When people read stories about immigration and the desire to provide citizenship to alien residents, they often fail to remember that families and children will be greatly impacted by what is decided. Thousands of children are brought into the country each year and put into American schools in order to get an education. For many immigrants, family immigration is a way for them to give their children a better life than the one that they had, and few would likely fault them for that desire.
However, educating those children does create a financial drain on local resources as a report produced by the Miami-Dade School District indicates. The district currently has over 68,000 children who were born in another country and for many of those children, the district has had to set up special transition classes, English classes, and other programs to help them.
The report was put together to remind lawmakers that schools around the country are experiencing the same kinds of challenges and the money to fund these programs has to be taken from the taxpayers; there are no federal or state funds that provide for these children. With a total yearly cost of $22 million to educate these children, it would hardly benefit the country to then deport these students.
As lawmakers ponder over the many issues surrounding immigrants and the granting of citizenship, it would be a good idea for them to consider the millions of dollars already being invested in immigrant children. Providing a way for them to gain naturalization status would protect that investment. Immigrants who have questions about family immigration may benefit from meeting with an immigration attorney.
Source: The Miami Herald, “Report: Immigration costs Miami-Dade schools $22 million a year,” David Smiley, March 9, 2103
