Illegal Immigrants and the Education Situation

Artifact #5

One question when it comes to illegal immigration is "What rights do and should these immigrants have?"  Illegal immigrants may not be United States citizens, but many have lived in the country for years and know no other place as home.  So should they be entitled to the same things that U.S. citizens are?  The article "Advancing the Debate: Why Give Illegal Immigrants In-State Tuition?" focuses on one of these entitlements: education.

In America, only 13 states grant illegal immigrants in-state tuition at universities.  In all other states, these undocumented immigrants, many of whom have grown up in the United States, must pay out of state tuition.  Currently, Oregon is in the process of passing state tuition equity laws, which, like 13 other states in the U.S., would grant illegal immigrants in-state tuition.

There are both pros and cons to offering unauthorized immigrants in-state tuition.  With the prospect of cheaper higher-level education, it could draw even more immigrants to America and those states offering in-state tuition.  Additionally, cheaper schooling could send the wrong message to immigrants: that coming to the United States illegally is okay, since they are granted so many rights.

However, there are also many benefits to providing in-state tuition.  Today, only 56% of illegal immigrants graduate high school.  One reason for this is that college, being so expensive, is out of reach.  With cheaper tuition, more immigrants could get a higher level education.  Many illegal immigrants in our country take very low-skilled, low-paying jobs.  However, with a college education, they can better contribute to our society and our economy.  One common complaint when it comes to illegal immigration is the toll it takes on our economy: that the government spends more money on its immigrants than the immigrants give back.  However, if immigrants can get a better education, they can get a better job and afford to participate more in the country's economy.  When these people have more money due to better jobs, they are able to spend money on other industries, which leads to a positive spiral, creating more jobs and in turn more spending.

When Reyna was growing up in the United States, her father made himself very clear on the importance of education.  He understood that getting a good education in the United States was the key for a better life.  Although Reyna got frustrated in her early years of school, she kept working her way through the public education system.  However, while both Mago and Carlos graduated from high school, Reyna was the only one who graduated college.  If college were made more accessible to immigrants, more of them could get a better education and in turn put money back into our economy.

When Reyna was in fifth grade, her first year in the United States, the classroom aide Mr. Lopez told her and the other immigrant children that "There is no reason for any of you not to get ahead in life.  You will learn English one day.  You will find your way.  Remember, it doesn't matter where you come from.  You're now living in the land of opportunity, where everything is possible" (Grande 218).  However, our country doesn't live up to that.  Should it matter where you came from?  Or should the United States embrace these new people with open arms?

In my personal opinion, illegal immigrants should be granted in-state tuition. There are complications, such as drawing more immigrants from Mexico and other countries, but I feel that if we limit the opportunities for those in our country, we are hurting ourselves just as much as we are hurting them.  Besides, many immigrants looking to go to college have grown up in the United States and feel more at home here than where they came from.  They feel just as American as many of the rest of us do, so why not treat them as such?

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The Family Life of Illegal Immigrants

Artifact #4

Immigration, legal and illegal alike, affects families.  Whether family members are left behind in their home country, families have mixed statuses, people are restricted due to their status, or the family dynamic simply changes, immigration takes a toll.  There are thousands of families in the United States who struggle due to their illegal status.  This, as well as the national predicament of what to do with these illegal families, is the topic of the article "Family life a complex affair for immigrants."

One of the main foci of this article is the problematic situation of a family with mixed status.  One woman interviewed for the article was an illegal immigrant, while her children were born in the Untied States, making them citizens.  As a result, her children traveled to Brazil, their home country, for a visit while the mother was forced to stay in the U.S.  If she left, chances are she wouldn't be able to return.  For another family in the article, the mother and one child were illegal because they had crossed together, and the younger child was legal because he was born in the United States.  There are millions of similar cases out there today.  According to the article, approximately 4 million children in the U.S. have at least one illegal parent.

Another family problem resulting from immigration is those who are left behind.  In some families, parents leave their children with family members while they try to create a better life in the United States, sending for their children later.  Even if the entire family leaves together, relatives will still be left in the home country: grandparents, aunt, uncles, cousins, and family friends.

Reyna's family seemed to be in a combination of all the predicaments listed above.  By the time Reyna reached age four, both of her parents had already left for "El Otro Lado."  Reyna spent years of her life wanting nothing more than to see her parents again.  She had almost given up hope all together.  "We were still his children, weren't we?  He wouldn't forsake us, would he?  We needed to believe in something, for what would happen once we lost our faith in both our parents and had nothing left to hope for?" (Grande 105).

Eventually, both parents do return (separately, however), and Reyna's father takes the children to America.  Since Reyna's parents had another child, Betty, in the U.S. Reyna now has a sibling who is a citizen.  Also, Reyna's stepmother Mila is a legal citizen of the United States, so Reyna grew up in a family of mixed status.  As a result, only Mila could fulfill family responsibilities such as taking children to the doctor, amongst other things.  Reyna's legal sister Betty could take a plane to Mexico, while the rest of the family had to run across the border.  It wasn't until years later that Reyna and her family received citizenship of the United States.

However, much more important than the struggles of growing up in a family with mixed statuses and mixed privileges was how the family's immigration irrevocably changed each of the members.  As a young child, Reyna and her siblings had no parent figure, other than their cruel grandmother.  Reyna's sister Mago was forced to act like the mother to Reyna and Carlos.  "Mago looked at Carlos, then at me.  I don't know what my sister saw in my eyes that made her face soften.  Had she realized then how much I would need her?  Had she known that without her strength and unwavering love, I would not have survived what was to come?" (Grande 12).  Carlos grows up with no father figure, and Reyna grows up with the feeling of abandonment.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, Reyna's parents split up.  This crushes the children's hopes of ever reuniting as a family.  The parents, in an attempt to hurt the other, use the children as weapons against each other.  When Reyna's father comes to take the children to America, Reyna's mother does not let him take Betty, who is a legal citizen was returned to Mexico with Reyna's mother after the divorce.

Despite the fact that the family (or most of it, anyway), is back together, the years spent apart had created an insurmountable rift between them.  They were no longer the people they had once been.  "The father in in this house didn't know me.  He didn't know me at all.  And I didn't know him" (Grande 191).  Reyna's father abuses the children, while Reyna's mother abandons them over and over again in favor of her newest boyfriend.  The family will never be the same.

Immigration affects everyone.  It affects every single member of the family involved.  It affects the relatives and friends left behind.  It affects those who encounter illegal immigrants.  It affects our government officials.  It affects everyone in the United States.  Immigration can break families, or it can injure them.  A illegal or mixed-status family will always be hindered in some way, and if family members are separated too long, it changes the family dynamic forever.  In Reyna Grande's words, "Immigration took a toll on us all" (Grande 207).

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Assimilation to American Ways

 Artifact #3

There are many, many aspects of immigration today: political, economic, social, cultural.  They all blend together, and that is why immigration is so controversial and so, to be honest, confusing.  There are so many sides to the story.  The article "The Next Immigration Challenge" does not focus on if we should or should not allow illegal immigration, or how we should deal with it, but on how the immigrants already in our country are treated and become a part of our country.  An important aspect of immigration that we don't really consider in this "border crisis" is assimilation.

Today, most of our government money and effort goes to the border itself, keeping illegal immigrants out and deporting those who have made it into our country.  On the other hand, less than .1% of the Department of Homeland Security's budget is being spent on assimilation of immigrants.  Shouldn't assimilation be a bigger focus than the border itself?  Would it really be so bad that we have so many illegal immigrants if they could better assimilate?

According to the article, immigrants are making progress when it comes to assimilation.  While only about 30% of adult immigrants have graduated high school, their children will have much higher graduation rates.  (Isn't that why they immigrated, after all?)  Also, the rates of immigrant home ownership has gone up.  In 2000, only about 20% of Latino immigrants owned homes.  By 2030, this number is expected to go up to 69%.

So why is assimilation so important?  There are many ways to look at it.  In order for immigrants to become more of a help than a burden, they must learn English so they can properly participate in our culture and economy.  They need to learn American ways because America is their new home.  It is important for immigrants to assimilate so they can truly become one of us and care about our country.

As Reyna grew up in the United States, her family began to assimilate to American ways.  Her sister Mago was the most extreme case.  She spent all her money on new clothes so she wouldn't look poor. She avoided having other ESL kids as friends.  She even changed her name.  "[Mago] claimed that her teachers had trouble saying her real name, Magloria, and her history teacher had started calling her Maggie.  So now she was known as Maggie everywhere but at home" (Grande 210).  Mago fully embraces the Untied States and makes it her home.  Later, when she visits Mexico, she looks at her old home with disdain.  She truly became American.

However, there is another side to the story.  Not all immigrants want to become American.  They want to stay who they are and not erase their entire history just so that they can become "proper" members of a new, foreign country.  There are different levels of willingness to assimilate.  Reyna embraces the United States and makes an effort to become part of the country.  She works hard in school and becomes the first person in her family to graduate from college.  However, she is not willing to leave her past in Mexico behind.  She and her brother Carlos both are friends with other ESL children, and they don't make such an effort to erase their home country from their past.  "Carlos was in regular English, too, but he liked the ESL kids, and those were the friends he had at Franklin.  I was following his lead.  I was not ashamed, as Mago was, of people knowing where I came from" (Grande 246).  Reyna acts "American" but acknowledges her Mexican part as well.  "Unlike me, [Mago] had no accent when she spoke English.  Now I knew why that was.  Even in her speech, she was trying to erase Mexico completely.  I didn't know if I ever could.  Or wanted to" (Grande 282).

In the end, I think it's very important that immigrants, legal and illegal alike, make an effort to get along in American society.  It is almost rude for immigrants to come here and not even try to learn English.  However, they shouldn't have to leave their entire past behind if they don't want to.  I don't think it's fair for us to expect immigrants to change who they are for the sake of our country, but I do think it's fair for us to expect them to try to welcome American values and ways of life.

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Illegal Immigrants and the Economy

Artifact #2

One of the reasons immigration is so controversial in the United States today is the economic impacts.  Do illegal immigrants help or hurt our economy?  Really, the answer is both.  Both sides of the argument were examined in the New York Times article "Do Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy?"

Let's look at the negative effects first.  When illegal immigrants come to the United States, they often take low-paying jobs requiring little skill.  These jobs, if they weren't being given to illegal immigrants, would go to American citizens with a low level of education.  According to the article, there are 25 million adults in the U.S. who did not graduate from high school.  These people must now compete for unskilled jobs against a large number of illegal immigrants.  The competition for these jobs lowers the pay and it makes it more difficult for American citizens to find work.  Pay for the 25 million adults who did not graduate high school has been lowered between .4 and 7.4 percent due to illegal immigrants.

Additionally, the illegal immigrants who are here use our social services.  Since many illegal families are poor, a large portion of our aid services go to them when they could be helping American citizens.  Therefore, U.S. tax dollars go to funding those who are not citizens of our country.

As pointed out by the article, one of the largest problems with illegal immigration, economically at least, is the fact that the immigrants are largely concentrated in certain areas.  Texas, Arizona and California all have significantly higher rates of unauthorized immigrants due to their proximity to the Mexican border.  As a result, competition for low-paying jobs is very high in these areas.  If immigrants were to spread out more, resulting in fewer immigrants in each area, it could benefit the economy, not hurt it.

This leads us to the benefits of illegal immigration (economically, anyway).  Unauthorized immigrants take low-paying jobs that can benefit those working higher-paying jobs.  When these immigrants do the dirty work for low pay, skilled workers do not need to extend their work to more unskilled tasks, which saves the employers money.  Also, according to the article, from 1990 to 2007 illegal immigrants caused the wages of skilled workers in complementary fields to rise up to ten percent.

The little money illegal immigrants do make at their low-paying jobs usually goes straight back into the U.S. economy, since immigrants need to pay for housing, transportation, food, and other necessities.

Also, undocumented immigrants help support the United States social security system.  Most illegal immigrants may not receive benefits, as they are not legal citizens.  However, they do contribute to the Social Security Trust Fund through payroll taxes.  According to Stephen Goss of the Social Security Administration, who was interviewed for the article, illegal immigrants contribute 15 billion dollars to Social Security and only take out one billion.

Reyna's father is an example of a low-payed immigrant working in Mexican-heavy Southern California.  As an illegal immigrant, her father didn't have many choices when it came to employment, so he provided for the family as best he could by doing maintenance at a retirement home.  "He hoped that soon that green card he so desired would help him become more than just a maintenance worker" (Grande 236).  The family could not afford much, but they made do and contributed to the economy by buying food, cars and other goods and services.

So do the economic benefits of illegal immigration outweigh the negatives?  It's hard to tell because the two are not directly comparable.  Illegal immigrants do jobs that complement higher-paying jobs, so they support the middle class.  However, they compete for jobs against lower-class, uneducated Americans, especially in areas near the border where immigrants are concentrated.  It is difficult to weigh pros and cons because the economic impact of undocumented immigrants is so complicated.  They do help, but they hurt as well.

Ronald Reagan and Immigrant Amnesty

Artifact #1

Today, immigration is a hot topic in the United States.  There are many different stances on the topic, and no one can agree on what action is best to take.  In 1986, President Ronald Reagan passed a law that hugely impacted the United States and remains controversial to this day.  Reagan's law granted U.S. citizenship to about three million illegal immigrants, four of these being Reyna, Mago, Carlos and their father.  This important moment in immigration history is revisited in the NPR feature "A Reagan Legacy: Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants."

President Reagan's law called for the following actions: tighter security at the borders, penalties for employers knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, and, most importantly, the opportunity for amnesty for all illegal immigrants already in the country.  However, since parts of the law, such as the penalty for employers, could not be properly enforced, and the government did not properly control the border, all the law really succeeded in doing was legalizing almost three million people and drawing many more from Mexico.  This is the controversy of the law: did granting amnesty to millions of people help the immigration situation or make it worse?

Reagan, according to his speech writer Peter Robinson, saw immigration from the individual's point of view.  Unlike many today, the president did not see the new immigrants as a waste of resources, but as people who worked hard and took risks to make it in the United States.  Reyna and her family are one example of the individuals who benefited from Reagan's amnesty of 1986.  The family had suffered so much, from years-long separation of the family to the divorce of Reyna's parents, for the sake of better lives in the United States.  However, once in the U.S., they find themselves at a disadvantage because they are not legal citizens.  They work hard for the opportunity to one day become legal.  As Reyna's father says, "Just because we're illegal doesn't mean we can't dream" (Grande 228).  Her Papi, while far from a perfect man, could be credited with at least one thing: his drive to give his children a better life.  He worked hard to provide for them and made sure they excelled in school, and he himself took English classes.  Reyna says, "My father's desire for a better life was palpable.  It was contagious.  It was one of the things I most respected about him.  And I hoped with all my heart that he would be granted amnesty and be allowed to step out of the shadows" (Grande 236).

Stories like Reyna's were what drove President Reagan to pass his law: stories of determined people who endured much hardship for a better life, only to be restricted by a lack of citizenship and therefore a lack of opportunities.  Today, we often see illegal immigrants as nothing but people who take our money, jobs and resources and do not contribute to our country at all.  So while people call for strict measures to rid the United States of illegal immigrants and criticize Reagan's law for worsening the immigration situation, perhaps we should see it from Reagan's perspective once in a while.  These immigrants are not just statistics, or black holes in our economy.  They are people who, like us, want a better life and are willing to pay the price.  Is it really so wrong to deny them a chance?

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