Illegal Immigrant Story, The Future Is Dark

I wanted to share some insights that I've had into illegal immigration now this is not a topic that I get into a lot but uh I've got a personal story to share that might give you another angle on what's actually happening here so a couple days ago one of my employees came to me and said that one of their family members was just about ready to cross the Darion Gap now for those of you who don't know what this is this is that piece of land right between Colombia and Panama I believe it's part of Panama and there's no roads there's no highways there's nothing it's it's considered one of the most dangerous jungles on the planet Earth and in order to get through you have to have like a tour guide and it's it's quite extensive but uh as a lot of you know I've got employees that work for me here in Columbia that fled Venezuela the fight the hyperinflation and uh this employee of mine who had this family member that was crossing the Darien Gap there Venezuelan so we got to talking about this and I said what on Earth would motivate anyone to do this and they're like well this it's a young gal she's probably I don't know 20 years old something like that so she saved up like a thousand dollars and this is what it's costing her to to go so she's literally got to take a bus up North Columbia and then once she gets there she's hired like some sort of boat driver to take I guess she's part of a large group that's going to the closest point so they'll have to go through the Jungle the least amount and this is costing her let's say 75 or something like that and then she pays the tour guide to go through the jungle and then they they're objective of course is to get to the U.S border and across illegally into the United States and I I'm I was just taken back and I'm like why on Earth would anyone do this and you would say well George isn't it obvious they want a better life in the United States they want to make a lot more money now look these people they have zero skill they don't speak English now they're hard working granted but they don't have a skill set to even do a very basic job other than maybe housekeeping uh in the United States and you have to look at all the homeless people that we have now in the United States at least they speak English and if they're out on the streets I know a lot of it has to do with mental health issues and drug addiction but if they're out on the street what makes you believe that you're going to be able to go out there and just strike it rich and send all this money back to Mexico Venezuela Colombia wherever and by the way for those of you who haven't been to Columbia you might look at it as some sort of third world country where there's no opportunity for people to climb up the ladder and improve their lot in life that is not true that is the furthest thing from the truth in fact I would argue for people with very low skill sets that are trying to improve those skills but at the same time kind of work their way up the ladder and make more and more money you've got way more opportunity here in Colombia in Medellin or specifically than you would in the United States especially if you don't speak English so the bottom line here is all of these immigrant not not all but this uh person would fall into this category where they just go online and they see the average wage in the United States and their eyes get big and they say holy cow they look at the average wage and say oh my gosh 28 dollars an hour whoa and they calculate how many pesos that would be and they're just their their mind is blown like oh my gosh if I could at least if I could somehow just illegally cross that border I I'd be rich oh my gosh I could send all this money back and my goodness I'd make twenty thousand dollars a year and that's an astronomical number for them I mean to them that's like striking it rich unfortunately these people aren't sophisticated enough to do the math on the expense side of the equation what they don't realize is that when you account for everything being exponentially more expensive they actually have less purchasing power getting into the United States illegally than they would have here but they it's much easier for them to get a job here so they're going to all of this trouble and paying all you know taking their life savings and taking all this risk a lot of people die on this trip for heaven's sakes and then getting across the border illegally and doing all these things so most of the people it sounds like they fall into one of two categories either either like they I said they think that they're going to just get immediately Rich because they look at the average wage and they don't understand that the cost of living is 10 times hi