Jaimie Etkin: The Devil Wore Manolos
Teachers in Middle of Debate Over Immigrant Kids
Filed under: In The News
In a June 30, 2011 photo, Rich Fisher, retired school administrator and a former mentor to Jose Antonio Vargas, is seen at his home. Credit: Rich Pedroncelli, AP
With some 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., educators increasingly find themselves caught between their obligation to educate each child and conflicting guidance, or simply no direction at all, about whether to help such students beyond the classroom.
Law officers and lawmakers in some states want schools to help spot illegal immigrants. Federal authorities remind school officials that every child is entitled to an education. National education groups echo that but recommend that schools avoid getting involved when it comes to students' citizenship issues.
Ultimately, the adults in each classroom have to decide for themselves how far they will go.
Rich Fischer and Pat Hyland were school administrators in affluent Mountain View, Calif., home of Google and other tech companies, in 2000 as a young Filipino student named Jose Antonio Vargas was nearing graduation. He excelled in school but wasn't going to college because of his residency status and the high cost.
"We're educators. We don't work for the I.N.S.," Fischer, now retired as school superintendent, told The Associated Press, adding that teachers across the country face the same issues more and more.
"Actually, I think if you put a number to it, I think it would look epidemic and tragic."
Fischer and Hyland considered adopting Vargas, and eventually found him a scholarship to San Francisco State University. Vargas was a college standout, eventually landing an internship and then a full-time job at The Washington Post, getting the internship after Fischer, Hyland and others helped him get a driver's license.
"I'm not really sure if I could have made it without them," Vargas, part of a team of Post journalists who won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre, told the AP.
Hyland, who was the principal at Mountain View High School when Vargas was there, said the help she provided was "sort of humanitarian, in my mind."
She has helped other illegal immigrants find a way to college. Many stop short, though, out of fear, she said.
"It's a conundrum. ... What are we doing to help this child survive and help this child reach his or her potential?" she said. "Educators are stuck in that position. We are sort of an underground support network for a lot of kids who come to us."
Hyland and Fischer said they're not overly concerned about legal consequences from helping Vargas.
"When you kind of put the human factor into it and say 'Well, my gosh, I'm not helping somebody rob a bank here. I'm actually helping somebody become a productive citizen,' it feels different," Fischer said.
Teachers in Georgia, where a new law cracking down on illegal immigrants is being challenged in court, have been supporting students for years in many of the same ways.
Sean McKenzie, a high school social studies teacher in Calhoun, Ga., said he learned one former student came to the United States alone from Mexico at 14. The boy, whom McKenzie declined to name because it could make him a target for state authorities, worked hard to pass the state's graduation test.
A fellow teacher tried to adopt the teen, and housed him for at least five years. But it didn't open any path to citizenship. The student has since earned a nursing degree but can't get a job. He is thinking of leaving Georgia to find a job washing dishes or anything he can find.
"I just want a life," the student recently told McKenzie.
Michael Simpson, a National Education Association attorney, said the teacher's union doesn't view the issue as something it needs to educate teachers about.
The group issued a legal guide in 2009 with the National School Boards Association related to teaching "undocumented children" as more school attorneys inquired on the topic. The guide is mostly limited to explaining the Supreme Court's ruling that such students have a right to a public education. It advised schools not to ask about students' immigration status because it might discourage enrollment.
"We're all kind of left to fend on our own and make our own interpretations for what is right for ourselves and for our students," Hyland said. "I would far prefer that repairs to the system happen so that we're not put in this position and that the Joses of the world have more options that are legally available."
Elementary and middle school teachers may never know their students' immigration status because young students often don't know themselves. Still, some students reveal personal details.
Last year, a Montgomery County, Md., second-grader stood up during a conversation about immigration and told first lady Michelle Obama, "My mom doesn't have papers."
School officials in the Washington suburb worked to protect the girl's identity. The principal said they don't ask questions about immigration status but if families want to share, that's fine.
Alabama's Legislature recently passed a law requiring schools to report the immigration status of students. Anticipating such policies, the U.S. Education Department and Justice Department issued a joint letter to school districts in May reminding them they are required to provide all children equal access to public education.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently said the department is closely monitoring policies in Alabama and elsewhere.
"What we don't want to do is have a chilling effect. ... To have more students leave school or more students drop out ... would not be good for children, communities or the country," he said.
For McKenzie, the Georgia teacher, "it's a no-brainer: You've got a kid in front of you, you're supposed to help them."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. This article was written by Brett Zongker, Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
7-07-2011 @ 1:37PM
Brittanicus said...AFTER THE DREAM ACT IMPLICATIONS?
Every American should read the full consequences of the New Dream Act. The Dream Act in itself is not the problem; the chain migration that spins out-of-control afterwards is the serious monetary issue. It's another wrench in the works, which is heading this country to overpopulation and overspending.
Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has issued a statement highlighting 10 things Americans need to know about the newly introduced DREAM Act. On Tuesday, the Senate Immigration Subcommittee held its first ever hearing on the DREAM Act, but few Senators were in attendance because of conflicts with other committee meetings and votes on the Senate floor. Learn about the lies being published in the Liberal oriented press and that DREAM ACT is just part of a stealth Amnesty, which the open border heretics are trying to pass on the unaware public.
Bombard Senate phone switchboard—202-224–3121 and House—202-225–3121, and inform them you will not be manipulated into another clandestine Amnesty, disguised as the DREAM ACT.
In the release, Sen. Sessions said that the bill "would offer amnesty to over 2 million illegal aliens" and according to the Congressional Budget Office would add "more than $5 billion to the federal deficit". 1. The DREAM Act Is NOT Limited to Children. 2. The DREAM Act Will Be Funded On the Backs Of Hard-Working, Law-Abiding Americans. 3. The DREAM Act Provides a Safe Harbor for Any Alien, Including Criminals, From Being Removed or Deported If They Simply Submit An Application. 4. Certain Inadmissible Aliens and ALL Deportable Aliens, Including Those From High-Risk Regions, Will Be Eligible For Amnesty Under The DREAM Act. 5. Certain Criminal Aliens—Including Drunk Drivers—Will Be Eligible For Amnesty Under The DREAM Act. 6. Conservative Estimates Suggest That At Least 2.1 Million Illegal Aliens Will Be Eligible For the DREAM Act Amnesty; In Reality, We Have No Idea How Many Illegal Aliens Will Apply.
7. The DREAM Act Does Not Require That an Illegal Alien Finish Any Type of Degree (Vocational, Two-Year, or Bachelor’s Degree) As a Condition of Amnesty. 8. The DREAM Act Does Not Require That an Illegal Alien Complete Military Service As a Condition For Amnesty, and There Is Already a Legal Process in Place For Illegal Aliens to Obtain U.S. Citizenship Through Military Service. 9. Despite Their Current Illegal Status, DREAM Act Aliens Will Be Given All the Rights That Legal Immigrants Receive—Including the Legal Right To Sponsor Their Parents and Extended Family Members For Immigration. 10. Current Illegal Aliens Will Get Federal Student Loans, Federal Work Study Programs, and Other Forms of Federal Financial Aid. This urgent information should be read by every American, who realize that illegal immigration is become out-of-control. For serious statistics, the true costs and the lies and propaganda from the Obama Administration go to www.NumbersUSA.com website.
If you haven't already done so, join your local TEA PARTY, as thousand of disfranchised Americans. This is possible the last chance to halt another mass amnesty or as the Liberal Democrats illicitly call it Immigration Reform. According to the Commerce Dept there are eight million foreign nationals with jobs, which should be in the hands of 13 million US workers.
In a report recently by CBS News there are some disturbing statistics that millions of Black Americans are living with depression-era unemployment rates. Blacks are not the only ones hurting, while 8 million illegal aliens have jobs. Unemployment rates are high among almost every class of worker, especially among Citizens, permanent residence, of Blacks, Hispanics, and teenagers. So why is Left side in Congress, using their power to give passage to the Dream Act, that will snowball into family members gaining residence through CHAIN MIGRATION and even more financial problems? The truth is irrefutable, that our schools are overcrowded with illegal alien children, including a law that says anybody who crosses the border, flies in by plane or enters by ship must be given health care, no matter if uninsured. These are mandated laws that have been approved by Liberal Judges.
Chain Migration is the outrageous phenomena that build on it and over years a 100 thousand immediate family members could expedited into millions of people. To sponsor you must prove that you have enough money to support the father and mother, sister and brother, but this develops into a crisis and lose of the sponsor originator losing his job or other issues, the older folk could easily be forgotten and then must depend on US taxpayers to subsidize their lives. Eventually they will all need Medicare, even though they never paid into the pool. Medicaid is also issued out to those below the poverty line and once again never paid into? Birthright citizens, the naturalized and permanent residence pay into the system through their paychecks and complement the people who came here through sponsorship to be supplemented with some sustenance.
These are laws literary forced on taxpayers and individual States such as Arizona, Alabama, Georgia that are fighting back as every American State is suffocating under the relentless streams of illegal—ECONOMIC—aliens, coming here to pilfer the Federal and state treasuries. They are stealing jobs of Americans, lowering wages that "Old boy Club Republicans." has a reputation for? We need to dismantle the IRS and begin a new taxing system, which is fair to all US taxpayers and not just especially favorable to the wealthy; that everybody pays their fair share. Americans must choose between the same old system of government, or vote in more TEA PARTY candidates. The Congress is really a partisan that considers US citizens and legal aliens as the underdog, squandering billions on senseless wars and forever building continuously more government agencies, subsidized on more and more taxes.
Only Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) born in Iowa has a grading of B+ on enforcement of illegal immigrants. All the remaining Presidential hopes have lower grading, that includes Obama's Liberal rating of (F minus).Bachmann will not allow Congress to pass any mass Amnesty, or Immigration reform; as President Obama, has such a plan to legitimize an estimated 20 million plus people that will cost 2.5 Trillion dollars for processing. ( A Calculated statistic of the Heritage Foundation.) The passage of the 1986 Simpson/Mazzoli bill was a waste of time and money, full of fraud and governmental corruption, at a cost of 76 Billion dollars to taxpayers. Bachmann as president and chairman of all-American TEA PARTY, will secure our borders, track over-staying pseudo tourists and students who remain is 40 percent of the illegal immigrant occupation. Michele Bachman states: As a constitutional conservative, I believe in the Founders' vision of a limited government that trusts in and preserves the unlimited potential of the American people.
All new arrivals are tracked in Mexico and our politicians should replicate all immigration laws in our adjoining nations. TEA PARTY leaders will introduce an amendment to the 14th Amendment, to deny instant-baby-citizenship if neither parent is a US citizen. This will close massive dollar welfare and public that is subsidizing millions of these children; food stamps, Medical Care, Wicca, Section 8 low income housing and free schooling to K-12, just to name a few benefits. Whereas the majority of Americans have no idea of all these freebies, illegal aliens receive and are well versed by relatives and friends to collect with false identification. This hundred billion dollar payout would lessen the fiscal burden on the American people over the years to come.
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