The issue of illegal immigration in the United States is an extremely polarizing issue, one which divides Americans and is a constant hot button issue in American politics. Illegal immigration can be defined as the entry of a non-legal citizen who has not gone through proper legal channels to gain residency in the United States. These individuals reside in the country and even work within it, all while not being registered or legally recognized as an official US citizen. Most illegal immigrants in America come from Mexico and other Latin American nations, and can be found in all areas of the nation. One of the biggest issues surrounding immigration is the issue of education – many immigrants require a certain amount of education about America’s laws and regulations in order to be accepted as citizens, a process known as citizenship education. Beyond that, however, is the supplementary education regarding communication, language and other academic skills that they may not have benefited from in their host countries. The issue of immigrant education is an absolutely vital one, and interventions must be put in place to provide immigrants with the financial assistance and tools they need to survive and contribute their formidable work ethic and motivation, while also being able to assimilate more closely into their host country and engage as active citizens.
The Economic and Societal Need for Immigrant/Citizenship Education
There are many reasons immigrant education is an important issue is the consequences of the lack of said education on native perception of the immigrant presence in America. Many anti-immigration proponents believe that illegal immigrants are stealing jobs from American citizens - by offering to work these jobs at lower pay, without insurance or benefits, employers are less inclined to give these jobs to legal American citizens at higher costs. There are also the arguments of cultural and language barriers that come from their not speaking English, making communication frustrating and difficult (LeGrain & Myers, 2007). These factors are meant to make illegal immigrants "not American" and therefore not wanted in the country.
In just ten short years, the discourse about immigration reform and legislation became more hazardous and restrictive. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) permitted seasonal agricultural illegal immigrants to have amnesty given good circumstance, and all illegals who had entered the United States before 1982 (and who still lived there) were granted amnesty as well (LeGrain & Myers, 2007). However, just a decade later, the much more restrictive Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) would right away be deported for a period up to ten years (if they had stayed in the United States for more than a decade). The reasoning behind this dramatic change in the stronger legislation is due to the change in discourse that happened in the mid-90s. Because of increased media exposure to the "problem" of illegal immigration, and the increasing perspective of the 'desirable,' image-specific and white-friendly immigrant that showed illegal immigrants as being "anti-citizens” (LeGrain & Myers, 2007).
Media reports of jobs being taken and increased coverage of the illegal immigrant phenomenon further created a major distrust of Latinos and immigration as a threat to, pretty much, privileged whites who feared the entrance of Latinos into the country. While the negative portrayal of illegal immigrants as a threat to the in-group was present in 1986, this reached a fever pitch in the mid-90s. Because the 1990s became the time at which more Mexicans had emigrated to the United States than from any other country, the focus on illegal immigration south of the border became a pressing issue (LeGrain & Myers, 2007). Unlike Europeans and Asians, who are better able to assimilate into United States culture with a better degree of fluidity, Latinos and Mexicans offered distinct cultural and language barriers that created a more hostile, Otherized caricature to demonize.
Efforts in the early 90s to make English the official language of the United States were already making waves, showing an bigger lack of trust of Mexicans and illegal immigrants. Media portrayals of Mexican immigrants emphasized negative stereotypes about their culture and personality, as well as the possible threat they had to the American jobs. With these images in place, and America more hostile to illegal immigrants, legislation like the IIRIRA was able to pass (LeGrain & Myers, 2007). The Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC) is a coalition of trade associations, businesses and the like, whose big goals are to organize and advocate for reforms to immigration workforce law. Their end goals are to ensure that US workers do not get switched out by foreign workers; they also want the reforms that would allow hardworking unauthorized workers to get permanent status after learning English and having only a small criminal record.
The EWIC looks to take an incredibly Exceptionalist view of immigration - only the "good ones," with perfect records and sufficiently "hard work" get to become permanent residents (LeGrain & Myers, 2007). There are also elements of friend-enemy, as certain type of immigrants get to have permanent residence while those who do not learn English and similar illegal criteria do not. The group has basically come together to make the immigration issue work best for corporations and businesses - their overall perspective is to keep a small and affordable number of immigrants working for low wages, in order to keep the current economy and make it thrive. Because of these factors and more, the issue of immigrant education is more important than ever – part of the value of immigrant education is to dispel these xenophobic notions of immigrants and improve communication between native and immigrant.
The Benefits of Immigrant Education for Both Immigrants and Citizens
The current state of immigrant education is filled with its own set of unique challenges; according to statistics, approximately 65,000 illegal immigrants who have spent more than five years in the United States graduate from high school (Zola 46). Public education, on the whole, provides free K-12 education for any students who wish to enroll, be they legal or illegal immigrants or natural-born citizens, thanks to the Plyler v. Doe decision by the Supreme Court in 1982 (Zota 47). It is through this route that most immigrants are able to achieve a basic education. However, today’s globalized and industrialized economy necessitates a college education in order to achieve any sort of marketability in the United States; to that end, the issue of higher education for immigrants is an important one (Baum 171).
Education has tremendous benefits for immigrants; survey data claims that approximately 26% of immigrant children grew up in households who had no parents that had completed a high-school level education, and nearly half of Latino children have parents who did not graduate from high school (Baum 174). To that end, a greater onus is placed on public education to be able to allow these children to catch up with their native-born counterparts; the parents are in a lesser position to assist in education, and so the children must gain this education in the school system. Another prevalent issue is English proficiency – while English is not the official language of the United States, it is still the most typically-spoken one, requiring a bilingual proficiency in order to successfully communicate with others. Among Spanish-speaking immigrants in California, only 26% are proficient in English, with 21% being unable to speak a word of it; since a greater proficiency in English has been directly connected to greater attainment of education, it is even more important for English language proficiency to become a priority for immigrants (Baum 176).
In other countries as well as the United States, various interventions and programs have been created specializing in immigrant education; these programs focus specifically on citizenship education and the skills needed to survive and integrate into said country. According to research, innovative technological educational models can be used to provide efficient remedial education to immigrants; using virtual community techniques and gaming technologies, for instance, can provide more holistic methods of education, second language acquisition (SLA) and more (Schuurink and de Vries, 2009). In these kinds of courses, immigrants can learn about the society and primary languages of the host nation, making it easier to integrate into its society and become an active citizen. Through these more integrating, assimilating elements, the level of discrimination and animosity toward the Other, as mentioned before, can be minimized, as the cultural barrier between immigrant and citizen is narrower.
On the whole, immigrants’ non-native status has actually been shown to have an advantage in their educational attainment. According to research, immigrants from black and Latino countries were more likely than native Latin-Americans and African-Americans to consider applying for college (Baum 177). This is due to several factors, including the increased motivation and human capital present in the kind of immigrants who brave a move to the United States; immigration is a difficult process, and those who successfully do so typically convey more positive aspects of hard work, work ethic, and optimism about their prospects than their native peers (Baum 177-178). If these immigrants are able to benefit from the higher quality level of education that the United States offers, the nation would be able to benefit from a highly educated and motivated workforce.
Economic Barriers to Immigrant Education and the Need for Tuition Reform
Currently, unauthorized immigrants’ access to higher education in general is quite limited: “Higher education access and affordability have emerged as key issues in immigration debates across the nation” (Zota 46). While federal law does not prevent immigrants from attending higher education, there are barriers on the private level that can prevent them from receiving the access that they need. One such barrier is the inability to pay for it; immigrant families are often at an economic disadvantage when it comes to affording school, due to factors such as the lack of affluent employment and the existing costs of moving to the United States (Zota 47). To that end, immigrants have a comparatively greater need for financial aid than native students; with laws such as the Federal Restriction on State Provision of In-State Tuition Benefits to Unauthorized Immigrants, passed in 1996, states are not permitted to offer residency-based higher education benefits to immigrants without offering them to all US citizens (Zota 47).
Because of these barriers, immigrant education cannot happen on a large enough scale without tuition reform to create more inclusive laws for immigrants seeking higher education. Tuition benefit laws in almost thirty states have been considered and/or passed to allow immigrants to enter higher education at in-state rates (Zota 48). These laws have been shown to lead to increased enrollment rates in colleges, and even reduced dropout rates of immigrants in high schools (Zota 51). However, some states still prevent immigrants from even being enrolled in higher education, and others still just count them as out-of-state students (Zota 49). Given the positive impacts of tuition benefit laws thus far on enrollment, work eligibility and the fiscal status of these more permissive states, it stands to reason that a greater sense of inclusiveness for immigrants in education would provide more positive outcomes (Zota 51).
Immigration and Citizenship Education Incentives Through the DREAM Act
One of the ways in which citizenship education can occur is through the proposed DREAM Act, which would offer citizenship to those illegal immigrants who graduate from high schools in America, have been in the country for more than five years by the time of the enactment of the bill, and have sufficient moral character. Furthermore, their citizenship could be made possible or more expedient by way of military service; two years of active military service would allow for a six year period of temporary residency in which they could qualify for the DREAM Act's citizenship qualifications. However, some tweaking of the DREAM Act would be necessary; namely, the provision that allows for certain disqualification of illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition rates for higher education (Lee, 2006).
The New York DREAM Coalition is a series of community organizations, elected officials, and more who have been a central component of the creation and proposal of the DREAM Act. Their overall principles fall somewhat along Exceptionalist lines as well, as they seek to engage the resources of undocumented youth who are armed with a college education by making that education possible. By creating a new educated workforce, the DREAM Coalition is also using in policy entrepreneurialism as well - they wish to create a new resource that grants illegal immigrants and undocumented workers the ability to contribute more to the state of New York, while advantage come from a greater education in exchange (Lee, 2006). These reasons were documented in the petition they sent to support the DREAM Act Legislation, noting the advantages to the state that undocumented workers with college educations could provide to the state.
Both the DREAM Coalition and EWIC ostensibly wish to provide privileges and rights to illegal immigrants, but do so under very different reasons. EWIC is pushing for legislation regarding permanent citizenship and the effects of undocumented workers in the American workforce. DREAM Coalition, on the other hand, is pushing for the immediate benefit of college education for undocumented workers to take advantage of smart youth and probably reaping the benefits through society and the free market afterwards. To that end, it is clear that the more magnanimous and advantageous road to take regarding the treatment of immigrants in the United States is to accept their presence and work towards including them as much as possible within the American workforce and education system; immigrant education can help immensely in that goal.
In conclusion, immigrant education is an important issue that requires further study and actionable legislation in order to provide greater opportunities for immigrants to assimilate and provide benefits to their new host nation. Immigrants have been shown to have a tremendous amount of potential in terms of education, motivation and labor capacity, but meet incredible opposition from those who see them as the ‘Other’ attempting to take their jobs. Opponents to immigrant education do not wish to receive the benefits of permitting people who already live here to become citizens through work, good moral character and active military service. Instead, much of the illegal immigration debate can perhaps be attributed to a sense of xenophobia and racism, as illegal immigrants are typically poor Latinos who are seen as leeching off the benefits and resources of America. With the help of immigrant education, however, immigrant populations can be given the tools needed to better integrate into American society, interact with native citizens, and take advantage of the opportunities for higher education that they may have been denied in their home countries. All that is required to allow America to benefit from this large group of motivated people (who are already here and already work) is to have a change of perspective and view this subset of people as an opportunity instead of an invasion. Immigrant education is one step in that direction, as it will provide immigrants with the skills they need to provide to the workforce, work towards legitimate citizenship, and better communicate with their neighbors.
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