Cultivating Edification: The Costs of Teaching Illegal Immigrants

In my previous blog entry entitled, “Illegal Exodus: Is Immigration Good or Bad for Our Economy?,” I delve into the blogosphere to discover the effects of illegal immigration on our economy. In addition to the ongoing deliberation of whether an immigration reform bill from the United States Senate would solve some of the issues America is facing today with unemployment. This week, I have decided to talk about the effects of illegal immigration on our school systems and how it affects our country (see right). With California being a border state and one of the most diversified states in the U.S., I have decided to focus primarily on this area. With California hosting America’s largest population of illegal immigrants it is one of the largest states bearing the costs of illegal immigration in the form of education, healthcare and incarceration. A new study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) examines that Californians are spending approximately $7.7 billion dollars annually on education for illegal immigrant children and for their U.S. natural born siblings. Steven A. Camarota, the author of the report “says that households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of $10.4 billion, or $2,700 per illegal household.” The Center for Immigration Studies in Washington DC, also estimates that a minimum of 1.1 illegal alien children attend school in other states of America. With an estimate of over 15 % of students enrolled in the California public school system being children of undocumented immigrants, who for the most part are members of society who do not contribute to public school funding through tax payments like other Americans, faces a difficult task of educating these kids. This is an especially arduous test, considering the average estimate of a yearly Kindergarten through 12th grade education is $7,200. Currently only a fraction of tax-paying inhabitants are paying enough into the system to support the constant and valuable education of our students. Such shortages have led to cuts in many curriculums accelerating learning, such as the ESL program (English as a Second Language). In addition, the existing “No Child Left Behind Act”(see left) presents an obstacle to urban, low-performing schools by denying monetary aid to schools with the highest necessity. While it seems California is being hurt by educating many of the children of illegal immigrants, it is easy to forget that the real people that are being affected by this quandary are the children. Yes, it is true that we as Americans suffer as well because we all pay the price for educating illegal immigrants with our taxes, but without the adequate education a child deserves we all end up losing in the end when it comes to the future of our nation. As a daily reader of international business news that analyzes the effects of events on the economy of the United States, I became attracted to this subject and chose to offer my personal thoughts on two highly regarded blogs that focus on similar subject matter. The first post that I commented on was “Illegal Immigration: Are Opponents Being FAIR,” who is written by David Waltz a freelance journalist. David examines some of the information reported by FAIR and compares it to reports produced by the Los Angeles Times. I also found a second external post by the name of “California’s Illegal Aliens Cost Taxpayers Nearly $9 Billion A Year.” This blog is published by Morgan Lighter. In her entry she relates some of the issues that I discuss in regards to the cost of educating illegal immigrants in California and in other states in America.

“Illegal Immigration: Are Opponents Being FAIR”

Comment:

Thank you for a concisely constructed post on the effects of illegal immigration. You clearly have conducted extensive research and gathered relevant quotes to support your argument against the some of the statements reported by FAIR. I believe the unique structure of your entry, which incorporates passages from various secondary sources, is an effective method to engage your readers. By providing extracts from these external websites, which you justify and support with your own opinion, the readers are presented with a multitude of viewpoints on which they can accept or reject on their own discretion. For example, you take excellent oddments of information from the Los Angeles Times which validate the credibility in your underlying argument. Having read other articles regarding this topic, I was pleasantly surprised to witness a fellow blogger defending some of the issues of illegal immigration and how some of the opponents use illegal immigration as a way to disseminate hate. I agree with your remarks that some opponents are simply pointing the finger at illegal immigrants and are saying “They are the one who are responsible for all our problems.” I also agree with you when you state that providing hate speech and misinformation about a group of people is not a way to solve a problem. Overall, you have a strong post that addresses some of the critical issues that the United States faces in regards to illegal immigration, but could benefit from the following suggestion. Although your first link to the Los Angeles Times does offer great information and statistics, you did not personally elaborate on these alternative results nor did you consider any additional reasons for relaying you feelings about how some people use illegal immigration issues as a way to disseminate hate. I feel your post could have been even stronger if you identified these factors, instead of solely focusing on some of the misinformation reported by FAIR. Lastly, I admire your initiative in providing valid information from reputable sources like the Los Angeles Times in your blog.

“California’s Illegal Aliens Cost Taxpayers Nearly $9 Billion A Year”
Comment:

I would first like start off by taking this opportunity to thank you not only for this informative post but also for your overall blog. I found it fascinating to get your opinions on some of the issues California and America in general is facing with illegal immigration today. I am glad that you chose to include the report conducted by FAIR recently on your blog. As evidence from the article's persuasive tone, I firmly believe your ability to exude magnetism through your writing style, which is a quality trait that clearly distinguishes you as a successful writer from others. I find it very interesting how you capture the opinions of two different people who have very different views on illegal immigration. Including quotes from the man who actually administered the FAIR report and Gerardo Gonzalez, director of Cal State San Marcos’ National Latino Research Center provides your reader with key information that leads them to pursue their own opinion on what the issues at hand really are and come to a decision on who is right and who is wrong. On the other hand, while I believe the facts and statistics that you incorporated in your entry are necessary elements, some of them are not well supported and seem a bit deceiving. For example, you use Jack Martins information that the report estimates the total cost at $10.5 billion each year, but that is offset by about $1.7 billion in taxes that illegal immigrants pay. I would have liked to have seen where some of this information was obtained from. Although I find your blog very informative, I would have liked to read your opinion on the research mentioned. It would have been beneficial for me to read the thoughts and ideas of someone who has dedicated her time to researching some of the effects of illegal immigration on the American economy. With great information provided in your blog, do you feel that the information provided in the FAIR report is really accurate since they are only actually using estimations in the data and not hard core evidence to support their statistics? Lastly, I admire your initiative in providing valid information in your blog. I really enjoyed the information you provided and I wish to read more blogs pertaining to immigration in the future.

Illegal Exodus: Is Immigration Good Or Bad For Our Economy?

The United States has often been called the melting pot of all countries because of its copious diversity of different ethnicities, cultures, and traditions, which makes America the great country it is today. This is derived from the opulent tradition of immigrants coming to the United States legally and illegally looking for a better life and the pursuit of happiness. Although many Americans believe that immigration has an unconstructive outcome in the economic development of the United States, sociological inquiries have proven otherwise, but the U.S. government still considers immigration as an austere problem for America. As a consequence, over the past two decades the U.S. Senate has failed to pass an immigration reform bill that would likely answer many of the questions people have towards immigration. Furthermore, supported by the Bush administration are the pragmatists that say that America should acknowledge the fact that there is a projected twelve million illegal inhabitants in the U.S. and that they are here to stay, so we should find a way to offer them a path to citizenship (see left). On the other side are the optimists who dispute that illegal immigrants are no more than criminals who are breaking the law. They argue that illegal immigrants should not be remunerated and in doing so only encourages more illegal immigration into the U.S. While different views of immigration will continue to take place in the White House, the uncertainty of whether immigration is good or bad for the United States still remains.

Buried in this ongoing deliberation is the question of the prospective economic effects on a measure that could change the composition of the labor force of America in considerable means. The United States Senate believes that by cracking down on illegal immigration, they can constrict the future supply of workers in the provinces of agriculture, construction, and the restaurant and hotel industries. By moving to an evaluation form for visas that is weighted more on the skills of a person rather than the family ties they might have in the U.S., the senate judges that they can provide more jobs for flourishing industries such as technology and biotechnology. Peter Cappelli a professor at Wharton in the University of Pennsylvania was quoted in a television report by its local news center utv13 “saying that what is troubling him about the legislation is that it is being marketed as if it does not involve any tradeoffs, that the move to employment-based criterion will be good for the economy and good for the country.” In fact Cappelli argues it will create winners and losers, and whether one approves of the legislation or not depends on how one feels about those winners and losers. However, the matter of fact is that majority of the jobs in the U.S. are not high-tech, most of the obtainable jobs concentrate within the fields of agriculture, and manufacturing for illegal immigrants. Nevertheless, many Americans still believe that by reducing the number of immigrants, whether legal or illegal that come into the U.S. would help alleviate some of the unemployment problems that America is facing today.

Conversely, Bernard Anderson, a practice professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania, “says he is not worried about the economic implications of immigration reform, mainly because he sees it having little long-term effect.” As a former assistant secretary in the U.S. Labor Department during the Clinton administration, Anderson also states, “that illegal workers already in the United States are likely to remain, regardless of whether they are offered citizenship or not.” Despite that, many traditionalist still rail against reprieve, but they do not offer a resolution on the twelve million people that are already in the U.S. Many if not most of the illegal immigrants that come to the United States looking for employment concentrate in the areas of agriculture, food preparation, construction, and hospitality and personal service. Numerous jobs in these industries are considered and are part of what labor economists call “non-competing” jobs. The truth is that many natural born citizens are not rushing to fill the job vacancies provided by these businesses. Take California for example, it is one of the most diverse states in America. When examining California’s construction sector, a television report aired by CNN stated that there are no illegal immigrants constructing high-rise buildings in Los Angeles or Sacramento. Instead these jobs are being filled by native-born citizens that belong to unions such as the Operating Engineers Union or the United Steelworkers Union. On the other hand going into the suburbs or residential housing developments, most of the work is being done by illegal immigrants. So ask yourself, whose jobs did illegal immigrants really take? The answer is simple, they did not take anyone’s jobs because native workers were simply not willing to do these jobs or take the salary or hourly wages that are being offered.

In general, many illegal immigrants tend to search for jobs in states were immigration officials such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the department of Homeland Security is not as hard-hitting as in many border states like Texas and Arizona, they tend to seek employment in states like North Carolina, Utah, and many cities in Northern California were agricultural jobs are plentiful (see right). While many Americans argue against immigration the truth is that many illegal immigrants help support the U.S. economy. Illegal immigrants do the jobs that many Americans would not even consider doing and they have to pay taxes like everyone else, without receiving any benefits in the end. This is due in part to their employers still paying Social Security for them, even though they do not receive any benefits when they retire. They keep the economy flowing and they safeguard the size of the country’s labor force. Excluding the illegal immigrants who are fleeing their native country because of criminal activities, many of the people that come to the United States illegally come to work hard and pursue the “American Dream.”