You will want to go read this article: La Vida Robot. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Wasn’t that the most wonderful article? Did you click on the scholarship link before you came back here?
This would be the best part of having won the lottery, reading a story like this one, and before you even get to page 2 of the story, click on that scholarship link and donate your little heart out. I could not only pay for their education, but pay for their access to appropriate legal counsel, and perhaps alleviate some of their families’ problems. And what would it cost? Not even half a million. If I just paid for their school, it would only be about $200,000. I’m assuming their legal counsel would add another $100,000, lawyers being lawyers.
Incredibly, there are those who read this story and who have a different reaction. There are those who read this article and take umbrage that anyone would want to allow these illegal immigrants access to American education. Why should we allow these wetbacks to take one of the limited state school slots in place of one of “our own”? Why should we spend our tax dollars on these people, these undocumented losers who sneak across our borders and steal jobs from honest Americans?
Or, to put it another way that probably the wingnuts wouldn’t, why would a nation like ours seek to embrace the best and brightest minds we can find and provide for their future, here, with us?
I put my money on the future with the best and the brightest.
This really is a great story. It also highlights a truly challenging problem. If we are going to limit immigration at all, there have to be some sort of rules to enforce that fact.
The root of the problem is that America is so conflicted on the issue of immigration in general. On the one hand, most folks like the sound of protecting American jobs. Por el otro lado, few folks are willing or able to pay the higher prices we would experience if the labor pool were to shrink as a result of full enforcement of immigration law.
Reading this story, you just want to shout “THESE ARE THE KIND OF PEOPLE AMERICA NEEDS!!!”. Part of me also wants to tell some citizen youth, “If you don’t want to take advantage of the things America provides you, hand over your citizenship to folks like these, who clearly do.”
This story would make a cool movie. Have you seen “Real Women Have Curves”? The main character is a citizen, but this story still made me think of it.
My mother-in-law, a paleoconservative at heart, upong hearing this story commented, “There are universities in Mexico, you know.”
Of course she’s right, but upon reflection I began to wonder if perhaps the parents of these four might not have been in a position to send them to Chihuahua U, and perhaps it might be the case that the Mexican educational system, as admirable as it may be in beating us in standardized tests like the rest of the world is reputed to do, is not the best system at identifying such talent among the lowly and providing for them. And maybe, just maybe, that’s why the boys’ parents took the risk of bringing them to a far fairer place.
I still hold to my own position: take ’em in, educate them, and make them yours. And I agree with my conservative friend Kevin about taking away citizenship from lazy cretins who have done nothing to deserve it.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Er, actually, that’s only if you have a green card. Or maybe an H1B. Actually, that’s not so for our Latino friends. You see, we already have enough of them. Actually, we’ll be more than happy to take the really bright ones.
I guess that’s probably the only thing that bothers me about this article. It leaves you with the feeling that we should embrace these boys ‘cuz they’re really bright. What if they were really strong or tall (think Yao Ming)? Perhaps they are just really rich (no example needed)… One of the things I find really great about America is the whole concept of Equal Opportunity. Should this great concept apply to our immigration policy? Certainly the capitalist (or perhaps social Darwinist) in me loves the idea of taking those with the greatest potential over those with the least. But is that approach consistent with what America (or at least some of it) purports to represent? Shouldn’t we give the average dude with average iq, but a desire to be part of a great nation and equal chance to do so?