Why Should Undocumented Students Receive Federal Funds for College?
Imagine this: There is a Guatemalan couple in the United States that is going through rough economic times and can barely scrape together enough money to feed their children. On top of that, they can’t send their children to school because it’s too expensive. The couple can barely hold together with the earnings received from their jobs. How are the children going to end up? Just like their own parents working difficult jobs to feed their children is how they would come to be. There is no other choice but to move somewhere else to find better opportunities and increase the quality of life.
There is no other place better than to go to the United States of America. According to immigrants jobs pay better here in the U.S. than back in their homeland. The education and government is not as corrupt than the ones from where they came from. A controversial argument over the years is whether or not undocumented students should be able toattend any university and receive federal funding regardless of citizenship status.
Some might blame the children of immigrants for coming to the United States, but is it really their fault? They didn’t have a choice to say whether or not if they wanted to enter unlawfully because they were children. One doesn’t consider how accepting many undocumented people can help the economy and improve the government with an addition of intelligent scholars. Face it. The undocumented students willing to die for another person’s country deserve to be a citizen of the U.S.
Nonetheless, someone who fights in America’s military should be able to go to the university. The issue on Undocumented people paying taxes would get straightened out and benefit the U.S greater. For instance, if undocumented workers were to get social security numbers then they would be able to get jobs with those documents and taxes would be automatically taken out of their checks; making possible and fair for their children or undocumented students to receive federal aid. Once the students get careers, in turn they’ll be our lawyers, scientist, and doctors contributing to America’s economy. Who’s going to want to get dirt under their nails? Well, anyone willing to do anything for their children.
The majority of people who harvest crops from American soil are immigrants. News from the National Academies stated, “Immigrant labor allows many goods and services to be produced more cheaply, and provides the workforce for some businesses that otherwise would not exist.” The more the merrier for the corporations because the undocumented people get the work done. Especially for low wages that immigrants get paid and in some cases work under dangerous conditions. Since undocumented people are not citizens and can not get health care then once they get hurt on the job then they don’t have any coverage from the accident, From a purely economic perspective, the optimal immigration policy would admit individuals whose skills are in shortest supply and whose tax contributions, net of the cost of public services they receive, are as large as possible. Admitting immigrants in scarce occupations would yield the greatest increase in U.
S. incomes, regardless of the skill level of those immigrants. In the United States, scarce workers would include not only highly educated individuals, such as the software programmers and engineers employed by rapidly expanding technology industries, but also low-skilled workers in construction, food preparation, and cleaning services, for which the supply of U.S. native labor has been falling.
In either case, the national labor market for these workers is tight, in the sense that U.S. wages for these occupations are high relative to wages abroad (Hanson 33). As Hanson points out,the employment is a necessity from the immigrants. If they all get deported then there would be a scarcity for workers. Things we enjoy would cost more and Americans would have more money coming out of their pocket.
Therefore, businesses would have loss of profits distinctly with the competition against other countries. If undocumented people are in the shadows trying to work any job they can find, it is most likely that they are getting paid under the table in cash. Thisis detrimental tothe U.S. government: Immigration generates extra income for the U.S.
economy…By increasing the supply of labor, immigration raises the productivity of resources that are complementary to labor. More workers allow U.
S. capital, land, and natural resources to be exploited more efficiently. Increasing the supply of labor to perishable fruits and vegetables, for instance, means that each acre of land under cultivation generates more output. Similarly, an expansion in the number of manufacturing workers allows the existing industrial base to produce more goods. The gain in productivity yields extra income for U.
S. businesses, which is termed the immigration surplus. (Hanson 19). Then there would be an accord between both sides. The tax contributions would balance out with the services given to the immigrants.The government gets the profit of taxes from labor, housing, and health.
Moreover, undocumented people could stay out of the fear of being deported and can obtain the same luxury and justice as Americans. It is implausible to remove people that could help build a better future and not just for America but for the world’s. With so many eager young immigrants that aspire to do great things for the environment and in which carry on impressing ideas, it would benefit America a great deal over time. There are immigrants who do their taxes, which, like any other person’s taxes, would go towards the schools and services offered to the public. Why stop an undocumented student from going to college when their parents also contributed to the money which goes to federal grants and scholarships from the government? The majority of young undocumented students that attend school and have been attending for most of their school careers have only known America as their home. To send them away or to not allow them to get a further education is a betrayal.
For instance, there was a friend of mine that played in varsity sports and had the perfect grades. He was offered various scholarships but could not accept them because he didn’t have the right documents. He wanted to be an engineer and would have had a bright future. He would have helped build better roads and buildings in efficient ways to help people save money and live happier. If undocumented students were given the right to attend school K-12, then what’s the point of letting them stay in the first place if they won’t be able to go to college or get an actual career.
There are many remarkably smart students in America and some of them are undocumented students that do not have the right credentials to accept funds from the government.It is possible for immigrants to go to college or to attend any university they desire. But here is the catch, an illegal immigrant that has no paperwork, no visa, and is not a citizen is not eligible to accept federal scholarships or grants given by the government. An undocumented student has to have a good bit of money to be able to pay for a good college that they would want to attend but it would not make sense because most Immigrants came with the hope of getting a better life; they are not filthy rich when they move from a different country. Especially, if their parents are working for low wages that are barely enough to pay bills and necessary items.
Some undocumented students who are willing to fight for a different country that is not theirs should be considered an American. Someone who loves a country that has been part of the person’s entire life and has been the only country they’ve ever known, who doesn’t mind to die in combat for that country, deserves a greater than a high school education, Last year, former Rep. David Rivera (R-Fla.), introduced the ARMS Act, a bill that would give DREAMers the opportunity to serve in the military and allow them to pursue the path to U.S. citizenship which is open to any non-citizen serving in the military.
Rep. Rivera introduced the bill saying, “if somebody is willing to die for America, then certainly they deserve a chance at life in America”. In addition, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also floated a proposal to provide relief to DREAMers which would have opened military service to DREAMers. Though Rubio’s concept would have excluded a pathway to citizenship for the majority of DREAMers who would have been granted relief from his proposal, those wishing to serve in the military would have been eligible to apply for citizenship just as any other service member would (By Cesar Vargas, executive director, Dream Action Coalition).
If they are granted citizenship, those undocumented students have a chance to to serve America and truly show how willing they are to defend a country they want to be apart of while Americans get the benefit of more safety. Then eventually they would get the benefits that they deserve just like any other American would. It would help them out in their near future to pay for college and attain a career of their choice. It would prepare them for life in the way that it would for any other person born in America. Some people may think having undocumented people in America could be a bad concept. The surplus of people that are using up the countries resources means that there would be less resources available for Americans.
Open border advocates claim that money spent on the Iraq war and taxing wealthy individuals in the United States could generate plenty of resources to pay for costly services provided to foreign-born newcomers and their U.S.-born children. But the impact of exploding immigration-driven population growth is more than fiscal. If we grant amnesty to millions of illegal students, once naturalized, they could petition for their parents and siblings to immigrate to the United States. In addition, they will have children born here.
Those newcomers will consume energy and water, like all other residents, thus exacerbating our energy and water shortages (The Daily Californian 1). It is true if the undocumented people came to the U.S and the border did not have any restraint, people will want to bring their families over, and then their children will likelygrow older and have kids of their own in which will, in turn, reproduce as well. Then they’ll tend to take the water and resources that instead could have been used by Americans. If the border were to be left open, then many people would migrate over to the U.
S but according to the President of The United States of America, the border will be secured more than it has ever been it in prior years. The kids that undocumented people bring will grow up with the same aspirations of their parents of becoming great people especially with a better chance since they’ll exceed in society improving the government and economy but only if they are given the chance to attend college with federal help. Undocumented people would have to work in the scarce and hard jobs that the Americans did not want in the first place due to not having the right paper work. Resulting that the Americans shouldn’t be scared in thinking that Undocumented people will take over their jobs. Then once the undocumented people’s children grow they’ll have to compete against everyone else in America to get scholarships regardless. For the sake of peace and justice, undocumented students deserve to get federal help to attend college.
The Declaration of independence says, “all men shall be created equal..that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is not fair to not help out undocumented students who have worked hard in their education where in America, everyone is treated with equality and liberty. One has to look at the situation with an open mind and an open heart.
These people aren’t equipped with much from their parents or much less can provide for themselves. America has hope for them. There are people that think America Is for Americans when in reality, America was the founded by immigrants and made of immigrants. People come to the U.S because America Is the land of opportunities where dreams are capable of happening. Undocumented people do not benefit only themselves but they also impact other lives.
They spread the hope and ambitions that Americans may have not encountered. All of the people in this world are related to each other one way or another. So why call your own an “alien”. Why not let thriving students that have been in America for all their lives go to postsecondary school? These undocumented children could get a further education and help advance technology and add a better understanding of how to improve business and increase economic profits in the government. The President does want for Undocumented scholars to graduate and is predominantly the congress and state laws have the authority to pass those bills, wherefore, allow undocumented students to receive federal help for college. Works Cited Daily Californian.
“Children of Illegal Aliens Should Not Go to College and Gain Legal Status” What Rights Should Illegal Immigrants Have? 19 Oct. 2007: 1. Web Hanson, Gordon H., “The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration” COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS26, April 2007: 33. Journal Entry Hanson, Gordon H., “The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration” COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS26, April 2007: 19.
Journal Entry National Academies, “Overall U.S. Economy Gains From Immigration, But It’s Costly to Some States and Localities” 17, May 1997: Web Vargas, Cesar. “Allow DREAMers to serve in the military” 23 Jan. 2013: Web
