Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, is under fire after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested hundreds of illegal aliens at its stores in 21 states. All the arrested employees were part of the stores' cleaning crews, and all but a few were released without bond and given orders to appear before an immigration judge.

The raid on the country's largest company was on the front page of newspapers across the country, including ours, but aside from incidents like this, illegal immigrants get little attention from the press.

Illegal immigrants constantly face the reality they could be similarly arrested and could be deported. Employers can be fined for hiring illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants take on a lot of the jobs in our society that others either will not do or will not do for the amount of money offered.

Despite this, as a society, Americans have little to no respect for these immigrants. Anti-immigrant sentiments are common. But as accepted as these feelings might be, they often stem from nothing but ignorant racism and prejudice against the poor.

Many Americans conveniently forget that their own ancestries are not very far removed from the current status of illegal immigrants. Many Irish immigrants, for example, worked in factories, on the railroads or in coal mines and faced extreme racism. Signs that said "Irish need not apply" were not uncommon.

Even as the number of illegal immigrants increases in the United States, the issues that are most important to them are not well-known. The community, despite its size, does not have a loud voice. Living here illegally, they have little economic influence and no political influence because they cannot vote.

Among the issues important to illegal immigrants are drivers licences. Arnold Schwarzenegger ran his successful bid for governor of California on a platform that was critical of a bill signed into law by former Gov. Gray Davis that allowed immigrants to have driver's licences — one of the few state services available to them.

In Illinois, all illegal immigrants, and some legal immigrants, cannot get driver's licenses because of the social security number requirement. That doesn't mean all the people ineligible for social security numbers don't drive, though. Many drive illegally without ever having taken a written or driving test.

What services illegal immigrants are eligible to receive depends on their state. As assistant director of La Casa, Veronica Kann explains that illegal immigrants can live a very mobile lifestyle, so the differences in services available to them is an important issue.

For example, illegal immigrants in Illinois are eligible to pay in-state tuition at all public universities in the state. Although this is a great service for those in Illinois, it doesn't help illegal immigrants living in other states.

Statistics about how whites might one day be a minority in the United States scare some people. They fear the increasing diversity and assume the "problem" is with the increasing number of immigrants crossing the border. It's a shame that having a non-white population as a majority strikes some people as un-American. What's really un-American is the seizing, detaining and deporting of illegal immigrants that results when they are caught working — pursuing their own American dreams.