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Legal immigrants have resources available to them.
And for the record, I don’t get paid for the thousands of hours I’ve spent over the last two decades. I do this on my time and sometimes with my own money because I think the people I teach have been exploited enough and should at least be able to defend themselves with literacy.</p>
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Private funds and devoted volunteers.</p>
<p>"MiamiDAP,</p>
<p>I know you are trying to be sarcastic"</p>
<p>-Not at all, not in our city…there is no sarcasm, but actually kids learn much faster if they are thrown into environment without any help. This is actually beneficial in case of kids, adults are not the same.</p>
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Is anyone teaching legal immigrants how to write?</p>
<p>A scholarship to an illegal immigrant who cannot get a legal college degree level job upon graduation is not doing that person any favors. Hoping and dreaming that the law will change is not realistic. </p>
<p>Certainly there are plenty of U. S. citizen college students who desperately need help with financial aid (there are plenty on this website alone). The “do-gooders” who want to help college students afford the tuition have no shortage of those to help without going looking to help those who are breaking the law and will not even be able to use their college degrees.</p>
<p>TatinG – exactly.</p>
<p>Conclusion: US kids just need to break the law. how about if they cross to Mexico and then re-enter without passport, would this do?</p>
<p>And if one wants to help illegal immigrants, assistance in obtaining a college degree in the home country would be a great blessing.</p>
<p>@zoosermom well said!</p>
<p>That’s quite a challenge if you don’t speak the language of your “home.” If my family had come here one generation later and I were the subject of the thread, there’s no way I could function in a university in Ukraine. It’s an imaginary option. (Especially since, like zm’s students, we were from a linguistic minority to begin with, and my grandparents’ Yiddish wouldn’t get me any further in a Ukrainian university than English or Japanese.)</p>
<p>The fact that years ago immigrating to America didn’t require a big ole process so many of our grandparents were able to come is irrelevant. It doesn’t negate current laws, nor does it negate the (rational!) need for those laws to exist.</p>
<p>There was a time when a person didn’t need a drivers license to drive. People could drive a car at a very young age…my dad was 11 when he got his first car! And maybe current liquor laws didn’t always exist. Heck there was a time when a drunk driver was simply given a ride home!!! Are you saying that the current laws have no value and shouldn’t be respected because at one time people weren’t restricted by them?</p>
<p>Are you saying that a drunk person shouldn’t be given a DUI because many of us may have had ancestors who drank and drove when that was no big deal? </p>
<p>The attitude that years ago “such and such” law didn’t exist, so that law doesn’t need to be respected is silly. And it’s not hypocritical to enforce the current laws - even if we or relatives weren’t restricted by such laws many years ago.</p>
<p>Comparing illegal entry to the immigration of the past is just factually incorrect. I have read my ancestor’s letters and I know what they had to do to come here legally in the early 1800’s. </p>
<p>They had to have passports and permission from the German principality to leave. They had to have saved enough money to buy land, animals, and farm equipment. They had to have enough money for their ship’s passage, pass the doctor’s health inspection before disembarking and have money for the overland travel. And they had to be able to support themselves while they waited for the crops to come in. </p>
<p>When they came here, they came to become Americans. They knew they were never returning to Germany and would never see those who stayed behind again. They severed ties and almost as soon as they arrived became strong Union supporters and fought in the Civil War. They were not here just to make money. They also knew how to speak English before they came. </p>
<p>They did not expect this country to provide them with anything for free except freedom itself.</p>
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Absolutely true, which is why I suggested this is as assistance that could be provded to specific students. In the community in which I devote my attention, most of families speak Spanish at home and are not fluent in English, so in that regard a bright student could do very well with financial assistance in obtaining a degree at home.</p>
<p>Zoosermom,</p>
<p>but would you agree that it is not the role of US government to provide that assistance?</p>
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</p>
<p>well said…</p>
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</p>
<p>so you think someone provides more to the country just because of where they are from? sounds pretty racist to me.</p>
<p>@soccerguy315,</p>
<p>Why are u making this a racial issue? It’s a fairness issue. Why should an illegal immigrant kid have dibs before his/her countryman who is applying from abroad (and jumping thru all the student visa hoops) to a U.S. state university & scholarship?</p>
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</p>
<p>Then by that logic, U.S. colleges and universities should not be admitting international students, either, because they “cannot get a legal college degree-level job [in the U.S.] upon graduation” and therefore allowing them to pursue an education in this country “is not doing that person any favors.” Horsepucky. A quality college education is a quality college education, wherever you go in the world.</p>
<p>Let’s be clear about a few things. First, most “illegal immigrants” don’t cross our borders unlawfully. The best estimates are that about a third do. Most enter the country perfectly legally, but become “illegal” because they overstay their visas or violate their status (e.g., a “business visitor” ends up taking a job, or someone on a student visa takes a job or drops a class and ends up with fewer credits than necessary to qualify as a full-time student, or someone here legally on an H-1B “guest worker” visa loses his job and stays to look for another job). There are a zillion different ways to violate the immigration laws, many of them hypertechnical. </p>
<p>And many of the violators don’t even know they’re “illegal.” My wife worked with a man who had been here legally for 20 years but never got a green card or became a naturalized citizen; he was a prominent professional, well-respected in the community, in all respects a model “citizen” except that he wasn’t a citizen, and he got tripped up on a technicality—he failed to file a required form on time (he says he didn’t even realize the form was required because his status had recently changed and he wasn’t aware of all the paperwork requirements). ICE told him he had to leave the country immediately and re-start the process to immigrate legally or else he’d be deported and probably never have a chance to re-enter the U.S. legally. So he left for his native land with his fiancee (a U.S. citizen), they married in his native country, but now they’re half a world apart because she needed to return to her job. She is sponsoring him for legal immigrant status but that works on a quota system so there’s no telling how long it will take, and in the meantime if he so much as sets foot in this country for a conjugal visit he’s “illegal,” and he was “illegal” the moment his form was overdue. Of course, ICE wouldn’t classify him as an “illegal immigrant” because they don’t classify anyone as an “illegal immigrant”; there are just people who are here lawfully and those who aren’t, and then a third class of people for whom it’s not certain whether they’re here lawfully or not because, e.g., they’ve filed a form or application required by law and have not yet gotten a definitive answer because the bureaucracy is so slow, and who therefore are “undocumented” but neither certain of being deemed here lawfully nor certain of being deemed here unlawfully, and therefore in legal limbo. (Which is why laws like Arizona’s authorizing local law enforcement to round up all the “illegals” is so stupid, because many people may be here lawfully but don’t have documentation–or don’t yet have the bureaucratic decision–to prove it).</p>
<p>I have a colleague who’s a Canadian citizen. Canadians don’t even need visas to come here, they just flash a passport at the border and they’re good. But to work here they either need H-1B “guest worker” visas or they need to become permanent resident aliens with Green Cards. Many don’t bother because the worst that can happen is they’re deported to Canada (or more likely, given the opportunity to leave voluntarily). The Canadian standard of living is comparable to that of the U.S., no one there will hold it against them for being kicked out of this country, and it’s easy for them to pass as U.S. citizens because most Canadians are white-skinned and native English speakers, so what’s to worry? (In my opinion skin color and English proficiency are among the most important factors animating the anti-“illegal immigrant” fervor; no one gets worked up about illegal Canadians, even though they’re probably the second-largest illegal group, after Mexicans–though in my experience there are a lot of undocumented Irish, too). Anyway, my colleague is here perfectly legally on an H-1B visa–he’s arguably the single best-qualified person in North America and possibly the world at what he does–but he has a disabled adult daughter in Canada who he can’t bring with him because she’s deemed unable to support herself. He easily makes enough money to support her, and if he were a U.S. citizen he could sponsor her for legal immigrant status, but because he’s not a citizen his assets and earning capacity count for nothing. A lot of Canadians in that circumstance would just take their chances and bring her anyway–and it would be easy for a Canadian to do, just pull up to the border crossing, flash Canadian passports, and say you’re on your way to Disney World for a family vacation. But he’s not that kind, and he doesn’t want to risk embarrassing the institution. In the end, he’ll probably return to Canada to be with his daughter, and our university and our nation will be deprived of his services and his unique skills and talents because of some really short-sighted and rigid immigration laws.</p>
<p>The second point is this: violating immigration laws is generally not a criminal offense, therefore illegal immigrants are not “criminals.” Cheating on your taxes—or even shading the truth just a bit–is a criminal offense, but millions of Americans do it every year. Misreporting assets or income on a FAFSA is a criminal offense. Overstaying your visa or violating your status is not a criminal offense. This is all civil law, the equivalent of failing to shovel your walk and someone slips and falls and you’re legally liable, or breaching a contract; there are penalties, but they’re not criminal penalties. Here, the legal liability is deportation. That’s it. No one goes to prison, no one even pays a fine. Entering the country illegally is a crime, but as I said earlier, most aliens who are here illegally didn’t enter illegally. Lying to a federal official is a crime, but it’s equally a crime for U.S. citizens to do it, yet U.S. citizens do it all the time, smuggling in that extra bottle of French wine or underreporting the value of items acquired abroad. The vast majority of “illegal aliens” have committed no crime; most are here just trying to be with loved ones or supporting their families, and willing to undertake the risk of being sent back somewhere else. The children who are here “illegally” don’t even get to make that choice until they’re legally emancipated at age 18, and by that time many know no other homeland. They’re not felons, they didn’t even commit misdemeanors; they’re just kids, for gosh sakes, trying to grow up in the communities where their parent brought them and where they live, and the one best hope they have is to stay in school, study hard, earn an education, and hope that opens some doors for them. The effort to demonize them as “illegal,” thereby falsely implying they’re criminals, is harsh, cruel, unjustified, and in many cases just downright racist (because that’s an accusation that’s routinely hurled against Hispanics but not against Canadians).</p>
<p>My grandfather was an illegal immigrant from Canada.</p>
<p>He wasn’t Canadian. But he was refused entry into the U.S. based on a lie. He was a Lithuanian Jewish silk trader who, after World War I, found himself in Turkey with a Turkish passport. When he came to Ellis Island, they wouldn’t let him, not because he was Lithuanian, not because he was Jewish, not because he was Turkish, but because he was “Oriental”. So he was denied entry based on his “race”. (Good thing he wasn’t Italian, because by the immigration act of 1924, he would have been considered “Black African”.) </p>
<p>He spoke fluent French. Went to Canada, changed his name to an easily Americanized name with a different French pronunciation, bought a watch with his (and my) initials on it, got Canadian papers, and came in as a French Canadian, and hence not subject to the “Oriental” quota.</p>
<p>Make of it what you will.</p>
<p>Manhattan was “sold” to the Dutch by the Canarsie Indians. Peter Minuet thought he got away with something, paying only the equivalent of 24 bucks. Only problem is that Canarsie is in Brooklyn, and the Canarsie Indians had nothing to do with Manhattan. It wasn’t theirs to sell.</p>
<p>“Unless you have ideas how we can do to make up for what we’ve done, there is nothing we can do to change the past.”</p>
<p>Oh, when Quakers freed all of their slaves before the American Revolution (except in two places - long story), they also provided them with economic reparations, and, in places where they could establish them, free schools and free education. Past wrongs CAN be made right - it just requires the will to do so.</p>
<p>@bclintonk,</p>
<p>Canadians are a lousy example. A Canadian who stays illegally in the U.S. can still send his Canadian-citizen kid to a Canadian public university at a reduced rate for citizens, even if he has worked in the U.S. his entire career and not paid a single loonie in Canadian income taxes. Canada does not tax foreign earned income the way the U.S. does.</p>
<p>It’s the same situation for other nationalities. They live/work abroad as expats, pay no income taxes to their home country, then enroll their kids in home county university for free or reduced rate.</p>
<p>I know this for a fact, because that is what my Canadian, European & Asian expat colleagues all do, after their expat kids graduate from int’l school in a foreign country.</p>
<p>Only the U.S. is stupid enough to make their own tax-paying expatriate citizens pay out-of-state tuition rates, then give a break to illegal immigrants</p>
<p>^ Ohmygosh, mini, maybe you’d better go back to Canada . . . er, Turkey . . . er, Lithuania . . . oh, wait, but wasn’t Lithuania part of Russia then . . . or was it Poland?</p>
<p>My own grandfather came here perfectly legally, but under circumstances that surely would bar him today. He immigrated in 1907, at a time when there were no quotas. He was born into a landless peasant family and orphaned at the age of 12; at that time, he was indentured to a local landowner, who beat him regularly. His older brother who had immigrated to the U.S. some years before sent back just enough money for his passage in steerage, with enough left over to make the requisite $14 to show to U.S. immigration officials at Ellis Island. He ran away from his landowner, breaking his indenture (and thereby breaking the law, enough to bar his entry today), booked passage on the first ship to sail to New York, and arrived at Ellis Island with the grand sum of $14 in his pocket, speaking not a word of English and equipped with a 5th-grade education. He found work as a lumberjack and later as a millhand, and taught himself English by reading the Bible. the only book he had ever read in his native tongue. He earned a modest living, never making much more than the minimum wage, and for the first 30 years or so he was here there was no minimum wage, so his earnings must have been a pittance. But he loved this country because it gave him a chance to stand on his own two feet and be a free man, something he never could have done in his native land. His son went to college on the G.I. Bill. His grandson graduated with high honors from the University of Michigan and went on to eanr graduate degrees from to Ivies.</p>
<p>Our country used to stand for giving people that kind of chance. Today, someone in my grandfather’s predicament would have approximately zero chance of immigrating here legally. And I think we’re a poorer country for it.</p>
<p>Ellis Island held no sentimental memories for my grandfather; it was a place of fear, dread, confusion, and seemingly arbitrary bureaucratic authority, the last place your hopes and dreams could be dashed after the arduous journey to get this far. But he loved the Statue of Liberty because for him, after clearing Ellis Island and taking the boat ashore, that glorious image standing there in New York harbor epitomized the American Dream, captured in the words of the poet Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.”</p>
<p>Those words brought tears to my grandfather’s eyes, because they spoke to him so personally of his own life experience. Mostly, they were tears of gratitude that this country just gave him a chance that he otherwise never could have known. </p>
<p>In her day, Lady Liberty was a beacon to the world. Unfortunately, I think as a nation we’ve lost sight of that vision, that compassion, that generosity of spirit. And as a result, we’re much diminished in the eyes of the world.</p>