Thread: Should 'illegal,' bright high-schoolers get the boot?

Should 'illegal,' bright high-schoolers get the boot?

By Patrick Welsh
Updated 19h 42m ago |

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting with one of my 12th-grade English students at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., helping her edit an essay for a nursing program to which she was applying. Suddenly a sentence leaped out at me: "I am illegal." When I told this bright, totally Americanized girl that I was surprised, she replied: "There are a lot of us here." I didn't have the heart to tell her — which is why she shall remain nameless — that perhaps she shouldn't mention this fact in her application.

By Sam Ward, USA TODAY

Over the years, I have taught hundreds of Latino kids and naively assumed they were all legal immigrants. Or for that matter, the many Asian, African and Middle Eastern students I have taught. But several staff members who work closely with immigrant students estimate that as many as 60% of our Latino students alone — that is more than 300 kids — might be illegal.

In my classroom
My high school is only about a half-hour drive from the U.S. Capitol, where legislators wage divisive battles over what do to about illegal immigrants. But those lawmakers do not see what I see. When I scan my classroom, I see only the diverse faces of my students — but I couldn't tell you who is here legally or who isn't. Nor do I care. And apparently neither does our educational system, which is as it should be.

USA TODAY OPINION

Why else would federal law forbid a school district from denying a free public education to undocumented children who reside within that district or forbid schools from disclosing any information about a child's immigration status to the Citizenship and Immigration Services? The federal government understands that it is in the country's best interest to give these children access to a free public elementary and secondary education.

But why do we stop there?

We are in essence kicking these young people out of America at the point when they have the potential to become more productive members of our society.

I understand that many Americans see these students as lawbreakers. But like their parents, these students have already been in the USA for years and have no plans to leave.

Rather than consigning these young people to lives in the shadows, unable to vote, to attend a four-year state college, to enter the military or to get anything but the lowest-paying jobs that do not require a Social Security number, we need to come up with an innovative way to put them on a path to citizenship. And not only for their sake, but also for our own.

If you listen closely enough, you will hear in these students' stories the very same fears and hopes felt by many of the immigrants who preceded them to this country:

"I feel caged in. ... I am not allowed to reach for what I want. ... I have studied as hard as I have so that I wouldn't have to clean houses or work at McDonalds," said one of my students whose parents brought her here from South America when she was just 9.

I was stunned when I found out that she was here illegally. "The government seems to think that by limiting us they will make us go back home. But that's not happening. My home is here. ... I will not give up my dreams for a better life," she said.

Don't dismiss them
Even undocumented kids who have ended up living the most difficult of lives here have no intention of going "back home." Take the senior at my school who told me that his uncle, who had been living here, paid "coyotes" $7,000 to bring him to Alexandria. This young man ended up working six days a week for a year-and-a-half in an Indian restaurant until he made enough to pay back his uncle. "I wanted to be someone in life, so I went to T.C. Williams after I paid the money back," he told me.

Granting blanket amnesty for all illegal immigrants would send the wrong message to those who became U.S. citizens by waiting their turn. Even so, it is long past the time to begin offering these students a better option. The DREAM Act, which would have provided these young people a path to citizenship if they attended college or joined the military for two years, again went down to defeat in the last Congress.

Perhaps a more palatable option could find its way through Congress. What about something similar to the H1B visa program, which is aimed at keeping the best and brightest foreign-born workers in the U.S.? At the very least, high school students who are illegal immigrants can be given a path to citizenship if they graduate from a four-year college or a two-year trade school in a field facing shortages, such as nursing.

Given the billions that has already been spent educating illegal children in our elementary and high schools, it seems only logical to let the most promising among them step out of the shadows to become productive citizens in our society.

Allowing them to be "someone in life" can only make all of our lives better.

Patrick Welsh is an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.
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Send the bright ones home right along with the dumb ones. The U.S. taxpayers shouldn't be paying to educate any of them. That is the responsibility of their home country.

HELL YES there are alot of bright americans in jail for breaking the laws.Illegal is illegal they break the law deport them if they are so dam smart why dont they figure it out they are law breakers.We have to many law breakers that are legal and we catter to them either.

yes Yes yes
No amnesty

Nothing really personal about illegal youngsters of any kind....but their parents will raise them to have a bad mentality, therefore they are as much a danger to us when they grow up as their parents....so out they must go along with their illegal parents. It is unfortunate but what's more important, our freedom as a nation or their right to an American education?

i used to feel sorry for the kids, the americaized ones i mean ...

i don't anymore , now i'm numb to it ... so many pathetic sob stories ... deport them all and then i'll simply change the channel when more sob stories come on TV ..

There will ALWAYS be sad stories concerning any subject we can think of to talk about........Do you want to hear my problems?? NO!!!

Why do they blame the USA ? Their parents knew this could happen when they crossed the boarder illegally. Blame the parents!! Had they not broken the law, this would not be a problem...........

Perhaps they need to thank the American educational system for giving them a free education..........now send them back to Mexico to help their own country be a better place to live!!.

If she wrote "I am illegal." in her essay then she is not very bright.

We've given them a 12th grade education, now let them go to their home country and flourish in a university or college. Considering the number of uneducated illegals we get, I'm sure the educated illegals we send back home will be in the minority. Their country needs them much more than we do!

Originally Posted by Bobby12

There will ALWAYS be sad stories concerning any subject we can think of to talk about........Do you want to hear my problems?? NO!!!

Why do they blame the USA ? Their parents knew this could happen when they crossed the boarder illegally. Blame the parents!! Had they not broken the law, this would not be a problem...........

Perhaps they need to thank the American educational system for giving them a free education..........now send them back to Mexico to help their own country be a better place to live!!.

Absolutely.