I was mildly surprised to find out while reading my US News and World Report that there was a Supreme Court ruling in 1982 that stated all illegal immigrants are entitled to a free education K through 12. When I read that I asked myself, "Did I just read that correctly?" There is in fact a Supreme Court ruling that grants any undocumented, illegal immigrant the right to a free education.
My problem with this is not the mere fact that I am paying taxes for illegal immigrants to go to school, but the fact that those same illegal immigrants are complaining that the FREE education we provide them is not enough. It was another moment where I asked myself if I am reading this correctly again. People who have the privilege of having a free education are complaining because that free education stops. The American government had the audacity to stop funding so that illegal immigrants do not get a free higher education. What has this world come to? How dare we not foot the bill for a college education for illegal immigrants?
We have American men and women, struggling to pay their college loans, struggling to get financial aid because instead of providing a helping hand to them we are extending that hand to illegal immigrants. I support a reversal of the heinous Supreme Court ruling that states we must give illegal immigrants a free education K through 12. I have to give a huge Hear! Hear! to the public colleges and universities in South Carolina that has closed its doors to all undocumented, illegal immigrants.
My compassion for the down-and-out could be questioned at this moment, but at a time when I am preparing for college and need all the help I can get, I cannot say I am happy to see some of my financial aid leave to help an illegal immigrant. Free education K through 12 is one thing, but to continue to cradle the illegal immigrants cannot continue. They need to make their own fortunes like the rest of us. I will indeed leave college with debt, and I am not complaining because I am grateful for every penny the government has given me, while very minimal. I do have a problem with the 1982 Supreme Court ruling, but I can except it and move on, but I cannot lie to myself and say I would like to see them given more. The "more" is reserved for true Americans, whether that be someone who was born here or legally gained citizenship.
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I think you might be trying to make too many points here. According to you, illegal immigrants have the right to k-12 education, which might be true, but the government is not required to give funding to anyone for college. I think you need to organize your thoughts more clearly. Also, could you provide a link to the article you're discussing? Or give the date that it appeared in US News?
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
I think I made myself pretty clear in the fact that I don't think the government should give money to illegal immigrants for higher education. I support financial aid to legal immigrants, Americans, you know name as long as they are legal and deserve it. There is no way that the government will stop funding the elementary through high school for illegal immigrants although I wish they would.
The article came out the week of August 12 to August 19.
So your point is that by being a illegal immigrant, you should not be allowed to receive any givernment loans for college.
Thank you for the source.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tricia0711
Maybe I have to reread this and think for a little while but to me the logic behind what I understood is crazy. Why would an illegal immigrant ask anything of the government and bring attention to themselves, risking deportation? Are you sure its the illegal begging for more, or could it be someone asking on behalf of them?
I was going to ask if you confused iellegal immigrants with legal ones but as I read on I guess I can see you did not. Then I looked up the ruling you speak of, Plyler vs Doe, and now I think that rule was because illegal or not they have to follow the laws of the land.
Interesting blog, like I said I might have to ponder a little more and read the ruling which can be found here : http://www.americanpatrol.com/REFERENCE/PlylerVDoeSummary.html
~T
A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins. ~Benjamin Franklin
When I read that I asked myself, "Did I just read that correctly?" There is in fact a Supreme Court ruling that grants any undocumented, illegal immigrant the right to a free education.
No, you didn't read correctly...or if you did then the author that you were reading was not accurately relating the contents of the Plyler v. Doe (1982) ruling. What the Court actually said was the minor children of illegal aliens could not be held responsible for the actions of their parents, or more specifically that the State may not impose "a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status." The Corut further noted that there was nothing whacky or even particularly unusual in its ruling, noting that the Fourteenth Amendment states plainly that no State may, "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws...Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a "person" in any ordinary sense of that term. Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as "persons" guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Shaughnessv v. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 212 (1953); Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228, 238 (1896); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369 (1886). Indeed, we have clearly held that the Fifth Amendment protects aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful from invidious discrimination by the Federal Government. Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 77 (1976)...These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality, and the protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws...Yick Wo, supra, at 369 (emphasis added)."
At this time, the ruling only applies to children in primary and secondary eduation. I am aware of no similar ruling from the SCOTUS regarding college education (which isn't generally speaking, "free" in the same sense as primary and secondary education...even to U.S. residents).
TTFN,
Blackout
-------------------------
Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
While, I do not think I could hold my own against you in an argument having seen many of them between you and other people on this site, what you saw in my post was my own thoughts and opinions derived from the US News and World Report magazine I read. Seeing as I have thrown away the magazine the only information I can offer you is that the story was published during the week of August 19 to August 25 (I stated incorrectly above).
What I was able to derive from the article was that children (who may or may not be illegal themselves) of illegal immigrants were awarded the right to free education K though 12. From here this is where my post becomes more opinionated and less fact. There are indeed illegal immigrants and sons and daughters of illegal immigrants (I do recognize the difference) applying for college aid. My issue is with the illegal immigrants themselves applying for aid.
While I am no fan of a legal immigrant who gained their status as legal because their parents came to America and had a pregnancy on American soil, I cannot deny they are indeed American citizens. Having not mentioned any of this in my post, my concern is not with them, but illegal immigrants wanting financial aid from the government. Yes, there is while stupid in our eyes, illegal immigrants asking our government for aid to go to college. My post is directed at them. So, if to you my post seems off kilter, or misleading it is not by my doing, entirely (I did not research more into like I should have). I read the article and placed my opinion in this post, with what I thought (it may or may not be now) was fact. Going from there I still feel I wrote an educated post, one that expressed my views with facts thrown in. I continue to believe that any education for illegal immigrants (not sons and daughters of illegal immigrants) whether K through 12, or college is not the responsibility of American tax payers. This was the gist of my post.
I am a proponent for arresting people who enter this country illegally, sending them to back to their counties of origin and charging the bill to their home country's government. I would even go so far as to say that any costs to the State that can be reasonably imputed should likewise be presented to these people's country of origin in the form of a bill. I am also in favor, however, of a policy that respects the basic human dignity and which recognizes the fundamental rights of illegal aliens as human beings. These are not contradictory ideas if you really stop to think about them.
TTFN,
Blackout
-------------------------
Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
The cost of educating illegal immigrants and the ruling that gives them this free education would be moot if our other laws which regarding illegal immigration were enforced. If there were no illegals here to take advantage of it, it would not matter that the law allows them a free education.
It costs the taxpayers somewhere between $6000 and $10,000 per year per child to educate a child. At $8000, a 13-year K-12 education costs taxpayers $104,000 to educate the child of an illegal immigrant. This amounts to a gigantic cheap labor subsidy from taxpayers to the businesses that hire the parents of these children at below market wages. The businesses that hire these illegals are practicing the very sound and profitable economic strategy of internalizing the profits that result from cheap illegal labor while externalizing the costs that result from this labor onto taxpayers who realize little or no benefit. It is a classic case of the "Tragedy of the Commons". It is terrible public policy for our government to let them get away from it.
There are illegal immigrants of all races, creeds, ethnicities and nationalities and I want the law to be enforced systematically, equally, fairly and very vigorously against all of them and also the people who give them jobs.
But the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants are Hispanic so it is useful to focus on them as a means of understanding how much illegal immigration is costing taxpayers. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, immigrant Latina's have a lifetime average fertility rate of 3.7 children per female. This is almost double the fertility rate of the overall US population. At over $100,000 to give each of these 3.7 children a K-12 education, these Latina women, a very large percentage of which are illegal immigrants, represent an enormous burden for taxpayers. And these same Latinas are typically on average poorly educated and therefore earn very low wages and contribute very little in the way of taxes towards offsetting the cost of educating their children. This cost falls on ordinary Americans who contribute more to the Treasury and who on average have chosen more responsible reproductive habits that reflect their personal responsibility and ability to feed, educate and provide healthcare for their offspring. Each illegal latina on average costs the taxpayers almost half a million dollars just to educate her children and that is before we start tabulating the other costs like healthcare and welfare.
I don't diagree with the idea but I'm not sure if it would be anything but a symbolic gesture to invoice the illegal immigrant's country of origin for these costs. I doubt we would get paid. And it is arguably the fault of our own government that these illegal immigrants are allowed to stay and work so we bear a good part of the blame. Our government's efforts at enforcing our borders, immigration laws and employment laws have been pathetic.
I think it makes more sense to lay the costs of illegal immigration on the employers. Rather than allowing them to externalize the costs associated with their illegal workforce onto taxpayers we should re-internalize it back onto them. The cost of being caught with an illegal alien employee should be extremely painful economically. One idea would be to make their entire payroll expense non-tax deductible. The public policy rational for having payroll be deductible is to encourage job creation for Americans. If they are not going to create jobs for citizens (hire illegals instead) then they should not enjoy this deduction and their taxes should be recalculated retroactively for perhaps 5 years. If the cost of being caught along with the likelihood of being caught were sufficiently high, then the illegal immigration problem would dissappear.
And then perhaps the taxpayers would have some money left for the purpose of further subsidizing the cost of higher education for the children of our citizens. Personally I would argue that it would be bettter to lower taxes so that citizens could save for the education of their own children. Every time government raises the subsidies they provide for education, the universities just raise the tuition to capture these subsidies. Then, no matter how high the subsidy, the cost of education remains extremely high for families. But that argument is for a separate blog.
...with your evaluation of the costs involved, and refer to the Court's own response to the very argument you present regarding that point...
Very often I think that the rhetoric associated with this issue is too focused on punishing an imagined stereotype of an illegal alien rather than trying to objectively solve the actual problem by addressing the root causes of our nation's failed immigration policies.
TTFN,
Blackout
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Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
I have no interest in creating an illiterate subclass or punishing children. In fact I want just the opposite. I am particularly interested in reducing the size of our own native born population of poor and illiterate people. I really don't care if we educate a few children of illegals. "Few" is the operative word.
I presented facts about how much education costs and how many children illegal immigrants have. The cost of a K-12 education is an easily verifiable fact. The demographic information comes from the USA Census Bureau and is probably a conservative figure in that they have a long history of underestimating Hispanic fertility. All I did was multiply.
My point is not to deny children education. If we rigorously enforced our laws and particularly if we forced businesses to internalize the costs which are currently being externalized onto taxpayers with heavy fines or taxes or some other strong financial disincentive., the problem would be solved. Illegal aliens are here because they are cheap labor. If we made them no longer cheap then businesses would not be hiring them and they would stop coming and start leaving (like they have been recently as a result of increased enforcement and the economic downturn).
We would not need to worry about the cost of education or the creation of an illiterate sub-class if we solved the problem and I don't believe there is any realistic solution to illegal immigration that does not involve workplace enforcement. If we enforced our laws and brought illegal immigration under control the cost of educating the occassional illegal immigrant child would be tolerable and there would be no danger of growing a new illiterate sub-class. The Court's arguments would be moot.
The root cause of our failed immigration system is special interest greed for money and power. Businesses want cheap labor which translates to high profits and more consumption. Unions want more members which translates to more dues (forget about the impact of more labor competition for the rank and file). Churches want more Catholics to fill empty pews. Democrats want more poor people who will vote Democrat. Illegal immigration not only expands the poor demographic with new people but it helps keep the existing poor population poor too so it fits the needs of the Democrats pefectly. La Raza wants to expand their race based political power which translates to taxpayer funded cash grants from the Federal Treasury.
Everybody win except the American middle class which still bears the preponderance of the tax burden and the American poor who suffer less opportunity and lower wages, degraded schools that devote excessive resources to ESL education, competition for cheap housing and competition for their share of a limited social welfare pie. Mass immigration is a gigantic wealth transfer mechanism that takes wealth and opportunity from the poorest Americans and transfers it to the wealthy.
The way to avoid creating a new illiterate subclass is to quit importing poverty and ignorance from the third world. If we really needed all this new unskilled labor, why are wages for unskilled workers stagnant or falling in inflation adjusted terms?
Perhaps if we solved this problem the children of our own poor people would actually be able to get a decent education and not only could we avoid creating a new underclass but we could reduce the size of the one we already have.
It really doesn't matter if you "care" or not. The fact is that regardless of the illegal status of their parents, children who are living within our borders have the same right to a primary and secondary education, according to our Supreme Court. What the Court pointed out was that the costs that we incur by educating these children, regardless of their numbers, is less that what we would incur if we failed to do so, even if the Constitution would permit such an exclusion.
The "facts" that you presented were (as usual) one-sided, and completely devoid of any relevant context. They were obviously intended to evoke an emotional response for those who do not realize just how negligible the actual amounts are when compared against the full budgets of the relevant programs. The Court also addressed that fallacy by noting that the State in Plyler was unable to produce any evidence suggesting that the amounts involved significantly burdened their budgets or hindered their ability to proivde adequate education to the children of legal parents.
Your comments about "hispanic fertility" are just more inflammatory rhetoric intended to provoke a negative, racially motivated response that merit no further comment than this.
TTFN,
Blackout
-------------------------
Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
I am a proponent for arresting people who enter this country illegally, sending them to back to their counties of origin and charging the bill to their home country's government. I would even go so far as to say that any costs to the State that can be reasonably imputed should likewise be presented to these people's country of origin in the form of a bill. I am also in favor, however, of a policy that respects the basic human dignity and which recognizes the fundamental rights of illegal aliens as human beings.
I'm not even sure where we are in disagreement.
I said in my first post that I agreed with the statement above. I don't see anything wrong with Pyler. I agree that illegal aliens, like all other criminals in America have fundamental rights that need to be respected while we enforce our laws. As you point out, these are not conflicting ideas.
My solution to illegal immigration is considerably less harsh than yours. You state that you are a proponent of deportation as the solution, and if you are serious about actually solving in your words "the root cause" of the problem, these could only be mass deportations. Anything less would be just a continuation of the non-enforcement joke we have today. Mass deportations to be an effective deterrent would invoke all the comparisons to Nazi's and would be viewed as extremely radical. Such actions would look far more racist than anything I advocate as 12 million Hispanics got racially profiled, rounded up and expelled. That would be ugly. Is that really what you advocate as a solution?
I have no problem with deportations but I would not go out of my way to arrest illegal immigrants. If they encountered law enforcement in anyway I favor deportation but I don't think it is wise, politically feasible, cost effective or even really possible to try to solve the problem with mass roundups.
I believe the root cause is the business demand for cheap labor and I think that our law enforcement dollars would be far better spent by punishing the employers who give illegal aliens jobs. The E-Verify system is "color-blind" and so long as everybody was verified there would be no racial profiling or 14th Amendment issues. Coupled with enforcement and penalties, the jobs for illegals would vanish and the illegals would leave the country at their own expense for the same reason they came (a better life) without any ugly round-ups and deportations. I am far more interested in puinishing the businesses that hire illegals then harshly treating the illegals themselves. I am content to se them load their plunder and migrate home to the families they left behind. It took decades fpr the problem to get this bad and it will take time to fix it. But after a while, the only illegal aliens that stayed behind would be the criminal element that came to prey rather than to work and law enforcement could deal with them.
If we actually solve the illegal immigration problem then Pyler is moot. There would be very few illegal alien children left and the cost of respectng their rights would be as the court said, relativiely inconsequential.
I reject your racial accusations. Typically they are the last resort of a person losing an argument who is trying to shutdown debate. My mother was born in Cuba and true to the well documented ethnic norm of high fertility, she had 5 Hispanic children of which I am one. Being one myself, I obviously don't hate Hispanics! I do have a serious problem with illegal immigration and it is impossible to have a rational fact based conversation about illegal immigration without talking about Hispanics because Hispanics happen to be about 85% of the illegal population. I also happen to be part Irish and there are about 50,000 Irish illegal aliens in the country. Just like illegal Hispanics, I want them too to be strongly motivated to self-deport by a lack of economic opportunity!
Pyler was decided in 1982 which was several years before the 1986 Reagan (Mazoli-Simpson) Amensty (IRCA) where Congress thought they were giving amnesty to 1.5 million illegal aliens but about 3 million illegal aliens actually got amnesty. In 1982, the population of illegal aliens was obviously much lower than today or even 1986 and the court's observations about the costs probably made sense. I doubt that the same observations about cost would hold water today where the official government number is about 12 million illegal aliens and many experts believe the number is much greater. There are dozens of well documented studies that clearly show the costly burden of illegal immigration including a recent one by the CBO. Interestingly, in California which is the state with the largest illegal alien population, and with about the 48th worst public school system, the nearly endemic budget deficit is very close to the costs these studies attribute to illegal immigrants net of the taxes they pay. It suggests a solution.
...however it really doesn't matter how many children of illegal aliens are in the country, as Pyler was not decided on financial grounds. The Court decided that case based on the Fourteenth Amendment's provision that the basic rights apply "to any person within its jurisdiction"...with "its" of course referring to the United States.
I still contend that your comments about "hispanic fertility" are purely inflammatory in nature. The argument you used is a very common one, and it only serves to inflame some very common and counterproductive racial sentiments. If a child is born within the borders of the United States, that child is a U.S. citizen, regardless of the legal status of that child's parents, and the minor children that are brought across the border with their parents when they cross illegally is extremely small. The financial burden created by the latter group is negligible.
TTFN,
Blackout
-------------------------
Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
I'm not sure how we got onto the anchor baby subject. Up until now we were talking about the illegal children of illegal immigrants.
I understand that the Courts have interpreted the 14th Amendment to give the American born children of illegal immigrants citizenship. I believe that was a bad decision that ran contrary to the intent of the drafters of the Amendment but I really don't care, I think that particular argument is a red herring that distracts from what is important in the illegal immigration debate.
Like Pyler, giving birthright citizenship to children of illegal aliens would be nearly moot if we had the illegal immigration issue under control. If the number of illegal aliens in America was very small then the number of their children getting citizenship would also be small. It would be a non-issue. The root cause of the anchor baby problem is illegal immigration. The root cause of illegal immigration is the jobs magnet. If we address the jobs magnet then the costs of Pyler and the problem of anchor babies would take care of themselves.
In response to your comments about the small number of illegal children of illegal immigrants I guess "small" is a qualitative term that means different things to different people. Wikipedia says that 65,000 kids graduate from high school annually that would qualify for the DREAM Act. These are illegal alien children of illegal aliens. Given that there are 13 years of kids in the pipeline for a K-12 education and given the high (perhaps 35%) dropout rate of this demographic group (another one of those evil inflamnatory perjoratives against my own ethnic group), there must be a lot of illegal kids in America. 13 x 100,000= 1.3 million. Other studies peg the number at about 1.5 million. Numbers of illegal immigrants are hard to peg down but it would be a certainty that number of illegal children here now exceeds the total number (adults and children) of illegal immigrants in the USA when Pyler was decided.
Pyler may not have been decided on numbers or costs. I'll accept that. But why did you bother to quote me that ridiculously outdated piece of text from their decision that tries to imply that their costs are trivial?
Here is a more recent study. It pegs the cost of educating the illegal children of illegal immigrants nationally at about $12 billion and the cost of education their US Born children at another $17 billion annually. Those are not small numbers. For California, their share of these costs amount to about 15% of their educational expenditure which is not a trivial number and which also accounts for about 50% of their chronic budget shortfall.
These numbers may look small to you but to many Californians who already have one of the country's highest tax burdens, they look pretty large.
The numbers you cite are framed to exaggerate the actual impact, and more than half of the dollar amount you cite does not apply to illegal aliens. You are ingnoring the fact that the U.S. born children of illegal aliens are not themselves also illegal aliens. Those children are U.S. citizens. Including the costs of their education in your figures is a spin tactic, and nothing more.
Your argument also ignores the fact that NOT educating these children results in a greater impact on the State's budget than NOT doing so causes. Again, your position is isolated from the appropriate contexts, and lacks validity therefore. To cite the relevant portion of the decision to you again...
Your uncontexted citation of the raw dollar amounts are not rationally framed, and lack any real basis of understanding in the larger context of how big a State's total budget really is, and how it works in terms of the "big picture." If you create more costs by failing to educate these kids that you eliminate with your policy, then the result of your "fiscal" policy is a LOSS for the State.
As for your contention that the original intention of the drafters of the 14th Amendment did not include resident non-citizens, the simple fact is that the plain language of the Amendment states otherwise, and there is a significant body of case-law prior to the Plyer decision which supports this interpretation. The Court explains this at great length in its decision, which whether you like it or not is the official interpretation of the Amendment in relation to this issue. Per their authority, your opinion on this matter is incorrect.
The one thing that I think we DO actually agree on is that the root of the issue lies with the failure of our basic immigration policy. THAT is where we need to focus, not on these kids, who have committed no crime and who are entitled to the equal protection of our laws, regardless of what their parents may have done, or what you think of them. Trying to exclude these kids from public education is a petty and per the SCOTUS an illegal tactic. I further find the idea despicable in the way that it targets a weak and essentially blameless target in these kids.
TTFN,
Blackout
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Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
I have no problems with Pyler. I am interested in minimizing its applicability by minimizing the number of illegals in our country and therefore minimizing the number of illegal children they bring to our country.
I have no interest in denying children education. I would prefer that they were educated in the country that where they hold citizenship.
Like you who wants illegal immigrants deported, I want the problem of illegal immigration solved. I want to give illegal immigrants a very strong incentive to leave by drying up the jobs that are available to them. They uprooted themselves and came here for economic opportunity. They separated themselves from families that got left behind. I think if we dry up the economic opportunity they will uproot themselves again and re-uinite themselves with their families. Most, when faced of the prospect of no opportunity will make the decision to leave volunarily and at their own expense. I think providing them with a bus ticket home would be a reasonable, compassionate and cost effective use of taxpayer funds.
Presumably, when the illegal parents leave, most of them will take their families including their children with them. If a few choose to leave their children behind with relatives, I am not going to complain much about the cost of educating them. If they cross paths with law enforcement I strongly believe they should be deported. When they enter the workforce without documentation, they will face the same lack of opportunity incentive to leave that confronted their parents. They will take a very expensive taxpayer provided education with them and it should enable them to prosper in the country where they hold citizenship. Perhaps by then, if the American people truly believe that the Federal Government is finally serious about enforcing our immigration laws, we will see an amnesty as these children as appropriate. We are generous and compassionate people.
As far as the citizen children of illegals go I accept that they are citizens. I disagree with the court's decision for reasons that are well stated here but I understand that until it is reversed or the Constitution is amended that this ruling is the law of the land. They are imposing enormous costs that would have not been necessary if our immigration laws had been enforced for the past few decades but that is water under the bridge and I certainly do not and would not advocate stripping them of citizenship or any rights they have as citizens.
I do however strongly advocate enforcing our immigration laws so that the number of these freshly minted citizens who are children of illegals is kept very low on a going forwards basis.
I also advocate amending our current immigration laws regarding family reunification so that the illegal parents of these citizens are not eligible for permanent residency or citizenship as a result of a reunification petition from their child. That situation, which is the source of the term "anchor baby" has the strong stench of an illegal alien being allowed to benefit from their crime by eventually gaining citizenship as a result of illegally crossing our borders and having a baby. It is also bad immigration policy because elderly parents will never pay enough into our system to cover the costs that they will impose on our social entitlement programs. Family reunification should be limited strictly to spouse and minor children. Parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles and other relatives should be excluded. This change to the immigration laws should be apply equally to all immigrants and citizens so that there is no question that anchor baby citizens are being treated differently from other citizens. We should end this sort of chain migration.
...I just think that we can do this without the need for inflammatory and politically spun statistics.
TTFN,
Blackout
-------------------------
Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
God forbid that a fact would enter the discussion!
Most of the statistics I provided were as close to factual as possible given the nature of illegal immigration and the difficulty of counting them. I can provide muiltiple citations for most of those facts.
If there is something wrong with the facts that I presented, then I welcome corrections. If you think that my facts only present a slanted or partial view of the truth then feel free to present the rest of the truth.
To my knowlege it is the truth that:
There are 12 to 20 million illegal aliens in America
That there are about 1.5 million illegal children in our schools
That each illegal alien in our schools costs taxpayers between $6000 and $10,000 average annually with $8000 being a reasonable average for the purposes of discussion.
About 85% of illegals are Hispanic
There are about 50,000 Irish illegals
That there are illegals of all races, creeds and nationalities
Latinas have a lifetime fertility rate of 3.7 which is about double the national average
That the children of illegal aliens account for about 15% of California's educational budget and almost $4 billion in annual expenditures which is about half of California's current budget deficit
That the children of illegals impose almost $30 billion in K-12 costs nation wide with about $12 billion of those costs accruing to their illegal children and about $17 billion of those costs accruing to their citizen children who would not have been born on our soil if our government had done its job.
You see these facts as inflamnatory. That is pretty lame! It is like playing the race card as a last resort when faced with an unwinnable argument. It is ridiculous to hang an adjective like "inflammatory" on a fact. A fact is either true or it is not true. A fact can be misleading if it is presented out of context or without other mitigating facts I've tried not to do that but if you think I have then feel free to cite the instances and provide the rest of the facts that bring clarity to the issue.
I see the facts as the truth and I marshalled them to support my argument which in this case was that illegal immigration was extremely costly to our educational system. The original blogger had every right to question why taxdollars which could have been used to subsidize his and other citizen's advanced education were being expended on the education of illegal aliens instead. I believe our citizens need to know the truth so that they can make rational decisions about the politicians they put in office and the policies they direct them to implement.
But feel free to to present whatever facts you want. If I believe they are inaccurate or only tell half the story I will be sure to tell you why. If I find them to be bogus I promise to refute them with research and citations of studies rather than a ridiculous one-sided value judgement like "inflammatory".
...can lead to some very disingenous arugments. Complaining that something "costs too much" when the alternative you suggest would actually cost more is just such an argument. You figures are disingenously spun because more than half of the amont you cite is money that is being spent on young U.S. citizens...not young illegal aliens. This is disingenous.
When you compare the $17 billion spent on K-12 education for children that are actually in this country illegally to the roughly $536billion that we spend annually on public K-12 education, the real amounts (equating to about 3% of the actual dollars being spent) are far less alarming that you would like us to think. This is also disingenous.
The State of Texas attempted the same arguments in Plyler that you are trying here, and the Court rejected them because those arguments were not (and are still not) supported by the actual evidence. Your arguments are invalid on the same basis, and are fortunately rendered irrelevant by the Court's standing ruling.
TTFN,
Blackout
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Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
You figures are disingenously spun because more than half of the amont you cite is money that is being spent on young U.S. citizens...not young illegal aliens. This is disingenous.
If I were making the argument that Pyler should be reversed and I was then including the young citizens, then I would agree with you that it would be disingenuous to include the costs that are spent on young US citizens. But nowhere above have I argued for the reversal of Pyler and actually if you review my posts above you'll find several that state that I have no problem with Pyler. And as I have previously stated, I also have no interest in stripping the citizen children of illegal aliens of education or any other right either.
As a result of Pyler decision, for the purposes of K-12 education, the courts have required us to treat the illegal children identically to the citizen children of illegal immigrants. It is therefore disingenuous for YOU to pretend like there is a difference when the courts have ordered that there should be no distinction.
An average latina has 3,7 children over her lifetime. Some or all of those children may be born in a foreign country. Some or all of those children may be born in the USA if she is allowed to come and remain here illegally. Once that latina comes to America illegally and those children accompany her or are born here, the taxpayers are on the hook for educating ALL of those children without distinction as to their citizenship or legal status at the cost of about $8000 each per year or $104,000 for a K thru 12 education, or a cost of 3.7 x %104,000 = $384,000 for the entire family. The vast majority of illegal aliens pay very little tax and these costs will be born by other taxpayers.
If the latina is allowed to come here illegally we get, by order of the courts, the costs associated with ALL 3.7 children. If the latina is prevented from illegally crashing our borders we get NONE of the costs associated with those 3.7 children.
I have no interest in denying ANY of those 3.7 children an education. I just think that ALL of them should be born and educated in the country where the latina holds citizenship.
I have no anger or ill will towards the children and am willing to live with both Pyler and the Courts interpretation of the 14th Amendment. I do want to minimize the costs by keeping the numbers of illegal latinas and their children to a minimum. I only have mild anger towards the latina. I understand why illegal aliens come here and I really don't much blame them. But I want our laws enforced and that means that anybody who gives the latina a job should be prosecuted and the latina (and her illegal children) should be deported if she crosses paths with law enforcement.
My real anger is directed at our government for refusing to enforce our laws. As a result of their failure, I am being forced to pay taxes to educate both the illegal children of illegal immigrants AND the legal citizen children of these illegal immigrants WHO WOULD NOT BE CITIZENS AND THEREFORE WOULD NOT BE MY PROBLEM AS A TAXPAYER if the government had done its job and kept the illegal latina out of the country in the FIRST place.. Because the government failed to enforce the law, I am having to pay for BOTH the legal and illegal children of the latina which in total adds up to an average of 3.7.
There is nothing that can be done about the children that are already born here and I have no interest in doing anything about them. On a goings forward basis, It is completely appropriate and rational for me to consider the cost of ALL 3.7 children that any future illegal latina might either bring or give birth to on our soil. I want our government to start enforcing our laws on a going forwards basis and the only argument that makes sense is the TOTAL (all 3.7) cost of them failing to do so.
(equating to about 3% of the actual dollars being spent)
And yours is an excellent example of a disingenous argument.
The vast majority (at least 85%) of education dollars are funded locally at the State level rather than from the Federal government. The vast majority of illegal immigrants are concentrated in just a few states with California being the unwilling host to almost half of them. It therefore makes sense to view these numbers on a state by state basis rather than disingenuously spread them across the nation as you did with your 3% number. Having the children of illegal aliens costing the taxpayers of California 15% of their total education budget is indeed quite alarming.
There is an old saying, "as goes California, so goes the nation". Unless the rest of us in other states want to join California in paying taxes to educate 3.7 children per illegal latina to the tune of some huge percentage of our education budget, it is time to insist that the government start enforcing the law on a going forwards basis.
It is therefore disingenuous for YOU to pretend like there is a difference when the courts have ordered that there should be no distinction.
Horsepuckey. I am simply pointing out the way that you are trying to pad the numerical values in your statistics in order to achieve a more dramatic sounding argument. YOU'RE the one playing with the relevance of the numbers, my friend.
As for your ongoing comments about birthrates...your comments remain inflammatory and irrelevant. Saying it over and over again won't change that.
I do want to minimize the costs by keeping the numbers of illegal latinas and their children to a minimum.
It therefore makes sense to view these numbers on a state by state basis rather than disingenuously spread them across the nation as you did with your 3% number.
The major flaw in this argument is the fact that States no not have the authority to make immigration policies that effect the entire country. Immigration policy is one of the FEW issues that sits legitmately in the realm of the federal government. Issues with immigration are by defintiion a federal issue, and should be viewed in that context.
TTFN,
Blackout
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Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
The major flaw in this argument is the fact that States no not have the authority to make immigration policies that effect the entire country. Immigration policy is one of the FEW issues that sits legitmately in the realm of the federal government. Issues with immigration are by defintiion a federal issue, and should be viewed in that context.
And the Feds have indeed made these policies and then failed miserably (and willfully) at enforcing them.
And the results of their failure have fallen squarely on the states who bear the brunt of the costs associated with illegal immigration including education, healthcare, justice and welfare. Until the Federal Government begins to pick up all the costs associated with its own failure to enforce its own laws, it is totally appropriate to analyze the costs at the state level and use the results of that analysis to demand action at the Federal level so that the disaster in California does not become the fate of all of us.
Actually, the jury seems to be out on whether or not immigration policy falls solely within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. Every one of Arizona's tough new laws like Proposition 200 and their more recent law making use of E-Verify mandatory (rather than optional as under Federal law) has so far withstood legal challenge. Oklahoma's similar laws also seem to be holding up pretty well although I think a small part of it may be invalidated. And Colorado's Proposition 200-like law has stood up. A great tough new law goes into effect in Missouri next week accompanied by much whinging from those who rely on cheap illegal labor and the rest of their open borders cohorts.
And the Federal government is gradually handing over shared enforcement jurisdiction to various local government entities through the 287g programs which are popping up everywhere. These are the best hope for the deportations you favor. Too bad they are not turning local law enforcement loose on the employers.
I am not a lawyer and don't have a great understanding of these things but in most areas of the law, the States are able to legislate in areas where the Federal government has primacy so long as the State's laws don't contradict or weaken the Federal laws. For example I live in Wyoming and we have considerable strip mining here for coal. This activity is heavily regulated at the Federal level. Lots of the mining is on Federal land and the coal is primarily being produced for interstate trade purposes so it seems entirely appropriate that the Federal government would have primacy. But the State of Wyoming has even TOUGHER environmental regulations then the Feds and the State of Montana has regulations which are even tougher then Wyoming's which results in more mining activity in Wyoming and less in Montana. While Federal law has primacy, the mining companies have to comply with the tougher state laws. That is good because like with immigration, it is States that ultimately have to live with the costs that will result from poor mining practices. I really see no reason why states can't regulate illegal immigration just like they regulate strip mining. So long as their laws are tougher than Federal laws and don't contradict or weaken them or violate Constitutional Rights I think they should pass muster. And it looks like that is indeed the case in the states I mentioned above.
Which section of the Constitution puts immigration policy solely in the realm of the Federal Government? I've frequently heard people make that assertion but I've looked repeatedly and I can't find it. The closest I can find is Article I, Section 8 and a "uniform rule of naturalization" does not seem like a blanket handover of all law making authority and particularly all enforcement authority from the States to the Feds regarding migration and particularly does not seem to govern people who have ignored this uniform rule. People come to America for other reason then to be naturalized.
I also wonder why local law enforcement does not have inherient enforcement jurisdiction in matters of Federal Law. To my knowledge, Wyoming has no law against shooting a bald eagle. That would be a Federal offense. But I bet that if somebody shot a bald eagle the local police force would arrest them without batting an eye. Why can't local law enforcement enforce immigration law in a similar manner?
And why is it that States are allowed to violate Federal laws in ways that favor illegal immigrants with impunity but if they violate laws like Pylar they are crushed? For example there is a Federal law that forbids states from giving illegal aliens in-state tuition rates unless they also give equal treatment to citizens from other states. Nevertheless several states are giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition without offering in-state tuition rates to American citizens from other states. Seems that there is a double standard in Federal law enforcement that always comes down on the side of illegal aliens at the expense of taxpayers.
When the revolution comes, judges and lawyers should be the first to die.
And the Feds have indeed made these policies and then failed miserably (and willfully) at enforcing them.
Again...on this point we certainly agree.
Every one of Arizona's tough new laws like Proposition 200 and their more recent law making use of E-Verify mandatory (rather than optional as under Federal law) has so far withstood legal challenge.
E-Verify is a federal program. Mandating that local businesses USE the services is not the State usurping federal authority. And as for Proposition 200, the results of the litigation surrounding this law are still pending, leaving me to conclude that your opinion here is a little presumptive. In any case, the public campaign for Prop. 200 was focused around illegal immigration, but in reality the law only indirectly (at best) addresses the immigration issue. The law requires potential voters to provide photo-ID before casting a vote at the polls. It neither stops any illegal from crossing the border, nor sends any illegal back once they are here.
The 278(g) programs are likewise federal, not State initiatives, in which the federal government provides the necessary training and delegates its authority to local officials who then act as agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This ultimately keeps the necessary authority firmly in the hands of the federal government.
Which section of the Constitution puts immigration policy solely in the realm of the Federal Government?
Well, you hit the nail on the head when you pointed to Article I, Section 8, which reads (in part)...
The key here is the word "uniform." A good explanation of the legal basis and history for U.S. immigration laws can be found here.
And why is it that States are allowed to violate Federal laws in ways that favor illegal immigrants with impunity but if they violate laws like Pylar they are crushed? For example there is a Federal law that forbids states from giving illegal aliens in-state tuition rates unless they also give equal treatment to citizens from other states. Nevertheless several states are giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition without offering in-state tuition rates to American citizens from other states.
The various rulings in the State and Federal Courts (the most prominent I think being the case of Day v. Bond), represent a valid question in my opinion. But as is so often the case with politically-motivated and overly conservative causes, the case has been poorly--even incompetently--litigated. The real legal question of whether or not the in-state tuition laws passed by several states are actually illegal has never been answered by the Courts. These cases were conceived as political attention getters, but the "plaintiffs" lacked the standing that would have permitted a higher court to consider their arguments.
TTFN,
Blackout
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Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.