...Undocumented Students and Access To Higher Education in America Juan M. Galvan Liberty University Abstract This paper exposes the urgency to implement an immigration reform that would eliminate educational and occupational barriers to millions of undocumented students that want to pursue a postsecondary education. The information in this research examines the impact undocumented students may have in society and the economy of this country. There are thousands of undocumented students that graduate high school every year and have no opportunities to pursue a higher education degree, thus increasing the chances of poverty in this country, increase in unemployment and a serious negative shift in the economy. Given the increase role that immigrants and their children play in American society in the coming years, it is essential to give as many young people as possible the opportunity to enroll an succeed in postsecondary education. This should push for policy makers and educators to focus on increasing immigrants’ participation in postsecondary education to ensure the long-run strength of the U.S economy. By providing legal residency or working permit as a condition to earn a degree to contribute to society it will definitely increase this nation’s economy and reduce unemployment and poverty. UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS AND HIGHER EDUCATION The educational system in the United States offers the opportunity to millions of students to receive an education from preschool...
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...Along with the rights the undocumented immigrants receive, there are still always people against giving them more of the rights the deserve. There are people that believe that just since the undocumented children were brought to the United States without a say in the matter, does not mean they deserve the right to citizenship. There will always be people that disagree, but the undocumented children deserve the right to citizenship. The children grow up in the United states, and for some, their main language becomes English. These children just want to grow up and receive citizenship to the place that they have been living out their entire lives — the United States. Undocumented children are given the right to school. In Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it states that education is a human right (Radoff). In the year of 1982, this right was opened up to children without legal status in the United States. Denying these rights was deemed unconstitutional;...
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...William Wayne Justice (February 25, 1920 – October 13, 2009) was a U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas. During his forty years on the bench, William Wayne Justice was an instrument of change. His institutional reform decisions impacted the First Amendment, voting rights, education of undocumented children and prison reform. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is comprised of seven divisions across a forty-three county sprawl. The divisions are named after the cities in which the federal courthouses are located1. The federal district courts are trial courts, with a single judge hearing criminal and civil cases. Beyond the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, lay the U.S. Supreme Court. A case tried...
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...started in 1975 when the Texas Legislature allowed school districts to turn away students due to their undocumented status. Then in 1977 the Tyler Independent School District created a rule saying if the student could not prove he or she was legally admitted to the United States with either the conformation from federal immigration authorities saying the student was in the process of getting documentation or showing documentation, the student had to pay a tuition. After this was put in place a group of immigrant students who were not able to prove their legal immigrant status under the school district's policy filed a lawsuit against the Tyler Independent School district. When the the lawsuit went to court it was deemed that the School District's policy violated the constitution. After this ruling the case was taken to the supreme court for further review, the supreme court ruled with a five to four vote that the school district's policy saying undocumented students had to pay a tuition to its...
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...Plyer v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982) Historical Setting In 1977, Texas statutes were passed that allowed the state government to pull funding from schools that had undocumented children attending the school. The law was later revised and a part of the Texas Education Code, that stated schools could deny enrollment to these undocumented children. This was argued up to the Supreme Court due to the state’s approval to deny a group of school aged children the opportunity to attend free public school. The plaintiffs were the undocumented children, and the defendant was the Superintendent and Board of Trustees for the school district. The case was argued on December 1, 1981, decided on June 15, 1982, and then reheard. The case was ultimately denied...
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...Chicano 10B 22 August 2014 The Struggles of Undocumented Students What is the dream of an Undocumented Student? The dream of an undocumented student is to pursue the American Dream of becoming someone professional and having the opportunity to help their family back in their country. What are the reasons that the government does not want undocumented students to continue pursuing an education after they graduate from High School? The government does not focus on what undocumented students dream of becoming in the future. What they do focus on are the jobs they are taking from our country. Undocumented students are being denied the privilege of attending college because they are unaware of their rights to attend college. Every year, there are many undocumented students from different countries migrating to the United States. They migrate from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala in search for a better life. However, once they arrive to the United States they are faced with many obstacles that they did not know existed. Many undocumented students graduate from high schools, but only a few get the opportunity to pursue the American Dream because they do not have the right documentations. I believe the government should give undocumented student a visa in order for them to pursue their dreams. Chicanos and Latinos students are being affected by this situation because most of them end up going back to their countries. Other students end up working in low wage jobs for example, in...
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...Brown ENGL102 – Composition 2 September 27, 2014 Professor Chris Baron Southwestern College Professional Studies Illegal Immigration: The Good; the Bad Throughout the history of the United States of America, illegal immigration has affected many governmental decisions and led to many political debates. Many Americans believe that allowing illegal immigrants to live in the USA is detrimental to our economy. For as long as I can remember, this topic has been a major discussion in the national news syndicate as well. One can open any newspaper, turn on any news channel, or visit any news site on the internet and one of the major headlines will have something to do with illegal immigration. With the overwhelming amount of undocumented immigrants in the USA, many questions are asked about the effects they are having on our economy. In the early 1600s, immigrants began arriving in the USA. As a country, the majority of the population was English. In 1607, so called “Foreigners” began to enter the country. Non-English immigrants were coming from mainly the British Isles, Whales, Scotland, and Ireland (Garis, R, 1927). During the year of 1637, Massachusetts was one of the first to implement a law regarding residents or colonies allowing immigrants into their homes. The Governor, John Winthrop, supported the law that states that any immigrants must have permission from the authorities to be in the colony (Hendricks, J. 2013). Immigration did not actually gain the...
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...as minorities and poor searched for equality through the Constitution. In San Antonio, Texas, citizens found that the school finance system was unjust and filed suit under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Federal District Court found that the Texas school finance system violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The State appealed to the Supreme Court. Case Summary San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973) argued that education was a “fundamental right” implied in the Constitution and that poor Hispanic families were being treated as a “suspect class” due to financial disparities between wealthy and poor school districts. The argument was that this inequality of funding between school district’s violated the Equal Protection Clause. The State contended that education was not an Federal enumerated power, therefore it was reserved to the State and that included financial decisions. Court’s Decision The Court found in a 5-4 ruling that this was not a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because education is not a guarantee...
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...The history of this great nation has been historically built on the foundation of immigration, the forming of one great nation from the generations of many others, coming together with many great and marvelous ideas. From the beginning we have fought for many different freedoms such as speech and religion, just to name a couple and the list goes on. These types of freedoms people throughout the world covet, therefore attempt to enter the United States of America with hopes of sharing these freedoms. Some immigrants come with a legal passage by an ever-growing generous nation jumping through a large number of hoops and legalities, others on illegal terms in large numbers. Now, is it fair for a nation that has been built on such a vase array of different cultures and world travelers to turn away any new comers like to say “we are full?” Is it ok to punish these people for trying to make a better life for themselves and their families? Is it also fair to the tax paying individuals of this great nation to support such a noble cause from blood sweat and tears of our brows? In this debate we will discuss both sides of the argument, pros and cons of illegal immigration in the United States of America, in hopes to bring about a more clear understanding. Illegal immigration is the migration of people from one country into another illegally, violating laws of that country or state. Illegal immigration is universal and present in developed and underdeveloped countries (Palivos, 2010)...
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...negative impact on hundreds of thousands of people, about 800,000 to be exact. Dreamers will lose their education and jobs, and the nation’s economy will also be affected. In the first place, DACA provides dreamers with a work permit to have many employment opportunities that were not available for them before. According to Business Insider, ending DACA will cost the jobs of about 700,000 people. These undocumented immigrants will have to work long hours and their wages will be drastically dropped. They will also have to be paid under the table because it is illegal for them to work. Many Americans believe that undocumented...
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...An ongoing debate and current issue today is immigration. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM Act) was proposed back in 2001 but failed to pass the house of senate. If the bill were to pass it would have provide legal residency to thousands of undocumented students who aspire to attend college. Supporters of the bill argue that if the bill were to pass it would not only benefit undocumented students, but it would have benefit the economy, promote cultural assimilation, and introduce a new group of people to obtain higher education. Senators Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, and Richard Urbin, Democrat from Illinois, first introduced the Dream Act in the congress in 2001. The purpose was to give undocumented minors an opportunity to attain higher education opportunities and provide a path to receive full and legal citizenship. The requirements listed were entering the country before age 16, being between the age of 12 and 35 at the time the bill was enacted, attend...
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...As Texas population continues to increase every year, new demands need to be met by the people. The economic development of Texas was influenced by four land-based industries including cattle, cotton, timber, and hydrocarbons. However, as the image of the Lone Star State changed and the population enlarged, these industries were not providing enough jobs and were taking a downturn in Texas business. Thus, business and government leaders took action and restructured the state’s economy. They launched new industrial programs bringing rapid change both nationally and internationally. Currently, Texas is identified as middle class with professionals and businessmen employed by varied enterprises. Some of these enterprises include law firms; universities; federal, state,...
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...The Dream Act Promotes Illegal Immigration Today, there are about 80,000 undocumented students who will graduate from high school in the United States. Nearly 65,000 of these students will not only be graduating, but have been living in the country for five years or more. Undocumented students face various challenges as they move along the academic pipeline. Yet, a growing number of them are graduating from U.S. high schools each year prepared to enter our nation’s colleges and universities. These students are most likely in favor of the Dream Act, Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act. The dream act was a proposed legislation in the United States that was introduced to the Senate on August 1, 2001, and was re-introduced on March 26, 2009 (Miranda). This proposed bill will grant amnesty to illegal aliens who entered the country as children illegally but now meet the requirements and reverses current law to allow states to provide taxpayer subsidize in-state tuition to illegal aliens. Also, qualifying undocumented youths will be eligible for a 6 year long conditional path to citizenship that requires completion of a college degree or two years of military service (Miranda). Undoubtedly, in order to qualify for The Dream Act, if it is passed, the person must meet five requirements. One requirement includes that the person who is applying must have entered the United States before the age of sixteen (Miranda). This condition should logically disqualify the chances...
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...lessons of Texas history, especially, deprecated the Spanish and Mexican role in the state's pre-Independence period; and teachers punished students for speaking Spanish on the school grounds." (De Leon 55). There is no trouble believing the facilities were second-rate, inferior and segregated; it is less believable that, however, the children did not lack for education and that such conditions produced an appreciation for the learning opportunities. De Leon should have, perhaps, added more documentation of the appreciation of education would be useful. Ethnicity in the Sunbelt looked at immigration and the progression of cultural adaptation and adjustment; and explained identity formation and the evolution of Houston’s Mexican American community as a multi-dimensional process that involved class, ideological, generational, and ethnic differentiation The author suggests that it was ironic that, in the 1930s, Mexican Americans worked with white people to send "Mexicans" back to Mexico. The changing loyalties were expressed more resolutely in Houston by those raised or born in the United States. “What was present was a phenomenon to be found in other parts of the state during the same period of time, namely, a constant process of intellectual and cultural continuity and change expressive of both "lo mexicano" and "lo americano."(De Leon 58). Mexican-American attitudes toward undocumented workers, however, suggest that low-income Mexican Americans oppose undocumented immigration...
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... Roughly 12 million illegal immigrants are in the United States, about 4 percent of the nation's population. Many undocumented children were brought into the U.S. by their illegal immigrant parents as babies or toddlers. Nearly 4 million children who have at least one parent who entered the U.S. illegally were born in the United States and are U.S. citizens as a result. According to the study conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, the majority of illegal immigrants, about 7 million, come from Mexico. The U.S. government should change the requirements for obtaining legal status for illegal immigrants. The DREAM (Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors) Act is proposed federal legislation that would allow the children of undocumented immigrants who graduate from high school to earn conditional permanent residency if they complete two years in the military or at college. Eligible students must have entered the US before the age of 16, been living in the US for at least five consecutive years, be between the ages of 12 and 35 at the time of applying, and have good moral character. The legislation was first introduced in the Senate in August 2001, but was stalled in Congress for 9 years and most recently re-introduced in the Senate and House in March 2009. The DREAM Riddick 2 ACT would help immigrant students become legal residents of the United States and not face being deported, like Jessica and Oscar Oscar Vazquez was...
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