Duke at Migra Matters writes:
Each year approximately 2.8 million students graduate from US High Schools. Some will go on to college, join the military, or take other paths in life, hopefully all becoming productive members of society.
But for approximately 65,000 of them, these opportunities will never be available. Not because they lack motivation, or achievement, but because of the undocumented status passed on to them by their parents.
Lacking legal status and social security numbers, these students, raised and schooled in the US, cannot apply to college, get jobs other than those at the bottom of the economic ladder, or otherwise follow their dreams.
(There’s lots more in Duke’s post.)
From ADreamDeferred.org:
All three presidential hopefuls co-sponsored the federal DREAM Act, yet it has never been made law. The DREAM Act would enable states to grant in-state tuition to these hardworking immigrant students, making higher education (and eventually citizenship) a real possibility.
We need to put pressure on all three presidential candidates to commit to securing America’s future by enacting the federal DREAM Act in their first 100 days of office.
Sign the petition so that we can show our elected officials that the dreams of students must not be sacrificed to the anti-immigrant, anti-American status quo.
For those who want to put a human face on the issue, there was a story on “This American Life” last month (the episode was called “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” I think) about a UCLA student who wants to go to med school, but can’t because she moved to America when she was nine without documentation. The Dream Act was explicitly discussed in the story.
I signed it:
Any law whose intent is to aid illegal alien children who have been brought here against their knowledge should be limited to that objective. The DREAM act has many other provisions that are anathema to the respect for law that is a cornerstone of American principles. It would reward lawbreakers with privileges they haven’t earned and can’t be depended upon to exercise responsibly. The problem of illegal aliens in the U.S. must be solved through enforcement, especially against their employers. Punish the employers according to the law. The job sources dry up and the illegal aliens stay in their own countries and fix their own problems there.
We should not be the safety valve for corrupt and undemocratic regimes and wealthy foreign oligarchs. You are all running to be the chief executive of this country. Pledge to do your job and enforce our laws against people who would fill their pockets with money earned by exploiting others.
In-state tuition is a taxpayer-subsidy. Why should the taxpayers be subsidizing the children of people who are violating the law? As a citizen, I cannot move to a new state and receive in-state tuition without spending a period of (often) several years establishing residency. Why should non-citizen children of lawbreakers be given preferential treatment over citizens?
Undoubtedly, those children are innocent, and undoubtedly, it would benefit them to receive this tuition break. Equally undoubtedly, there are billions of other people in the world who would benefit from subsidies.
No. No tuition breaks, no amnesties, no driver’s licenses, no welfare, no food stamps, no Social Security, no nothing. Equal protection of the law when victimized by crime, and a polite escort to the border ANY TIME such a person encounters the apparatus of the state. Out!
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Robert, if your parents moved you somewhere when you were still a young child, how responsible would you be for their actions? I think it’s disgraceful that we’re punishing children for the mistakes of their parents. Would you be as harsh on the employers who have been hiring the adults for many years? As RonF writes, if the jobs didn’t exist this country wouldn’t be serving as a safety valve for other country’s problems. There was a report on the news yesterday about raids on poultry processing plants — dozens of undocumented workers were apparently arrested and will no doubt be deported. Will anything happen to the people who broke the law and hired them? No. No charges will be filed because the employers “cooperated” with ICE. IMHO, the guys in the suits hiring the undocumented workers are the ones who should be getting hauled off to jail. Until that starts happening, nothing will change.
BTW, the only way any worker can collect Social Security is to have paid into the system with valid documentation. Right now hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers using false ID are paying into the system and will never collect a dime. Ditto state and federal income tax. They pay in, but don’t get refunds. The Treasury Department reported a few years ago that several billion dollars go into the system every year that are never claimed.
Undocumented persons also are ineligible for both TANF and Food Stamps — the only noncitizens who are eligible for any sort of government-paid social services are people who are legal resident aliens. It’s all spelled out quite clearly in federal legislation passed in the 1990s as part of welfare reform.
I can see the appeal; I can see the logic. But it seems a bit backwards: rather than constantly increasing the benefits that we give to non-citizens and/or those eligible for deportation, why not simply review their status as citizens, and either grant them citizenship (with the concurrent benefits) or not?
I know plenty of U.S. citizens who want to go to other states’ schools and who can’t do so because they can’t afford the tuition: http://admissions.ucsc.edu/financial_aid.cfm I also know plenty of U.S. citizens who can’t afford to go to IN-state schools, because they can’t afford the tuition (or the daycare, or not to work, or…) Should we be giving subsidies to other people instead?
Unlike, say, “medical care” or “food”, access to a college education is not a human rights issue. And access to subsidies to permit one to get college level education? Not even close. So I don’t understand why we would grant it here.
Mind you, I’m not saying that we should automatically deport and/or screw over everyone who got carried in on their parent’s back as a toddler. I could probably sign on to a system whereby they were not only eligible to apply as citizens, but were also eligible for some extra speed or other benefits in seeking citizenship (there’s a subissue regarding incentivizing future illegal immigration, but that can probably be worked out.) But I don’t think it makes sense to increase the subsidies, beyond obvious human rights issues, to people who are not citizens. We owe it to our citizens to put them first. Let’s either move these students into citizenship (which justifies the subsidies) or not.
No one has to be at “fault” for someone to be in a situation. It is not their “fault” that they are here, I agree with that. It is also not the fault of the billions of people born outside the US that they were. I think these students should use what they have learned, for free, at taxpayer expense, and move to better themselves based on the situation they are in. I don’t see how handing them more freebies, at taxpayer expense, is the answer to that. You also do NOT have to be a citizen to join the military… I recall serving with Filipino and Equadorian citizens. I am not saying it is for everyone, but it is a way to establish US residency as a non citizen. I only bring it up because it is specificly mentioned in the article.
Robert and others raise a number of reasons why compassion is an insufficient reason for US citizens to extend benefits to undocumented aliens. I largely share this view – not because I don’t feel compassion for undocumented aliens, but because I’m not convinced that someone’s status as an undocumented alien should push her to the front of the compassion line.
That said, US citizens may have a self-interest in extending certain benefits. For example, I don’t want my emergency medical service delayed while people determine my citizenship status; thus it is in my self-interest to have emergency medical service extended without regard to citizenship. That necessarily means that undocumented aliens will be entitled to receive emergency medical service – not for their benefit, but for mine. Now, if we can create social programs that reduce the cost of providing emergency medical care to undocumented aliens – substituting regular medical care for emergency care, for example – that’s great. Again, such a program would benefit me, whether or not it would benefit anyone else, and I wouldn’t want my ideology about immigration policy to blind me to this fact.
Similarly, we have the choice of how to deal with undocumented aliens who graduate from US high schools. I expect college attendance correlates with lots of desirable social variables such as increased productivity, higher tax contributions, reduced propensity to engage in violent crime, etc. Thus I might rationally choose to promote college attendance for undocumented aliens for my own benefit, regardless of the consequences for the undocumented aliens themselves.
So, are the benefits to me of promoting college attendance through the DREAM Act worth the costs to me? Answering the question requires a fact-intensive analysis. Yes, we’d need to consider program costs. Yes, we’d need to consider the consequences for encouraging additional illegal immigration. Yes, we’d need to consider the consequences for the US citizens that get squeezed out of the opportunity to attend college (or a more-desirable college) due to the increased competition from undocumented aliens. I just mean to illustrate that the answer to the question isn’t ideological; it’s factual.
Robert, if your parents moved you somewhere when you were still a young child, how responsible would you be for their actions?
Not responsible at all.
I think it’s disgraceful that we’re punishing children for the mistakes of their parents.
Declining to grant preferential treatment is not punishment.
Would you be as harsh on the employers who have been hiring the adults for many years?
Yes. I support the laws now being passed in many states that have a two-strike rule for employers – you get one mistake, and the next time you’re found to be employing illegal aliens you are jailed, massively fined, or have your business license revoked. The only defense to those laws is to demonstrate that the employee in question presented apparently valid documentation, and that the state validation apparatus did not flag them. (It’s hardly the employer’s fault if someone successfully cons the system.)
Right now hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers using false ID are paying into the system and will never collect a dime. Ditto state and federal income tax. They pay in, but don’t get refunds. The Treasury Department reported a few years ago that several billion dollars go into the system every year that are never claimed.
Let’s set up a hotline where they can call in, report their false-flag payments, and get a refund check mailed to their new home in whatever country they came from, and are deported to. The check can be net after the cost of their deportation is figured in.
For example, I don’t want my emergency medical service delayed while people determine my citizenship status; thus it is in my self-interest to have emergency medical service extended without regard to citizenship. That necessarily means that undocumented aliens will be entitled to receive emergency medical service – not for their benefit, but for mine.
I broadly agree with this. If the check would cause a delay, then provide the service without delay, and run the check concurrently. You can always be deported after your broken leg is set.
”
Its not “punishment.” Denying access to a subsidy is not punishment.
When parents commit a crime and they go to jail the kids are not “punished” by being placed with another family. Similarly, when a family is deported you might say the parents are punished and what happens to the kids are the completely foreseen consequences of the initial law violation. Maybe its something parents should consider before they sneak into the country, or break other laws.
I think It would be interesting to find out whether these children’s lives, were they to be sent to their countries of origin, would live better lives than their friends who were never brought to the USA.Would it be an advantage to have graduated an american high-school and speak english well, or would it be a disadvantage to have spent some years away from home and lost contact with the realities of the home country;a bigger disadvantage if they can’t speak their native language well enough, if they were “imigrated” by their parents when they were very little and their parents weren’t concerned about this issue.
Of all the various potential groupings of people who are here illegally and/or who could be deported, I think that the class of
“people who were brought here as children, who were raised here, and who have done well enough in school to gain admission to college”
is certainly one of the more sympathetic ones. And I would be fairly inclined to view that group positively in terms of citizenship applications. I just have a mental issue–probably because of my profession–with granting this type of benefit to non citizens, when there is a whole country full of citizens who don’t necessarily get those same subsidies.
It’s not necessarily that U.S. citizens are more “deserving” from an individual standpoint, it’s just that I think it’s OK (and good) for there to be a distinction between people based on citizenship.
SailorMan,
If the political situation in America is as such that they can”t get citizenship, are you willing to kick them out ? I’d rather let them hope that *some day* they will get it.
I don’t know what to say about the subsidies, though.
The group I described are generally so far down on the list that as a practical matter I’d say “no,” and if anyone tried to target that group for selective and early deportation while ignoring other groups, I’d push hard against it. However, as a theoretical matter I am not willing to categorically say “no,” since I believe that the U.S. has (and should have) the ability to deport even the people in that group, whether or not the U.S. exercises that ability. Does that make sense?
If you’re seriously trying to argue this point, you might want to look for another example. There are many people to whom it’s not obvious that the harm done to the children of convicted criminals is justified.
It seems to me that what we’re coming up against here is that the notion of the nation state is rationally unsustainable. If it were the case that the nation state was a just institution to start off with, then RonF, Robert and Sailorman would be right; given the existence of a nation state as we conceive of it, there is no way to articulate the injustice of excluding noncitizens from the benefits of citizenship. After all, there are many kids outside the US who would also benefit a great deal if they were given state-funded places at American universities. The fact that they were born elsewhere is just as arbitrary. If citizenship were based on a truly just method of separating those who should be included in the state along with all its benefits from those who shouldn’t, then it wouldn’t be unjust that noncitizens didn’t have citizen’s rights that were based on full participation in the state. But I’d challenge anyone to find a coherent justification for citizenship as we currently understand it, that’s based on reasoning and some notion of justice rather than merely on pragmatics. It seems more and more of a stretch to all of our moral notions to think that our duties to one another only extend to those people who are in a special club, and that nobody can enter the club without fulfilling its essentially arbitrary requirements.
The pragmatics are certainly relevant, in that it’s difficult as things stand to imagine doing without the nation-state. Some people are going to argue, therefore, that we should stick with it as a basic political structure, and accept a notion of justice that derives from it rather than trying to seek another one. But another approach, which I take it is what many people here are working with, is that it may be a necessary fiction but that, being mindful of it’s fictionality, we should probably defer to our yes, irrational compassion, because it may not be possible at the moment to form a fully rational, just notion of what exactly our duties to one another in this field really are.
It’s uncomfortable to allow this kind of irrationalism, and it is irrationalism in many senses – it doesn’t operate with a clear, good rule as to how we should arbitrate these things. But if there are no rational, just, consistent grounds for citizenship, and we’re still going to make do with citizenship, then really it’s just a matter of compensating for that existing irrationality, plugging up the gaps in the institution of the nation state with compassionate fudge*. There are those who would say that it’s better to have an appearance of rationality, even if that’s all that’s possible, and I’m not sure that their argument is as weak as it would be possible for me to make it look – but at the end of the day, if we’re going to talk about justice at all when it comes to states, the cat is out of the bag already. Pretending the nation state is founded on justice just isn’t sustainable, and even if you want it to persist that’s better achieved by attempting to compensate, even if piecemeal and based on basically faulty moral reasoning, rather than enforcing a law consistently at real human cost.
*I am now thinking of marketing this as a tasty snack. I’d buy it.
But I’d challenge anyone to find a coherent justification for citizenship as we currently understand it, that’s based on reasoning and some notion of justice rather than merely on pragmatics.
How about the fact that the people who were born and raised in a country have built it through their labor, taxes, etc., and thus have a right to choose who else will join them?
It seems more and more of a stretch to all of our moral notions to think that our duties to one another only extend to those people who are in a special club, and that nobody can enter the club without fulfilling its essentially arbitrary requirements.
Our duties to one another vary depending on the relationships among us. My duties to my children are different than my duties to my parents. My duties to my next-door neighbors include not playing my stereo at force 10 with the windows open at 0200 – but the guy living a block down doesn’t really care. However, I do owe that guy other things, like keeping the sidewalk in front of my house free of ice and snow in the winter in case he wants to walk to the convenience store.
I owe non-citizens – aliens being the legal term – certain things. I owe all human beings on this planet certain things. But I don’t owe them conferral of the same status as the people with whom I share a birthplace and a common community.
Acheman, I think you’re right. And it is true that I am operating off a preliminary assumption of the nation’s ‘right to exist’ (there’s surely a better term but I don’t know it).
As you so cogently put it, if the right of the nation to exist was NOT assumed, then the automatic distinction between citizens and noncitizens would be significantly reduced if not eliminated.
And FWIW, i run into the same issue as you described. I’m certainly willing to make a “compassionate” argument. And along with that compassion, I acknowledge the obvious reality that where you happen to be fortunate/unfortunate enough to be born (US, Mexico, Canada, Rwanda, North Korea) has a hell of a lot to do with how good or shitty your life is going to be, irrespective of how hard they try.
However, where I often run into arguments is linking of those two concepts. I don’t see any reason why I should feel more compassionate towards someone from Mexico, for example, than from somewhere else: the fact that they’re our “neighbors” doesn’t really matter to me at all. As I’ve said before, there’s no question that I would admit 200,000 African refugees who were trying to escape death or starvation before I would admit 200,000 people who were trying to make a ‘better’ life that didn’t involve fleeing from death or starvation.
So IMO, the education subsidies don’t really work in that view either. If we generally owe a compassionate obligation to noncitizens–a view which I’m OK with–then it seem apparent to me that we would focus on those noncitizens who were in the worst shape, and/or who needed the more basic help. The education subsidies aren’t in that category.
So on that vein, I would support, for example, generally increasing foreign aid to the worst-off nations, or vastly increasing the # of people who can get refugee status, etc.
OTOH, if people claim that we owe those children more because they happen to be HERE, as opposed to THERE, then that doesn’t make sense either. It’s just an arbitrary distinction, but unlike the nation-state and citizenship concepts, there’s no real backing for it. If we’re going to distinguish based on that sort of thing, then we need a clear rule, and the citizenship “line” makes a lot more sense than not.
RonF:
On whatever grounds they happen to light upon? That sounds like power, not morality. People can’t morally force me to give more money to charity, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no moral dimension to my choice in the matter.
This is undermined somewhat by the fact that the specific noncitizens we’re talking about are noncitizens with whom you share exactly as much of a common community as any other US citizen. And why, exactly, does birthplace itself have implications in terms of justice? The community conception is at least talking about a non-arbitrary fact, and also scales up and down, but the fact that, for example, no-one would say that I owe special duties to those who were also born in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, London, suggests that this isn’t even a generally-accepted moral category, let alone a justified one.
Sailorman:
Honestly, although I’m not going to say this is a bad heuristic, I don’t think that you can make a claim for its being the best heuristic in town, for a start because it’s not clear that a partially-utilitarian heuristic is even in part as good as a fully-utilitarian one, and also because it’s not clear that a fully-utilitarian heuristic is what we’d be after anyway, though that’s a huge side-issue.
The point, as I see it, is that everyone has chosen their own way of squaring the ludicrous circle of the existence of the Nation State, which we do need to square at least for the time being. But because they’re all founded on an irrationality, they’re all deeply, fundamentally irrational, and so these arguments about which is rationally better are probably always going to pass one another cleanly by like ships in the night. I mean someone else could equally say that if we’re going to have as unjust a system as citizenship, we should at least try to iron out the most obvious and glaring injustices like the fact that someone in almost all respects indistinguishable from a citizen has no citizen rights. It’s just a different heuristic to the one you’re using. I don’t feel that I can say which is better, and I don’t know that anyone could.
But because they’re all founded on an irrationality, they’re all deeply, fundamentally irrational
Welcome to being human.
On whatever grounds they happen to light upon?
No. But the current legal criteria for admitting or excluding candidates for immigration were not just lit upon. And one reason that we are having the problems we are is that the enforcement of those laws has been corrupted. And as is usual, once such a thing happens, people don’t believe the representations of their elected officials that new laws are needed or that they’ll be enforced properly. They lied once; people figure they’ll lie again.
This is undermined somewhat by the fact that the specific noncitizens we’re talking about are noncitizens with whom you share exactly as much of a common community as any other US citizen.
Not in my opinion.
I think a community has to be a two way street, as it generally represents an exchange of promises, even though they aren’t formalized as such.
We generally choose people who we consider to be in our community–either because we like them, or they like us, or we work together well, etc. Although that’s not the only limit of course: a community can also go second hand or third hand, where, say, you accept as a community member the friend of a friend of a friend. But even in that instance I would suggest that there’s some quid pro quo going on there; my willingness to extend “community” benefits to people I don’t know based on your “they’re my friends!” say-so is at least somewhat related to your willingness to do the same for me.
Similarly, people exclude others from their community all the time. Just because my friend’s friend’s friend is married to a KKK member doesn’t mean I have to treat the KKK member as a community member.
Anyway, what I’m saying is that you can’t just isolate some particular manner in which I am more closely “related” to X than to Y, and thereby claim that I owe community obligations to X. You can’t do that any more than I can randomly insert myself into any other community, and claim that they owe obligations to me, without permission.
On this:
I think that’s a gross misstatement of the argument.
The “almost all” involves that minimal-to-you issue of being a citizen. But in context your summary makes no sense.
To use a different example, I am in almost all respects similar to a variety of people who are convicted and rehabilitated felons, except that I don’t happen to have a criminal record… so when it comes to things where that matters (like getting a firearms license, say) I’m treated differently.
Similarly, when you’re evaluating citizenship benefits (which by definition are based on citizenship) then the “just like me except for not being a citizen” distinction becomes very important.