A few days ago I listed several areas where we will all benefit when there is immigration reform which would legalize the millions of people living here illegally; the military, Social Security, our economy, our future economy, education and national security. The first column was about our economy, the next one was about the military and Social Security, this one will continue with language and education.
A major complaint that disgruntled residents voice is that the majority of the undocumented immigrants, most of whom are Latino, do not speak English. Many of them do try to learn, but learning a language is hard and takes a long time. Many simply don’t have time to go to classes between their jobs and family responsibilities. These people realize they would have an easier time if they spoke and understood English, but since they are here illegally and could be deported at any moment, there is not much incentive to learn.
If the undocumented people were given legal status and one of the requirements for them to stay was to learn English, they would have a much better reason to study. If you or I were living for an unknown period of time in a foreign country working up to 100 hours a week just to survive, I doubt that we would make the time to learn the language if we were able to live without it.
These workers don’t feel welcome, don’t feel included in life here, usually feel they have no reason to do anything more than the minimum to live here. I wonder if we would feel differently. I think we would feel like visitors, and visitors rarely try to assimilate.
The immigration reform proposals all say that the people here illegally would have to be law abiding, pay any back taxes owing and learn English in order to get green cards and apply for citizenship.
More English classes and tutors would have to be provided; the classes available now have waiting lists as long as two years in many places. The federal government would have to provide funds for more ESL classes and the people who resent that the immigrants don’t speak English will have to back legislation that will fund these classes. If they vote against funding the classes the immigrants will never have a chance to learn.
Many benefits will occur when all residents know our national language. Simple things like making the lines in the grocery store and bank move faster, neighbors getting along because they can discuss problems, safer traffic when everyone is able to read the signs. And more complex things like women knowing they can report domestic violence to emergency workers, parents and teachers able to discuss a child’s progress, everyone being able to discuss problems with a doctor, and understanding contracts and agreements when they lease or buy something.
If parents had to learn English, which first generation immigrants have always struggled with, they would be better able to help their children with their school work and encourage them to do well in school. It would also give their children more incentive to become proficient in English. Many children who are born here, yet live in a home where the parents speak no English and few of the neighbors do either, do not become proficient in English. Children all over the world are learning English, knowing that anyone who is bilingual has a huge advantage, yet many children born here are falling behind and are not learning our national language.
The dropout rate for immigrant children in high school is very high, especially for Latino students. They know that even if they do well in high school, they won’t be able to attend college at a price their families can afford. Most states charge illegal immigrants out-of-state tuition and they aren’t eligible for grants or scholarships. If they get over that hurdle and do well in college and get a degree, they can’t get a job with that degree because they are here illegally. The only jobs they can get are in hotels, restaurants, farms and others that are low wage. This defeats the purpose of their education and our country loses the benefits of these well educated young people.
If these children were given legal status, think of the incentive they would have to succeed in school. Our tax dollars are paying to educate them, we should be looking for ways to encourage them to do well in school. If we have more students successfully graduating from high school and going on to college this country will benefit. Many immigrant children will return to the same communities their parents live in, so the cities that educated the children get the benefit of their employment and tax money for many more years.
If these college students get their degrees and go on to highly skilled jobs, we would not have the shortage of high skilled workers we are experiencing now. The H-1B visa quota for high skilled immigrants is filled early every year. Companies then have to out-source their work, or worse, not be able to start new projects or do research and development. Some of these jobs don’t require college degrees, but they do require bright young people who are educated in high school math and science and can be trained in the high tech jobs.
Students who earn a degree get better jobs, pay more taxes, purchase more cars, electronics, houses and often start their own companies. These companies, in turn, employ more workers and pay more taxes. This is usually thought of as the American way.
Learning English and getting a good education are the most important things new residents can do here and when these two things happen, everyone benefits.
We all know the undocumented people living here have broken the law by coming in illegally or overstaying their visa and yet, something has to be done to get them registered and legalized. A majority of our citizens say we should find a way to solve this problem. This country needs them.
In the first column of this series, I listed several areas where we will all benefit when there is immigration reform which would legalize the millions of people living here illegally; the military, Social Security, our economy, our future economy, education and national security. The first column talked about our economy, the second one was about Social Security and the military. This one was about language and education. The next one will discuss national security and some others.
www.howtoliveandthrive.com
Donna Poisl is the author of "How to Live & Thrive in the U.S. / Como Vivir y Prosperar en Estados Unidos" and president of Live & Thrive Press. She wrote this reference guide to help immigrants learn our system and succeed in this country. Contact Donna at http://www.howtoliveandthrive.com or Immigrants in USA Blog at http://immigrantsinusa.blogspot.com
The h-1b program is being used to offshore U.S. jobs
The h-1b program causes 10 times more offshoring of U.S. jobs than it eliminates.
The h-1b program is a legal restriction (not a free-market tool) it creates a class of people that are afraid to leave their employer.
In open testimony before congress, a job applicant was not considered for a job, simply because she could not be sponsored on an h-1b visa.
The George Bush Department of Labor did nothing about this well-witnessed case of open discrimination against a U.S. worker, who was denied the ability to even apply for a job, a job located in the United States, simply because their point of origin was the United States.
Competition for h-1b jobs is not free, nor fair, because the foreign candidates (in several completely unrelated areas) enjoy an artificial legal classification that makes them preferable to U.S. Citizens.
All workers are asking for is to open this market to U.S. citizens, for a fair competition for jobs. Some employers (such as Wipro, Tata...) do not want this to occur. It's not surprising that these same IT Offshoring firms are the biggest users of h-1b visas.
The Indian Commerce Minister himself referred to the h-1b visa, as the "Outsourcing Visa".
It is clear that Indian IT Offshoring firms prefer the h-1b Visa, because they can keep control over their employees, and then bring them home in order to continue the offshoring process.
Offshoring, errodes the tax base. This errosion of the tax-base is helping to create a huge annual budget deficit. Because spending has been based upon rosier than reality projections of national income growth.
Sadly, Republicans have a history of makeing tax-cuts and then predicting a balanced budget based upon a rosier than reality growth in U.S. Income. This never happens, and so that is why the american people are stuck with an 8 trillion (almost 9 trillion) dollar national debt, that is growing rapidly.
Half of a typical engineers salary goes to taxes. Taxes that defend the world from terrorism, keep our senior citizens healthy, keep up our infrastructure, and keep up our fire and police departments.
And that pay a huge service on the National debt.
We need to treat this country like a business (a little fairness on the part of traitorious business interests could go a long way), and because India and China already treat their economies as a business. We need to realize (fundamentally and deeply) that we need full employment in the U.S. at all times. One default by the U.S. government, and the world will be slung into a recession, possibly a severe depression.
Hey Japan had a 2% unemployment rate for a decade, what the heck is wrong with everyone working? Inflation in the U.S. is also a function of resources and productivity. Instead of preaching about the value of being unemployed, I think Republicans ought to start think a little more positive.
The h-1b program is clearly being used to practice open discrimination against U.S. workers. We cannot tolerate this kind of bigotry in United States, the Congress must do something to stop it.
by
jake_leone (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 10:25:21 AM
Immigration reform: H-1 and H-2 Guestworker programs
Thank you for introducing this problem into the discussion.
"The h-1b program causes 10 times more offshoring of U.S. jobs than it eliminates.
The h-1b program is a legal restriction (not a free-market tool) it creates a class of people that are afraid to leave their employer."
Yes, "afraid to leave their employer" is exactly the reason that US Corporations find guestworkers preferable to U.S. Citizens. The plight of H-2 workers is even closer to endentured servitude than that of H-1 workers.
I have read your immigration articles including the ones on English. Thank you for a reasoned perspective.
Missing in these articles is a discussion of current Guestworker Programs H-2A (agriculture workers) and H-2B (non-agriculture workers.) The H-1 programs are for higher skilled workers.
The Southern Poverty Law Office has released a report on the H-2 Guestworker Programs, "Close to Slavery" which you can read at http://www.splcenter.org/legal/guestreport/index.jsp or obtain a copy by calling (334) 956-8200.
Sincerely,
Mary Francis
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Mary Francis (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 1:06:24 PM
Donna i think you have been brainwashed by the propaganda put out by our wealthy elite. These wealthy elite live in gated communities and their kids go to private schools and they have much to gain by flooding our country with people so the price of labor can be dramatically reduced.
Democrats and George Bush corporate Republicans want what I call open borders. Democrats know that they usually get most of the low income votes and corporate Republicans just want to please their campaign donors at all costs,they are too dumb to realize that they are actually killing their parties future.
What will take place if this ridiculous comprehensive immigration reform gets voted in will be a massive increase in illegal immigration and a complete draining of our social services money. Money raised from the taxes of our current legal citizens will be quickly used up by millions of illegals for education,health care, housing, food, social security benefits and incarceration expenses for criminals. Big corporations will make bigger profits by shifting the cost of labor to our tax base.
Our corporate elite have been encouraging illegal immigration the past few years and many think that borders should be non existent along with labor unions. If comprehensive immigration reform passes through congress what you will see will be the devastation of labor at all levels, massive poverty for what was once our middle class. America will once again become a plantation country and slavery will be alive and well much to the pleasure of our greedy corporate elite.
by
Gary Denson (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 197 comments)
on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 5:33:22 PM
