Throughout this whole election season, we have heard Donald Trump bash on Latinos and undocumented Mexican immigrants saying on a Huffington Post article, “When Mexico sends its people… They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
A year ago, the now Republican presidential nominee was maybe seen as a joke, but now, more than ever, Latinos and others are noticing the support he has been given throughout his presidential race.
Latinos are standing up to voice their opinions against Trump because they find it unfair that he has been calling all Mexicans “criminals” and “rapists.”
The Latino community has been outraged that a person like Trump, who is running to be president of the United States of America, has promised that if he gets elected president, he will be in charge of deporting about 11 million undocumented immigrants. He also promised to build a wall which will explicitly divide Mexico and the U.S.
Moreover, Trump will not stop calling Latinos and undocumented immigrants “criminals.” 
“The Mexican government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc,” Trump told Fox News in a recent interview. 
According to The New York Times, Trump’s income-tax returns were made public and it was explicitly shown that the Republican presidential nominee was committing a crime himself—not paying a single cent to the federal government on income taxes for the past 18 years.
Ironically, Trump has spent this whole election season calling Mexican immigrants “criminals.”
Further, when Trump’s explicit crime was known, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie tried justifying his crooked work in a Fox News Sunday interview.
“There’s no one who’s shown more genius in their way to maneuver around the tax code,”Christie said. 
So, why is it that Trump gets praised as a “genius” when it is evident that he has been cheating the federal system to his own advantage, but still Mexican immigrants are being called “criminals” for entering the U.S. (a land that was previously theirs) as undocumented looking for a better future?
According to PolitiFact, 3.1 million undocumented immigrants pay approximately $12 billion in taxes every year. These undocumented immigrants are the ones who pay for our Social Security, Medicare and Welfare programs, and they are the ones who do not claim benefits at all. PolitiFact also states that laws were created in 1996 and 2004 prohibiting undocumented immigrants from claiming benefits to what their taxes were being put in to.
So again, how are Mexican immigrants the “criminals” when they are the ones contributing to our economy and on the other hand our country’s Republican presidential nominee has not been doing so for the past years?
Student at California State University, Stanislaus (Stan State), Gloria Guerrero (senior, Liberal Studies), emphasizes how her parents immigrated to the U.S. for a better future, not to cheat the system.
“My parents came here 30 years ago illegally. My mom and dad came here because they knew when they had kids they would want them to know English and also because they wanted us to get a better education,” Guerrero said.
Guerrero is always bothered by Trump’s comments towards Mexican immigrants, especially when he stresses to his supporters that Mexican immigrants are the true “criminals” in this country.
“Even though my parents came here illegally, they do pay their taxes. My father and my mother are the most honest, hard-working people that I know,” Guerrero emphasized. “That is why I cringe when someone like Trump says that we are criminals, because my parents have always done their civic duties and paid federal taxes. Something he has not been doing for the past years, so I don’t know how he is much more American than my parents are. My parents are helping the American society. He is not, and hasn’t been.”
Guerrero added saying, “I think it’s extremely hypocritical that Donald Trump accuses minorities of being criminals when in fact he has been a criminal for 20 years.  If it was the other way around, and he found out some immigrant, African American or Mexican American did not pay their taxes, he would be livid. Trump would use that example to prove his point that minorities are and should not be here.”
Stan State English professor Jennifer Wittman, sees paying taxes as a way of supporting democracy in our country. Wittman stresses the fact that by Trump not paying taxes makes it unfair for everyone who does pay them, and she acknowledges the privileges she benefits out of them, a privilege that undocumented immigrants lack but still pay their taxes.
“There are millions of people in the United States with far less privilege than I have, and I believe I serve an important role in the tax money I contribute. I know that in this way I’m living the life that undocumented immigrants dream of,” Wittman said.
Wittman has taught in various Hispanic-serving institutions since 2004, and she has heard numerous stories from her students who share with her their families’ journeys immigrating from Mexico to the United States.
“In each of these narratives there is often a prevailing theme of journeying to the United States in search of a better life though increased job and educational opportunities or to reunite with family,” Wittman said. “I can assure you I’ve never heard the same story twice.  I am often left without words when attempting to respond to these narratives: the stories are filled of beauty and sadness, hope and despair. Love.”
Immigrants enter the American country knowing that they are undocumented and risking their lives during their journey to cross borders. They also enter the U.S. knowing that they will face discrimination as well as racism. But, Immigrants enter this country knowing that there are countless opportunities to look for in this nation that was built by immigrants and on the belief of freedom, which is why undocumented immigrants pay federal taxes, because they feel like this country is their home, their children’s home.