’t native born.

BA Junior Evon DelGrosso, who was adopted from the Ukraine, recently earned his full United States citizenship after six years of living here, and he supports Trump’s strong stance on illegals.

“You have to go through a process. You have to take a test, go to a court, go to another court, then you have to go to an embassy,” said Evon, “People should be able to come to the US as long as they’re willing to follow rules, and do what they need to to become a citizen.”

Evon believes if you are not going to respect the process, you can’t enter the United States. However, students like Joyce’s brother,  Devon Zheng, a senior, don’t think this country can keep out immigrants anyway.

Trump’s wall was one area where Devon disagreed with Trump.

“I think the wall is kind of useless because we’re just blocking one form of entry into the United States. Even then the foreigners can find a way to get around the wall, the possibilities are endless,” said Devon, “The wall symbolizes a person’s fear of invasion and attack. It would be built not to keep one’s purity of an idea, but maybe to keep away from cures of a problem. Is it fair, I believe no because you push away a lot of good people.”

Sophomore Lincoln Boyer, another student from the Ukraine, sees the positive side of President Trump’s policies on immigration.

“Trump’s policies will only encourage immigrants to come into America the right way. Although it is very hard, it is not impossible. Also, it brings much opportunity to have a better life.”

However, Lincoln admitted that such policies could very well generate animosity from immigrants with their sights set on coming to the US.

“I think Trump’s policies will create bitterness to people in other countries because one cannot make everyone happy. There will always be someone who won’t agree because they see things differently.”