<p>And after these students graduate, they can’t get jobs without a green card or a SS card. Which brings us back to MissyPie’s thread about stolen social security numbers.</p>
<p>I don’t think we need to worry about the kids that are actually looking to attend college that are illegals. We should be looking at the others who add virtually no value to our economy and kick them out.</p>
<p>re post #13: the only way illegal immigrants can avoid paying taxes is if the <em>employer</em> voluntarily pays them under the table. Otherwise, the employer has to withhold taxes and pay certain payroll taxes. I have no idea how many illegals are paid under the table, but I’ve been reading for years that illegals pay more taxes than they derive benefits. Of course, I don’t know if that takes the cost of educating their children into account.</p>
<p>By the way, the South Korean groups homes are real. I know of several where my Korean “exchange” student was thinking of living for the next three years.</p>
<p>@#21, exactly! I do not understand the push to make U.S. college education a priority for illegal immigrants, when they cannot legally get a job in this country now or when they graduate. There are plenty of colleges in many of the citizen-countries of illegal immigrants. The argument that those countries are not their “home” countries or familiar to them does not hold water, as plenty of students around the world attend college internationally.</p>
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<p>While I am not sure to whom you refer as “at the others who add virtually no value to our economy” I assume you’re not talking about the undocumented aliens who hold jobs in farming, in food processing, in construction, and in many other sectors. </p>
<p>I do not think you’d like to measure the “hit” you wallet would take at the grocery store and in the cost of numerous services if we were to kick all those undesirable out. From the right or the wrong reasons entire industries would collapse without the safety blanket offered by undocumented aliens. </p>
<p>As far as taxes, you might want to ask Mini about how the unclaimed benefits paid BY aliens help keeping the social security system afloat … for the time being.</p>
<p>I think it is good and bad.</p>
<p>Bad first…</p>
<p>I hate my states university, and would want to go to a different states college…But I would have to pay OOS tutuion that is like $15k more a year and that simply isn’t fair. I mean at least I live and am a citizen of the United States and I should be able to take my pick(a la Canada).</p>
<p>But giving Illegal Immigrant high education also encourages them to get better jobs which reduces poverty and a poor economy.</p>
<p>It’s unfathomable what occurs everyday at 3:00 p.m. at the border, school buses paid by us drop off school kids. While waiting at the closest hospital to the border, you can’t count the # of taxis that pull up dropping off illegal expectant parents w/o insurance I might add. San Diego is the new Ellis Island except for the part where you have to become naturalized like our great grandparents. There are tens of thousands of cars with Baja license plates that drive around free of the fees that you and I are required to pay. If you get into a car accident you pray to God it’s an American citizen that is required by law to carry car insurance. If this continues it will all be coming to your state too, if it hasn’t already become a problem where you live. I hope America wakes up. I’m for immigration. It’s got to be controlled. If you think your paying high taxes now just wait you ain’t seen nothing yet.</p>
<p>By the way, My Best Man and friend’s last name is Ruiz! I might also add that he feels the same regarding instituting a better immigration policy! We’ve got to start somewhere before we begin to address America’s social problems.</p>
<p>I feel great sympathy for the stories you hear of very smart, hardworking students who are unfortunately - and often unknowingly - undocumented. However, I live in the Southwest like TerpDad and the vast majority of these illegal immigrants are absolutely overstepping the boundaries between sympathy and anger. Actual news stories of the good immigrants getting deported are heavily outnumbered by the stories I hear daily of illegal immigrants smuggling drugs or otherwise causing further crimes. If all of them were just hard workers who are trying to make things better for themselves, I might perhaps feel a liiiittle bit differently (doesn’t change the fact that they’re still flouting the law). Things are getting ridiculous and a line has to be drawn somewhere. And now in-state tuition for them? Are you kidding me? As out-of-state tuition rises faster and faster every year for American citizens, people want to offer in-state tuition for illegal immigrants who don’t pay taxes?</p>
<p>And yes, I might also add that my parents, as immigrants to this country, waited SEVEN years to receive their legal documents and lived in total poverty to get through my dad’s Master’s and PhD programs. Oh, and they came here from communist China - not any better than the poverty-stricken areas of Mexico if you ask me. Simply because they live in a neighboring country does not give them any more right to come here illegally.</p>
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<p>As stated several times, illegal immigrants cannot legally get jobs in this country, whether they have a college degree or not.</p>
<p>NEA should address items such as:</p>
<p>“Anyone feel like their high school didn’t prepare them AT ALL for college admissions?” in the cc high school life forum</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/533198-anyone-feel-like-their-high-school-didn-t-prepare-them-all-college-admissions.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/533198-anyone-feel-like-their-high-school-didn-t-prepare-them-all-college-admissions.html</a></p>
<p>Around here, many are paid under the table and pay no taxes. This situation is not limited to illegal workers. You cannot pay SS if you do not have a SSN. You cannot file taxes without a SSN, and there is no point in doing so. In our hometown, there is a workers station where every day there are many, many men waiting for the trucks to come by and pick them for a day’s work. According to the press, and other info, most of them, though probably not all of them, are illegals.<br>
When I looked to getting legal household help, found it was nigh impossible here without going through an agency that would send group cleaners, not an individual. We are the only ones I know who pay legally, and it costs us dearly, as we have assumed the cost, not the worker. And I have gotten into an accident with someone who was illegal and had no insurance. It is a big problem here. I don’t know what the answer is and don’t have a lot of opinions on the path to take other than the rules and laws need to be ones we can support. I find it sheer idiocy that our town is supporting an illegal aliens work hub, and that it is not allowed to check ids or ask legality here in our school district. Yet, it is done all the time that the illegals are hired and paid. I cannot blame those who come here to get the money. The rules are all over the place with sporadic enforcement. Many mixed messages. I wish that the work strike had been longer and more universal so that we could all see the impact that illegal labor has on us and our economy so that we would have a better idea what the laws should be. They are not addressing the problem or enforcing themselves at this point.</p>
<p>illegal has come to mean nothing more than a sick bird.</p>
<p>why allow only the illegals that are here now?</p>
<p>what about other foreigners who would like to receive an education in the U.S. but the poor schmucks are waiting in line or are not aware that only schmucks wait in que to come in.</p>
<p>why even have an immigration policy at all?</p>
<p>I’ve only read the first post, but the only reason in-state prices of public schools are so low is because you and your parents have paid taxes for years.</p>
<p>Since when did illegals pay tax?</p>
<p>HiFi : I think most would agree the majority of the guidance counselors are either overburdened or incompetent with a few dedicated exceptions. I don’t believe that this fact has changed over the decades. The parents who are C C’rs are probably the best guidance counselors around in seeking out info for their sons and daughters! </p>
<p>The immigration policy we have now I equate to that of abusive lawsuits. They both have resulted in increased costs passed on down to the taxpayers except those costs are finally becoming noticable and extremely burdensome. The citizens are beginning to demand relief and the higher gas prices only exacerbates the problem! There are fewer pennies to pinch!</p>
<p>Well, these would be the same folks presumably who wanted to force feed bilingual education on immigrants and it finally took a referendum to make them stop. My response to this latest “initiative” by NEA . . . my usual response to them – gag.</p>
<p>In NH, we don’t require drivers to carry auto insurance so we have the option to provide purchase coverage should we be damaged by someone without insurance. I don’t think that it’s much of a problem in our area. Yet. It’s a common topic of discussion in MA though.</p>
<p>“San Diego is the new Ellis Island except for the part where you have to become naturalized like our great grandparents.”</p>
<p>Worse. At Ellis Island, our grandparents were checked for communicable diseases like TB. (Hello) They stayed in infirmary until they recovered.</p>
<p>I also appreciate MissBarbara’s intimate, non-theoretical perspective based on her experience.</p>
<p>“why even have an immigration policy at all?” (Post 33.)<br>
Couldn’t have said it better myself.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse:</p>
<p>It sounds like you live in my town. What you describe fits it exactly. I thought I was the only one around here who doesn’t hire illegals. I know several neighbors who hire them. They get paid higher than minimum wage and get paid in cash and don’t pay income/SS/Medicare taxes. It’s true though that there are other illegals who use fake SS numbers and work for companies. Here’s a recent case - </p>
<p>[Authorities</a> Arrest 2 Supervisors from Agriprocessors Plant](<a href=“http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Authorities_Arrest_2_Supervisors_from_Agriprocessors_Plant_19899.html]Authorities”>http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Authorities_Arrest_2_Supervisors_from_Agriprocessors_Plant_19899.html)</p>
<p>There are arguments that there’s a net benefit for the USA and for the recipients of the additional unclaimed money going into the SS coffers but even though there is some, is this good? Isn’t it just a (voluntary) exploitation of those workers? There are other arguments that they’re a tax burden by using our schools and emergency rooms without having paid taxes to support them and without having insurance to pay for the med service. Anyone in this area knows that it’s a huge burden on the system.</p>
<p>In addition to breaking our laws to come here, these parents really put their kids in a difficult situation - from parents getting deported but the legal (born here) kids not part of the deportation proceedings, to the ‘illegal’ status they put their kids in when the kids aren’t born here but come in as babies or young kids, to this issue of whether or not they can get ‘in-state’ tuition, to all of the other issues associated with trying to live ‘under the radar’.</p>
<p>But the argument that the illegals are good for America doesn’t cut it for me. If people believe in an open border then they should be up front about it and campaign for it. Until the laws are changed they should be enforced.</p>
<p>We are beyond that stage we are forced to pay for uninsured motorists it’s not an option. I reiterate Americans are becoming enlightened to the fact that they are paying hidden costs of an unbridled immigration policy. We here in SoCal have been paying through the nose. So much, that it has affected our public education system, our hospital system, our law enforcement, when will say enough!</p>
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<p>MissBarbara, have you ever considered reading a bit about the history of the place you call now can call home ? It might help you understand why the tone of a second generation immigrant from China might sound insulting to people who have lived in the region for hundreds of years and only end up in the “neighboring country” through the vagaries of military conflicts, and only became “illegal” because of the utter stupidity and xenophobia of politicians who believed all countries should have equal quotas of immigrants. </p>
<p>However, a lesson of history won’t help the most closed and xenophobic minds among us: recent immigrants who believe in pulling the ladder away after climbing it themselves. People who leave their homes and families do it for the same exact reasons as your own family, namely trying to provide a decent life to their children. </p>
<p>By the way, do you really believe that all undocumented aliens entered the United States through the southern border and that all of them come from the “neighboring” country? Is there much difference between hiding in a sea container and crossing a deadly desert?</p>