Headline Bias

The headline, to be truly accurate, should read,’New Salvo in Fight on Illegal Immigration.’ The rights of immigrants are not in question- the question is whether illegal immigrants should be accorded status privileges that in many cases the US doesn’t even grant US citizens, that are not reciprocated in any nation, and are demanded at considerable taxpayer expense (with demonstrable externalities to the taxpayer in question).

The provision of additional incentives that encourage still more illegal immigration — with all the attendant problems including human trafficking, identity theft and related crimes, many of which are injurious to the illegal immigrants themselves — is best avoided.

Scrawed, at 5:00 am EDT on May 8, 2008

immigration

Interesting that all manner of crimes are laid at the feet of so-called illegal immigrants. This argument is, as in the first post here, combined with ‘how much does it cost ‘us,’ whoever the ‘us” is in the post.

Keep in mind that people make laws and determine what is legal and not. Hiding behind “the law” only deflects responsibility for defining /categorizing people. Keep in mind, too, that most people working in the USA pay taxes, both direct and indirect, whether they are legally able to work or not. With this in mind, the “how much does it cost us” and the “but it is illegal” arguments look more like prejudice than not. Why is it that fences are built at the Mexican border and nowhere else? Why does NAFTA grant easier access to Canadians than Mexicans?

In a world in which the nation-state’s power is being redistributed, in which capital flows but people cannot, in which an economic and social structure create wealth by changing job locations, then why is it surprising that immigration world-wide is huge and increasing?

Finally, why the fear? Is it because the “us” in anti-immigrant rhetoric worried that they have lost control of identity? If so, so have the people immigrating and emmigrating. Perhaps instead of railing against immigrants, the “us” should look at the elements driving the immigration in the first place.

theron, at 9:00 am EDT on May 8, 2008

as I was saying...

Further, allowing thses benefits to exist for illegal aliens is double jeopardy for the working poor taxpayer. It is not just that Illegal employers use the abundance of illegal labor as a blunt instrument against the living wage aspirations of their own legitimate employees, but the main benefit to the employer is the perpetuation of the “under the table” (also Illegal) culture to avoid paying taxes.

So the working poor taxpayer loses his employment, but is then expected to pay taxes to support benefits for the illegal immigrant.

It is unfair, a violation of law, a poor example to teach people, and atrocious public policy.

R.F., at 9:10 am EDT on May 8, 2008

WHAT?

IF there numbers of undocumented students attending the CCs in NC are not that high, then what is is hurting to allow them to attend classes on these campuses?

Why do we continue to complain about “them"(primarily Latino/as) not valuing education, being on the streets, increasing crime rates and having babies YET we do not want to allow them the opportunity to better themselves and become educated??? It is a proven fact that when a population gains education the birth rate and crime rate drops.

This is truly a sad situation.

Amanda, Program Coordinator at Kansas State University, at 10:20 am EDT on May 8, 2008

SAD

There seems to be a general assumption that all illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes. That is far from the truth. Are there some that don’t? Of course yes. But aren’t there US citizens that don’t pay taxes too? Besides taxes, immigrants also pay into the social security pool; money they know they will never claim. Most people are unwilling to accept that they also receive benefits, directly or indirectly, from so called illegals. Many are just quick to blame them for all their problems. These are the same people who complain that illegals increase the crime rate in this country. Wouldn’t they rather these kids be in school and productive members of society than be in the streets? Immigration is a complex issue. I find it amaizing how quickly people try simplify it to justify their views; regardless of how short-sighted they are. FL Dean – What was the criterion for choosing the recipients for the scholarships? If those two students were the most qualified (i.e better grades, extra curricular activities, etc) then they deserve the scholarships. Would you rather they awarded them to lower performing students? Now, THAT would be sad!

JK

JK, at 11:00 am EDT on May 8, 2008

My question is the same as last time this was an issue. How does anyone know the student is illegal? It isn’t asked on the application; and SSN are not checked against a federal data base. Are these 112 illegals actualy self disclosing to school officials?

GREG, at 11:20 am EDT on May 8, 2008

Reconsider this...

I’m reading the comments and clearly those who are speaking against undocumented students don’t live in California. Yes, our illegal immigrants do pay taxes and not to mention work hard to provide certain luxuries to us such as picked fruit on your table or a specific garment you wear every day but was hemmed by someone just trying to make it in this country. You see, we have undocumented students who came to this country when they were babies and they have no connection to their mother country. In fact, they know no other country but this and in all truth this is their country. So the next time you start pointing the finger at a student to show them the door, take into consideration that we are all immigrants at some point in our lives. Whether we move from country to country or even job to job. There is never a welcome mat for us all the time. Education is not a privilage but a right. I think some people forget this and if you are going against this-where are your ethics? Or better yet, where are is your promise to education? Yes, it’s a fine line between government funded programs and undocumented students. I’ve heard the term: Feed our own before others. But we cannot let innocent students stand outside our education walls-what would that do to our society and to our own pursuits for access and equity? Esepcially to those who didn’t ask to move from their country and fled with their parents here for a better life when they were 1. They had no say in this! So what are you going to do? Tell an undocumented student to go back to their country which they don’t know and also speak a language they don’t know. Completly unjust if you ask me. Our students are only trying to better themselves and get the American Dream. So reconsider your thoughts about this. There’s a lot more to the entire issue if you look deeper.

Think Again, at 1:20 pm EDT on May 8, 2008

Fight on Immigrants? Or illegals?

There are many good comments made in the discussions. But may I propose one thought? If you choose to disregard our laws, why expect to reap rewards? There is a process for coming to this country legally, which entitles you to some benefits. Choosing to come illegally should not entitle anyone to benefits. If the government and economy in Canada were such that people had to come to the US to get jobs, we would have to focus on the problem there. It isn’t. It is the responsibility of the government of Mexico to take care of its people, to provide jobs, education, etc. Not the U.S. responsibility.Our education budget gets cut constantly, and its time to take care of our own. Lets focus on improving our education system for those who are U.S. Citizens, and then we maight be able to help others.

Anothervoice, at 1:20 pm EDT on May 8, 2008

Salvo/immigration

From my perspective, it’s not only illegal, but immoral in the sense that it degrades the thousands of students who: can’t win a lottery to emigrate to the U.S. and attend school; can’t get a visa to the U.S. because they don’t have the money to study in the U.S. Monies for state and community colleges come from legal taxpayers who, by far, pay the greater share of the money required to underwrite tuition and salaries at ANY Federal or state funded school. I am amazed at the total disregard for others and for the law which this initiative demonstrates.

susan donnell, at 4:00 pm EDT on May 8, 2008

Inconvient facts

.. be honest about how much of it we all use while whining about what “they” have a right to or not.

Want honesty? Then get out a calculator and address the negative, long-term economic impact of illegal immigration —

http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_18_2/index.shtml

After that — prove thy nobility. Petition local government to allow 21 people to live in the house next door.

Then give up your nice-paying job to PhDs from Europe. Prove thy nobility, because mere words are a non-starter today — only authentic actions matter.

Russ, at 8:05 pm EDT on May 8, 2008

Response — Scott’s comments

Scott said — “The resistance to allowing illegal immigrants higher education seems to me to contribute to an overall picture in which the U.S. has been creating an illegal immigrant underclass.”

Scrawed replies — The issue is not allowing illegal immigrants higher education. The issue here is allowing illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates in pursuit of that higher education — which we rarely even grant citizens of our own country.On the creation of an illegal immigrant underclass, I believe this is occurring and should be avoided by reducing illegal immigration.

Scott said — “We’re not (at least in NC) ’sending them all back’—wouldn’t that be following the law to the letter, Scrawed and Ide?”

Scrawed replies — Most people would acknowledge that the physical repatriation of anywhere from 12 to over 20 million illegal immigrants would be economically punitive. A better solution exists in the withholding of benefits associated with illegal immigration and active discouragement of same, coupled with increased border enforcement and a physical barrier at the border.

Scott said — “Rather, we’re simply allowing them to stay and make up the working class (janitorial, construction, farm work, service industry) that American citizens don’t want to be.”

Scrawed replies — Actually enforcement and the threat of enforcement at the employer level is helping reduce levels of illegal immigrant employment. Furthermore there is substantial documented evidence that illegal immigrant labor has driven out legal citizen labor in the construction, meatpacking, and electrician trades. One of the biggest lies repeated in this debate is that “these are jobs that Americans don’t want.”

Scott said “The notion that they might climb socially and economically is perhaps the elephant in the room here — Americans seem fine with having Mexican busboys, but they selectively invoke the Law when anything immigrants do might work to their disadvantage (such as better qualified immigrant young people getting scholarships).”

Scrawed replies — Actually, the elephant in the room is the impact of the sheer numbers involved. The US has had devastating impacts in American public schools and American hospitals directly tied to this failure of enforcement, especially in the border states. There are increased demands on law enforcement and public services. Public safety has been badly compromised. All of these impacts have been documented and they affect all US citizens adversely. They impact citizens of Mexican descent at least as profoundly as anyone else.

Scott said — “Ultimately, systematically denying these people the opportunity to educate themselves (amid the now particularly perverse demands, in the general population, that they ‘learn English’)...”

Scrawed replies — Who’s talking about denying people the opportunity to educate themselves? In fact, we even provide K-12 education mostly free of charge. Again, what we are discussing is the provision of in-state rates to illegal immigrants when we don’t even allow the provision of in-state rates to out-of-state US citizens. As far as “the perverse demand that they learn English” is concerned, I am not at all convinced that learning the language(s) of the country in which one lives is either perverse or an unreasonable expectation for a functioning adult in that country.

Scrawed, at 5:05 am EDT on May 9, 2008

Undocumented students

It’s been, historically, the labor of people of color that’s built this country, including its economy and its technical achievements. Africans were enslaved, the Chinese were virtual slaves, and Mexican laborers are now suffering at the hands of unscrupulous employers and the racist group, The Minutemen. When Africans were forcibly brought to this country, no one asked them for papers. The Chinese, as long as they were willing to risk their lives building railroad tracks on cliff sides, also were not asked for green cards. And Mexicans, when the Bracero program was initiated, were more than welcome from WWII to the early 70s to harvest the U.S.’ crops.

Too many Americans think it was only U.S. citizens who built the country. Not so. But as soon as a view such as mine is expressed, denial sets in like like a monsoon.

Now that people who are forced to come here, because of American corporate control of Latin America’s economy (see the United Fruit Company’s history), officials want to deny them an education. Some thanks. We can also look to NAFTA to understand how it makes it easy for American corporations to undermine Mexican businesses, including small individual concerns who can’t compete with the low prices that mass production allows.

So it goes like this: when this country needs workers, it welcomes them from anywhere. When the economy tanks, in this era especially because of Bush’s war-mongering and genocidal policies, and Americans lose their jobs, foreign workers get the blame—as happened in the 30s.

Too many people refuse to understand that it’s American corporate greed, which has given way to war, outsourcing, and settling U.S. corporations in China, that has caused the current recession. It’s not immigrant workers taking jobs from Americans. But when people are desperate and need someone to blame, the easy targets, because they’re defenseless, are undocumented people.

The U.S. has lost credibility in all areas, but especially in its claim that it values human rights and democracy. And too many Americans, themselves easily manipulated because of their lack of critical training and because they are blind to their discrimination, do not want to see undocumented people, workers or students, as human beings worthy of dignity, education, health care, and a chance at a decent life for their families. So many Americans simply want to dehumanize and villify undocumented people. It’s easier to do that than to accept that this country is deeply flawed in its societal values and morals, in its culture that stipulates that only certain types of people are worthy of respect.

To deny higher education to undocumented students is counter-productive. If these students go to college and graduate, they will find jobs, which means they’ll contribute to the tax base. Good paying jobs will also allow them to support their families in their countries, which means that fewer immigrants will come here.

It’s ironic that a college or university, seats of learning, would succumb to pressure to deny people education. Let’s not forget that Einstein was an immigrant, as were so many others without whom this country would not be as successful as it is.

Leonard Adame, Instructor at Community College, at 6:00 am EDT on May 10, 2008

New Salvo on Immigrants

Since Community Colleges are funded by the local citizenry, they should have the option of admitting illegal immigrants into their classrooms. Their burden of paying part of the tuition for these students would be considered an act of kindness and should be their choice. If students and their parents have been paying taxes to fund their community college experience, I see no impediment to their attending classes. However, many other, legal, worthy students are barred from classes when class space is occupied by illegals.

kathleen, at 5:40 am EDT on May 13, 2008

Undocumented Students in Florida Community Colleges

Maybe no one will read this since all the other comments are at least a month old, but I ran into some troublesome statements that I wanted to address.

First is the cost of having undocumented students at a community college. In Florida, undocumented students pay out-of-state tuition. They do not receive the break that legal residents of Florida do. Not that there isn’t a cost associated with an undocumented student attending a community college, but since they pay 3-4 timwes as much as an ordinary student, the cost isn’t that great to the taxpayer.

Second, I am familiar with Broward Community College, Jack Kent Cooke, and the selection process. The FLDean who complained that two illegal immigrants were nominated by BCC and subsequently were awarded the JKC transfer scholarship seems to suggest that there was something unfair about undocumented students receiving the JKC transfer scholarship. JKC is a rigorous scholarship, asking students to write several essays and demonstrate a history of leadership and service. A committee that included honors coordinators, Phi Theta Kappa advisors, and Honors English instructors had to decide among all the applicants who had turned in the application with (1) the most accomplishments and (2) the best writing. Proof that the committee did its job well is that this year, out of the thousands of nominees, JKC awarded 47 transfer scholarships, and both BCC nominees earned the JKC transfer scholarship. The documentation status of the students is not relevant. The money belongs to the JKC Foundation, and Florida community colleges accept undocumented students. If JKC does not deny undocumented students scholarships, then neither can BCC deny its students access to JKC. For those who are troubled, there are plenty of scholarships, loans, grants, and other forms of aid that are not available to undocumented students.

English Professor, at 4:25 pm EDT on June 4, 2008