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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I live in Indiana. Immigrants, illegal and otherwise, have helped. The poor, illegal immigrants work harder and contribute more to society than the poor black and white people. The immigrants are on their way up, and their kids are mostly going to make it into the middle class. The native born people in poverty aren't going anywhere, and neither are their kids.[/quote]

Interesting.

Has illegal immigration not had any affect on your local school systems?

Illegal immigration has had a dramatic effect on local school systems in the DC Metro area.  [/quote]

Not in particular. It's just about money. Schools with wealthy families do well; schools with families in poverty do poorly. Immigration status really has nothing to do with it. If anything, the poor schools with more Latino kids probably do slightly better.

One thing that might matter is that, outside of Indianapolis, we don't have a very prevalent tradition of private schools. There's clearly more money in the D.C. area than in Indiana, so it's not apples-to-apples, but even the "rich" kids tend to go to a public school of some sort. [/quote]

I'm the PP.  Thanks for coming back to respond.  I have family members and friends who live in the various parts of the Midwest, and they all have varying opinions on illegal immigration, and how much it negatively affects their communities.  Many of them are wealthy professionals, so they don't live around illegal immigrants, and don't have kids who attend school with the kids of illegal immigrants.  So, they truly don't see it as an issue at all.

First off, I'd take issue with your comment about Latino kids.  Illegal immigrants are not just from Central and South America.  Could be different where you are, but in the DC area, we have illegal immigrants who come here from all over the world - Africa, Israel, Europe, Asia (China/India/Phillippines/Pakistan), etc.  So, this is not just about 'Latino kids'.  In another thread here, someone commented that Northern Virginia has noted that illegal immigrants from Asia (South Korea?) are some of the most prevalent.

You are fortunate that illegal immigration has not had a negative effect on your schools yet.  It likely depends on the percentage of ESOL/lower-income (FARMS) students at your school.  I'd say a school can handle up to about a 30% ESOL/Farms rate in our school system, but once it gets up to 40-50%, it has a profoundly negative effect on the school.

My kids attend a school like this, and it can be frustrating.  Frustrating for the teachers, and for us, as parents.  It's tough to generate enough parental involvement, when there is not as much of a sense of community.  Last year, we couldn't get enough parent volunteers for field trips, so they had to pay aides to attend.  Which meant less field trips going forward, because the additional staff was necessary AT school.

Then, there is the issue of staffing in general.  Our high school has had to increase it's ESOL staffing dramatically over the past 5 years.  Meaning less money for other non-essential staff - art teachers, music teachers, etc.

Also, there are many neighborhoods in our area that have been taken over by illegal rentals, that cater to illegal immigrants.  Landlords buy these single family homes, and rent them out to 4 different families.  So, in a home where there were 4 or 5 people living, you know can have up to 20.  That is not a positive change for the neighborhood, however you look at it.

The other neighborhood issue for us has been hit-and-runs.  Maryland gives drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.  However, many illegal immigrants don't want to pay the extra money for car insurance (why bother, if they won't get caught anyway??).  Several of my neighbors have been victims of hit and runs, where someone will hit their car and just drive on away.

It's incredibly frustrating to see that there is an entirely different set of rules for those people who have immigrated here illegally.  You might be able to see where this frustration comes from, especially when the Democrats continue to tout increased social service benefits for illegal immigrants, using taxpayer money.  [/quote]

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