This is just wrong.
Thousands of high school graduates like Juan are discovering the dichotomy between a federal law that ensures their education and one that prevents them from using it.
“I never saw myself as an immigrant,” said Juan, a toddler when his family brought him from Mexico. Like the other students in this story, he is being identified only by his first name.
“I’ve been a Dallas boy forever. So it’s a bad feeling, knowing 17 years of study with regular kids – doing better than them – and I can’t even go out and find a job.”
Federal law bans public schools from denying admission to illegal immigrants. Between 50,000 and 70,000 of them graduate each year from American high schools, up to 16,000 of them in Texas. No such law exists for public universities, though 10 states including Texas provide some form of in-state tuition aid to illegal immigrants.
Juan will attend the University of Texas at San Antonio. But in sharp irony to the country’s education ethos, a degree will not boost his career. Juan can’t gain legal employment without a Social Security number, meaning he can return to Mexico with his acquired skills or do the same work as his relatives here. He has decided to major in business administration because he knows a bit about mechanics from his uncle and won’t need to show papers to open a shop.
I’ve tried, but I can’t think of a single good reason why anyone would think this was an appropriate way to treat people like Juan. It seems to me that a sane society, let alone one with an unacceptably large number of school dropouts, would view him as the success story that he is and ensure he has every opportunity to maximize his talents. Frankly, I’m astonished this is even a question. I don’t know what else to say.
The problem with you Kuff is that you are not a republican. If you were, you would think think this is just fine. Lose your heart. You will be fine.
Like many immigrants or children of immigrants (I was 1st generation born here) I get really impatient with people who want to “jump the line” and squat in the US, and then expect to get an amnesty, while our family suffered for what amounted to years trying to get here and gain citizenship. It just isn’t fair to those who wait patiently in line. But even I can see the stupidity of turning away a US educated university graduate who wants to work. For them, there has to be a pathway, just as if you serve in the US military you can gain citizenship in an expedited manner.
We need to compete with other nations and harvest the talented people of the world who want to get there to work and build lives, no matter where they come from. However, we don’t need an unlimited, unregulated number of uneducated, unskilled, non-English speaking people coming here. Trouble is, we allow the wrong people in. The uneducated, unskilled get to squat here “semi-unmolested” (but then also molested in very horrific ways when enforcement is applied selectively). But then some of my university educated co-workers were sent back to their home nations a few years ago when they could not get their H1-Bs renewed. Our Houston office lost one of our best people to Perth, Australia. Houston loses, Perth wins.
I think we really should enforce immigration at the employer level. More efficient, and no breaking up of families, civil rights questions, detention and deportation w/o trial, that sort of thing. No money incentive, far reduced illegal immigration.
And I really don’t think it’s appropriate to grant citizenship to the children of illegal aliens any longer. That’s just wrong. A woman makes her way illegally here to give birth, takes the child back to Mexico to raise it, and then there is an expectation that the child should be able to come back at age 18 to claim his rights as an American? What?!? That may be the law, but the law needs changing. There is more to being a citizen of a country than that.
The immigration system is broken. Lots needs to change. But we have to be very careful what we do.
“The uneducated, unskilled get to squat here “semi-unmolested” (but then also molested in very horrific ways when enforcement is applied selectively). ”
Of course they get exploited horribly, too.
Regarding the Mario Perez case revealed in today’s Houston Chronicle: He must have supplied a false Social Security document in order to get a Texas Driver’s License. He didn’t pay traffic fines. So, why would this kid make a good candidate for US Citizenship? Oh, he didn’t tell his girlfriend either, but that breaks no laws… it’s only an ethical violation.
But, I think the laws should be changed. I think it would be spiffy if he could be allowed to get a student visa so he can finish his degree, then at the conclusion of his educational program we should wipe his immigration violation record clean (it was his parents’ fault, not his), so that when he applies for US Citizenship at the US Embassy in Mexico, there will be no record of a violation, and he stands in line with everyone else from around the globe who wants to be a US Citizen.
Concerning his parents, I’m not going there today.