<p>I’m an immigrant … and I think you’re mistaken. Migrant workers are everywhere. They were my HS classmates. And I was glad for them.</p>
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<p>Immigration has a cost, but it also has a payoff. It’s an investment, and people are useful.</p>
<p>If it’s about costs to education and healthcare, you might as well put in laws regulating the amount of children American citizens have. I know, why don’t we take a leaf from China and try a one-child-only policy? I bet that would cut healthcare costs real quick.</p>
<p>I have an even better idea: ban the production of children. Deport any babies American families produce to Guantanamo Bay. That way, there won’t be any healthcare concerns to worry about the next generation! Do you know how much strain the millions of American babies produced each year puts on local and state governments?</p>
<p>Why does the state pay for public education?</p>
<p>On the perception that an educated workforce is in general an asset to the nation. Educated migrants are assets, not liabilities. Especially loyal migrants who have been here since childhood.</p>
<p>Why does the state pay for K-12 of illegal immigrants? Becuase the Supreme Court has mandated it. </p>
<p>I have never said that legal immigration is wrong or bad. And yes, we should target legal immigration toward eductated people. If the govt would just enforce its own laws – but don’t worry it isnt going to happen.</p>
<p>Gal, no matter who the next Supreme Court nominee is, I doubt Congress will vote for the Dream Act.</p>
<p>The state has to pay for the K-12 of everyone else too. And there is an economy of scale in education. I think the government should be proud to sponsor the education of productive students, who you know, will give back to the economy?</p>
<p>But it’s true that there should a nationalised education system because human resources are more mobile that utilities or roads.</p>
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<p>The laws are outdated to begin with. The government also doesn’t arrest people for fishing on Sunday in some random Alabama river, or whatever the law on the books still is.</p>
<p>Can you imagine being an independent female student gifted in math and biology and suddenly returning to a country where evolution would be seen as heresy and girls are just seen as babymakers and housekeepers?</p>
<p>A touching story. But just the beginning of a new story. Sometimes life turns our course for a reason. The parents gambled with the law and their child appears to be suffering for it at the moment. Nonetheless, there is an opportunity for this young girl to make a positive impact in her country…they need her education, views of life in the U.S. to perhaps make changes that will be critically profound for her country. She should be grateful for the fine education she received here for free, and look to give back to the world in her own country for now. With her background and achievments here in the U.S. she is sure to make a difference and be successful in one of the many educational opportunities in her home land. By doing so, she may eventually open doors that will allow her to become a U.S. citizen in a legal manner, if that is even what she choses as time goes on. </p>
<p>Life is about not looking back, for it prohibits one from moving forward. Make a new dream and go for it.</p>
<p>Mr. Mavinkurve, a 28-year-old Indian immigrant who helped lay the foundation for Facebook while a student at Harvard, instead works out of a Google sales office in Toronto, a lone engineer among marketers. </p>
<p>He has a visa to work in the United States, but his wife, Samvita Padukone, also born in India, does not. So he moved to Canada.</p>
<p>So galoisien, what do you say to all the people, with just as good a sob story, and even better skills, ready to work & pay taxes here, who are waiting in a very long line to LEGALLY immigrate to the United States? </p>
<p>What about this girl makes you think she deserves to go to the front of the line, ahead of people who have been waiting years for the privilege of immigrating here? Is it because she is smarter? Prettier? Has sneakier parents?</p>
<p>They shouldn’t be waiting in line in the first place? Remove arbitrarily-set protectionist quotas and outsource the bureaucratic work to a professional private enterprise that delivers results and will be accountable to the public.</p>
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<p>She’s an honors student? CC-type material?</p>
<p>Immigration isn’t a privilege; rather it’s an economic action that is regulated because of perceived externality costs. Immigration laws impose artificial restrictions on the market, and those restrictions must be justified. Businesses demand labor and any regulation must be justified in light of the economic and civil freedoms it takes away.</p>
<p>It’s simple. If the net social utility (with risk added into the calculation) of admitting an immigrant is negative, do not admit. If the social utility is positive, admit. That’s only the sensible rubric in which immigration decisions can be guided. By its very nature immigration regulation should be utilitarian and consequentialist, not deontological and Javert-like.</p>
<p>The social utility of admitting this girl is clearly positive. Admit.</p>
<p>Maybe she can write a national admissions essay if she wants to, too. Submit glowing recommendations.</p>
<p>Positive change in the Home country will be slow when the current and future intelligentsia emigrate legally or illegally. </p>
<p>If this person stays in the USA, her impact within the USA and to her Home country could be very small. If this person returns to the Home country, her impact to USA and to her Home country could potentially have a huge impact. The Brain Drain.</p>
<p>Galo, if we had a rationale immigration system with enforcement, this girl might qualify (although like others, I suspect there is more to the story than we know). But I see no reason to support another massive amnesty that accomplished nothing.</p>
<p>I find one post (among others) amazingly stupid. What view of El Salvador do you know about or hold? We have had, LEGAL, help in our home for 30 years. Most of these women were from El Salvador. Sorry, but women are not necessarily relagated in El Salvador to babymaking and being household help. They have an emerging economy. There are women who are professionals. My current housekeepter (yes, we are part of THAT hated class) has a son at UCLA in engineering. My housekeeper (just to keep you liberals at bay) is paid $20 an hour…plus we contribute to her health insurance. (Since she works for us one or two days a week she is an independent contractor. Ergo, she is responsible for her taxes.)</p>
<p>So in this age of kumbaya, feel good and everyone is entitled to what they want when they want it: Sorry, her mom screwed up. (Forget the part that she put her daughter in EXTREME danger in an illegal border crossing). Is the girl paying for the sins of the parents? Yes.</p>
<p>It sounds to me that the mother was either not aware of the US laws allowing US citizen parents petition for their minor children’s citizenship or something else was going on (that we are not being told - did the other parent have the custody of this girl (she had half-siblings according to the article). In either case, the mother screwed up big time by bringing her child in this country illegally.</p>
<p>I feel terrible for this young woman. I think it’s a waste of time and resources to deport her.</p>
<p>I find it ironic that at this website, of all places, we have so many people condemning parents who will do anything to get a good education for their child.</p>
<p>If I lived in a country where a world class education was just over a border, I’d do everything in my power to get my child over that border. I would kill someone without a second thought if they tried to harm my child. Crossing a border to change the course of my child’s life? I wouldn’t think twice.</p>
<p>Frankly, I have serious doubts about truthfulness of parents who say they would respect the laws of a foreign country and settle for a subpar or no education for their child simply because “it’s the right thing to do.”</p>
<p>Pug, which is why this country MUST do a better job of enforcing its immigration laws. We can not afford to educate everyone – the children of the maids and the gardners of the rich. With unemployment what it is – </p>
<p>I don’t condemn her parents – I condemn our elected officials – the Republicans want cheap labor, the Democrats future votes. Who speaks for the working class?</p>