What are your opinions on educating undocumented children?
I’m just curious on hearing others’ views on this issue. Please no answers like "let’s just send them back" because we all know that’s not going to happen. Millions of undocumented children under the age of 18 currently reside in the United States and the law states they must attend school until the age of consent by their state.
A follow-up question is: what do we do with the migrant children who do not speak any English?
Thanks to all for participating.
Is very good to educate them, education is good for everybody and many of Americans should do it too. I think that some of the people who hate them are jealous because immigrants have a better future and education than those who born in this country and only want the things easy just because they are citizens.
the children should never be penalized, and they are not, there is ESL programs for non English speaking,,,the thing is the children should not be here if there parents are illegal,,
What do you propose we do? I would like to see a complete privatization of the educational system anyway, so I think eventually we can weed out the illegals and "send them back".
The only answer to the problem is "send them back". The law states that we must provide for the well being(i.e. food, shelter, protection) until we send them back to their country of origin.
If we are going to educate them, educate them in English, teach our various cultures, how to assimulate and more than anything, respect for the US and its citizens. If they are here long enough, we could teach them how to become legal and the difference between legal and illegal and illegals not being the same as racism… teach them what that really means too…. This, while they are here… and waiting for their destination, that is.
If you don’t pay taxes you don’t get to go to public schools. That simple. Just like they don’t get medicare, or social security. It’s just wrong to give it to these people for free when the people who pay into it get screwed.
I think is better to give them an education than to have them on the street committing crimes, they didn’t chose to be here in the first place.
I will address your follow up question and that should cover my opinion of educating them.
Either they take all the teachers time explaining things, and our childrens education is neglected by the struggling teacher who is paid by our taxes;
OR
They are given an ESL teacher, which is paid for by our taxes.
I also disagree with you that they can’t all be deported, they can and should be.
The law needs to be changed! Follow up; Teach it to them!!
My opinion is that illegal aliens are criminals.
They should be sent back.
They aren’t eligible for the privileges of citizenship, which include a taxpayer paid education.
Sorry I’m giving you an answer you don’t want to hear.
But it is the answer I must give.
I believe that we should begin with teaching legal children of this country before worrying about other countries children. We have enough problems as it is trying to educate our own.
Don’t teach them, deport them. They have no right being here, so why give them the education that our kids get while they are here ILLEGALLY?
Your right they ain’t leavin any time soon . Might as well educate em . Keeps em off the streets an d education never hurts only helps . Schools get paid regardless of who is usin em .
Your follow up Q: Most of the kids speak English to some degree . They usually translate for the parents . They might hafta take a special class or 2 but those are already in place for students of citizens that have fallen behind to . Ppl is makin a big to do over nothin . The costs don’t change .
We have a free education system here – open to all.
As for non-English speakers….. Most children who enter our schools with no English skills are speaking it with no problem by the end of their first school year.
Your ancestors probably came here with no English too. They learned. Everyone does.
Skipping school is usually met with fines and the threat of jail time; but, for two sisters, the punishment was much worse – they were deported.
Smith County Justice of the Peace Mitch Shamburger said he presided over truancy court last month when Brisa and Lluva Amante, both 17, snickered in his courtroom.
The John Tyler High School students were before him for skipping school and Shamburger said he fined them each for the action and told them to go to school every day and not to come back to his courtroom.
"I thought they would take it seriously and I wouldn’t see them again," he said Friday.
However, the twins and a younger sister were brought before him on Feb. 14 for another charge of truancy.
"I asked them if they didn’t understand and they just kind of snickered," he said.
Shamburger said he instructed the bailiff to handcuff the two sisters and hoped that would sober up their mood.
"It cut down on the giggling, but they stood against the wall and still kind of laughed," he said.
Shamburger said he called the two teens in front of his bench and told them they were both adults in the eyes of the law and he was sending them to the Smith County Jail to do time for skipping school.
"I told the deputy constable that if the twins had a come to Jesus meeting then he could turn around, but they didn’t so he proceeded to the jail to book them in," he said.
What happened next took Shamburger by surprise.
"The officer called me and said I wouldn’t have to worry about them skipping school anymore because ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) placed a hold on them and was deporting them back to El Salvador," he said.
Shamburger said he hoped the girls would learn a lesson from visiting the jail, but was not prepared for the news.
"In all of my years on the bench I have never had someone deported for truancy," he said.
http://www.tylerpaper.com/article/20080223/NEWS01/802230305
Why can’t the parents take charge of how to teach their kids English they should not expect everybody to drop everything their doing.The enclosed story shows the attitude illegals have.
To your main question, it is impossible to give you an answer you’d like since the only answer is to send them back.
The answer to your follow up question is that WE do not do anything with them. Our tax dollars are not for teaching those who don’t belong here.
Those kids have to get educated, otherwise they are going to grow up to be criminals, which we dont want. It is not their fault they are here illegaly, their parents up and moved them to a place I guarantee they didnt want to be in he first place. So why penalize them, they cant help it, as for the english, they do have ESL classes, but their parents should buy them things to help them learn english after all this is an english speaking country. Honestly though, I would rather go to school on Mexico, because they are more advanced in their studies than the USA, thats one thing about this country, they dont really care about our education all everyone cares about is politics, money, and power.
Well, I think that when it comes time to register children for school, the parents need to product proof that they are legally in this nation and paying taxes. If they are, then the kids can go to our schools and use our education system.
If the parents are not in this nation legally and paying taxes, then they should have to pay for their kids to use our school systems. They should have to pay a tuition per semester for their children. This tuition would include English education for their children. But they should pay for the use of our nation’s schools, just like everyone else in this nation does. No – we don’t pay tuition, per sey, but we DO pay in the form of taxes, and some of those tax dollars do go towards the schools in this nation.
As for the migrant children that don’t speak English, their parents pay for them to go to school and learn it.
I know that there will be those that will cry out that we are FORCING them to have to pay this tuition, since it is illegal for children under the age of 16 to not be in school. Well, they DO have a choice – they either remain in their own nation, come into this nation LEGALLY, or come here illegally and pay for their children to be educated, just like all the rest of the parents of this nation.
It’s sad that you automatically throw out the only logical, ethical answer. *sigh*
Deporting them is "too expensive" but educating them isn’t !!??? !! What kind of math is that ??
if the law says that they must attend school, then give them the education they need.
for the ones who do not speak any English, send them back to pre-k or put them in special classes.
I agree with the 1982 Supreme Court decision in Plyler vs. Doe. They decided that since it’s not in the state’s interest to have a subgroup of truant and uneducated children loose in the USA, that we shouldn’t penalize the children for what their parents did illegally. They found a Texas law unconstitutional that tried to deny children of illegal aliens an education in the public schools.
If immigration had done its job protecting our borders, this wouldn’t be an issue, but since the children are here, we need to treat them humanely. Or are you REALLY "pro-life" and "pro-family"?
I wouldn’t mind deporting whole families if they are causing trouble, but I think we should start with the mean ones and not the gentler families. For example, if a child in a public school is really a behavior problem, that should be a reason to arrest the whole family. But hey, many who came here -even illegally- are just trying to survive and feed their families, and they don’t participate in any violent crimes or other felonies. We need to go after the hard core criminal types first, and go after the adults first without hurting their children. So, if their presence in the country is allowed, we can’t legally deny them access to the public schools.
One comment on your follow-up question. They are given instruction in ESOL to learn English, but the pigs in the state legislatures sometimes count their test scores against the school. That’s ridiculous. They need time to learn enough English to pass the tests, so their scores shouldn’t count against the school. If they pass, let them count for the school, though.
They have to learn our language.
They should be taught to read amap and sent packing.
Well there are the esl programs that teach undocumented kids English but, they are awful, i basically learn from watching tv and practicing it only took me about a year or so, the thing is that when they finish high school even with honor, ap classes and a lot of extra curricular activities, they would not be able to go to college or university. Another point of view is that the gov can not stop the esl programs because, a LOT of us children citizens son of immigrants do not speak English when they first start attending school.(a lot of the times immigrant are not the criminals, the criminals are the son’s and daughter’s that are raised in really bad neighborhoods)
The Dream Act should be passed. Also I feel that no child should be left behind reguardless of the parents dicision to come here illegally. Sadly there are people who don’t give a hoot, Republicans.
While I might hate the fact that my tax dollars go to paying for some illegal child’s schooling, I don’t really see a reasonable alternative. We can’t let millions of children under the age of 18 run free. They’re children. I understand why people are against illegal immigration, but the fact is these children did not choose to come here. If they can’t go to school, there’s a good chance that there’s no alternative for them but to -add- to the undocumented workforce, or the crime rate. And as undocumented children, they are at risk of falling prey to slave-labor, human trafficking, prostitution and all kinds of abuse.
White, black, brown or purple, the United States is not a country that can tolerate laws that would essentially create a slave class of children. Not to mention, if we did do it, there’s a good chance that somewhere down the line the government would end up paying reparations for human rights violations if we -did- bar them from public school.
As for the follow up: We do our best with them. We toss them into ESL programs and hope for the best.
Personally, I vote Republican, but I really don’t think the realities of educating or not educating millions of minors is a political issue. Universal education for minors is the law. There is no choice.
My opinion is that we should not have to educate them and they should be denied entrance into our school systems. It’s not my fault they have criminals for parents,we should not have to pay for it.
You should ask where Mexico’s responsiability is in this. They push the people they don’t want over the border, and local school districts wind up with an incrediably expensive and difficult group to educate. Frankly.. we cannot do it either.
The Law doesn’t exactly state that we have to educate them. If they are not citizens, they must have some sort of identification that indicates they can, and will pay for that education, and if they choose not to follow the law, they can then educate those kids. On them though.. they pay for it. Their business and not the responsiability of folks streching hard to educate their own.
Thats funny, the only acceptable answer is the one you wont accept. Send your kid to some ghetto public school in SoCAL or Houston if it doesnt bother you.
I think that the kids are forcing the teachers unions to create special programs for these kids. And kids are kids they will learn what you teach them. The problem is the community and the parents that demand everything in their language. So Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer has the privlege of paying for it.
.it is like everybody forgot that everybody has in their past immigrants, do you forget how brutal killed all the american indians the only ones with rights to be named north americans, read a little bit of real history, and you will see that many people talk about immigration when they don’t even know their history, I agree illegal immigration it is a problem, but children are children and have the right to study, it is more crime to deny school to them, they did not choose to come here, i think life is a boomerang, everything comes bakc to you, in the past the first "new comers" killed a bunch of indians, and now their descendants are in politics, bussines people, or just simple people, and are complaining about this.
and I am not defending anybody, and I am not an illegal in that country, it is just my point of view, and I don’t care if people agree with me or not, that wont take my sleep away. and I almost forget I agree they have to speak english because it is the language of United States.
The Latin children are more educated.
1. The children nor their parents are “illegal.” Illegal refers to someone doing something criminal and no actual crime has been committed since overstaying a visa or an unauthorized entry are not crimes but rather “civil offenses.” No person is “illegal” only actions are “illegal” such as denying education to any child in the US or asking for families to pay for it. Read Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982)
2. Immigrants, undocumented and documented alike, provide taxes and yet do not receive assistance from the government. Your grantparents and parents should be grateful because “immigrants saved Social Security.” Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/opinion/02wed3.html
3. Not all undocumented people are from Mexico, most are from Latin America, but many also come from Canada, Ireland, India, China, and South Korea.
4. Deportation is not a realistic solution, even Republican politicians know that which is why there is bipartisan support for AgJOBS and even the DREAM Act. It’s not just that deporting people is costly but it would also have detrimental effects on the economy and various job sectors. Sources: http://www.ufw.org/toj_play/TOJNEW_12_JAL.html ; http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/08/study_immigration_drives_wages_up_actually.html