Life After College for Undocumented Immigrants Paved with Obstacles

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Life After College for Undocumented Immigrants Paved with Obstacles
Even with a college degree - the road for educated undocumented immigrants is paved with no.
No immediate pathway to legal status under current federal immigration law.
No jobs because employers cannot legally hire them.
No guarantee of a better future.
When Rhode Island became the thirteenth state to allow in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants at public colleges, supporters heralded the move as one that would give students the kind of advanced education they need to succeed in the work force.
But students who are not here legally may still face a major obstacle even with the benefit of a college degree.
"I know of students who have graduated magna cum laude and top honors in their colleges, but right now they're working minimum wage in restaurants," said Antonio Albizures-López, 20, who came to the U.S. from Guatemala when he was 1.
Albizures-López, who is pursuing legal residency, says the best solution is passage of federal legislation, known as the DREAM Act, which provides a pathway to legal residency for college students.
The Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education, which oversees the state's three public higher education institutions, unanimously approved in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants last week, effective in the fall of 2012. The General Assembly had failed repeatedly to take action on legislation that's been introduced year after year.
Twelve states — California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin — have laws allowing the children of undocumented immigrants to receive in-state rates if they meet certain requirements, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee, in urging the Board of Governors to adopt the change, said it would allow more Rhode Islanders to attend college, help build a stronger work force and boost an economy that is among the nation's most troubled.
Research varies on how much resident tuition rates for undocumented immigrants increase enrollment. A 2010 paper co-authored by Aimee Chinn, an economist at the University of Houston, did not find a sizeable increase overall for 18- to -24-year-olds in the 10 states studied, although it did find that Mexican men in their 20s attended at modestly higher rates. It also found that even in-state tuition may still be too expensive, especially since undocumented immigrant students do not qualify for federal education aid.
By contrast, a study this year by the Latino Policy Institute at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, which looked at an array of research on the issue, said that in-state tuition has led to an enrollment increase among undocumented immigrants, on average, of 31 percent in the places it has been implemented.
The Urban Institute has estimated that 65,000 undocumented immigrants graduate from high school in the U.S. every year.
But even if more students go on to attend public colleges and universities with the benefit of in-state rates, a big question remains: how will they fare in the work force after they graduate, even with a degree that traditionally makes it easier to get the kind of high-skill, high-paying job not available to those who finish only high school.
"Even with a college degree, there hasn't been a more general immigration reform that would enable these kids to get a job once they have their degree," said Chinn.
Amanda Pereira, 18, came to the U.S. illegally at the age of 6 from Brazil with her family.
"In a way, it is going to be another dead end," she said. "But in a way it is a help, because at least they got through another four years and got their education, so they can find ways to possibly get legalized through an employer."
The Brandeis University freshman was granted legal status — after more than a decade pursuing it — last spring, but is continuing to advocate for undocumented immigrant students.
"We do need to continue pushing for the DREAM Act," she said.
That federal legislation — the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — would provide a pathway to legal residency for undocumented-immigrant students providing they meet certain requirements. A December study by UCLA estimated that such students could contribute anywhere from $1.4 trillion to $3.6 trillion to the nation's economy over the course of their careers, depending on how many ultimately obtain citizenship.
But the bill has failed to win the necessary votes on Capitol Hill despite repeated tries, and its prospects for passage are uncertain.
Albizures-López, a resident of Lincoln who graduated from Blackstone Academy Charter School in 2009, called in-state tuition a "stepping stone" to college but added, "It's not complete. It's not even halfway complete."
He says he has "protected status" while his legal case for residency is pending, so he is able to work a part-time job coaching soccer at a private high school. He plans to apply to college, including the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College, where he could get in-state rates. URI's in-state tuition is $9,824, compared to $25,912 for out-of-state.
Terry Gorman, executive director of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement, opposes in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. He cites a 1996 federal law that laid out certain restrictions on undocumented immigrant benefits, and says it's a violation of that statute to provide in-state tuition to students who came here illegally, on the basis of residence, if the same break is not available to all students — including those from out of state.
Students paying out-of-state rates at California institutions mounted a legal challenge on those grounds, but the state Supreme Court upheld the in-state tuition policy, saying it did not conflict with federal law. The U.S. Supreme Court in June declined to hear the case.
But Gorman also maintains that the policy change offers students in the U.S. illegally a "false hope" about their post-graduation prospects.
"This is going to be an educated population that can't do anything with their education because they're illegal aliens," he said. "What do they do? They can't work."
Kimberly Mehlman-Orozco, who conducted the Latino Policy Institute study at Roger Williams, points out that, while that's the law, it isn't necessarily the reality. She said that under current enforcement practices, many who are here illegally are in fact being hired. That being the case, she said, they may as well be college-educated.
Under the new policy in Rhode Island, in-state rates will be available only to undocumented immigrants' children who have attended a high school in the state for at least three years and graduated or received a GED. Students also must commit to seek legal status as soon as they are eligible, or lose their resident tuition.
Supporters of the policy change say it would affect approximately 140 students in Rhode Island.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/new...#ixzz1ZnR8zO5V

[Twoller]

Here is another angle.

If illegal immigrants are being educated in this country, then why aren't they taking their education back to the country they came from? If they actually learned anything, then it's bound to be valuable somewhere even if they can't work here.

This is the whole point of education visas for people who come in legally. It is an opportunity for people from disadvantaged countries with poor educational systems to advance their countries by being educated abroad, in the US for example. They return and advance socially and advance their country by the contributions they make. Education visas were never intended to be immigration programs.

And this should apply to illegal immigrants as well. If they manage to get educated, then this is all the more reason for them to be shipped back home. But at this point whether they are actually being educated is a really huge "if".

[ilbegone]

Originally Posted by Twoller

Here is another angle.

If illegal immigrants are being educated in this country, then why aren't they taking their education back to the country they came from? If they actually learned anything, then it's bound to be valuable somewhere even if they can't work here.

This is the whole point of education visas for people who come in legally. It is an opportunity for people from disadvantaged countries with poor educational systems to advance their countries by being educated abroad, in the US for example. They return and advance socially and advance their country by the contributions they make. Education visas were never intended to be immigration programs.

And this should apply to illegal immigrants as well. If they manage to get educated, then this is all the more reason for them to be shipped back home. But at this point whether they are actually being educated is a really huge "if".

The majority of them didn't grow up in the country they were born in, there is not a connection to those countries as there would be if most came to the US as adults to study in higher education. The populace of the parental home countries tend to repudiate them as "genuine" countrymen - too Americanized.

A lot of "higher education" in America, I believe, tends to be propagandistic social engineering and dispensation of political view on the naive rather than genuine education and transference of knowledge.

As well, what real use is a major in Chicano Studies or most of the rest with the word "studies" tagged to the course? Not much except for someone geared to clog the courts with spurious lawsuits or to poison kids with "ethnic" racism and other agendas.