Why LOL? I never claimed it as my own. I left the citations right there. Can you counter these facts? I do not think so. Further, I do not think you will even try. Your whole argument is founded weak to non-existent foundations and false assumptions. "Common sense" dies not provide hard evidence to support your position. I eagerly await your providing me with empirical counter-evidence.

Lol @cato copy n' paste job

18:35 is a "maker" not a "taker." Actually, he's an ass!

18:35 Is that your response to teachers in this County? Disgusting.

Top 10 Myths About Immigration

By Leo Anchondo of Justice for Immigrants

Immigrants don't pay taxes.
Immigrants pay taxes, in the form of income, property, sales, and taxes at the federal and state level. As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes. Undocumented immigrants pay income taxes as well, as evidenced by the Social Security Administration's "suspense file" (taxes that cannot be matched to workers' names and social security numbers), which grew by $20 billion between 1990 and 1998.
(Source: http://www.immigrationforum.org/about/articles/tax_study.htm)
Immigrants come here to take welfare.
Immigrants come to work and reunite with family members. Immigrant labor force participation is consistently higher than native-born, and immigrant workers make up a larger share of the U.S. labor force (12.4%) than they do the U.S. population (11.5%). Moreover, the ratio between immigrant use of public benefits and the amount of taxes they pay is consistently favorable to the U.S. In one estimate, immigrants earn about $240 billion a year, pay about $90 billion a year in taxes, and use about $5 billion in public benefits. In another cut of the data, immigrant tax payments total $20 to $30 billion more than the amount of government services they use.
(Source: "Questioning Immigration Policy - Can We Afford to Open Our Arms?", Friends Committee on National Legislation Document #G-606-DOM, January 25, 1996. http:www.fas.org/pub/gen/fcnl/immigra.html)
Immigrants send all their money back to their home countries.
In addition to the consumer spending of immigrant households, immigrants and their businesses contribute $162 billion in tax revenue to U.S. federal, state, and local governments. While it is true that immigrants remit billions of dollars a year to their home countries, this is one of the most targeted and effective forms of direct foreign investment.
(Source: http://www.cato.org/research/articles/griswold-020218.html)
Immigrants take jobs and opportunity away from Americans.
The largest wave of immigration to the U.S. since the early 1900s coincided with our lowest national unemployment rate and fastest economic growth. Immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs for U.S. and foreign workers, and foreign-born students allow many U.S. graduate programs to keep their doors open. While there has been no comprehensive study done of immigrant-owned businesses, we have countless examples: in Silicon Valley, companies begun by Chinese and Indian immigrants generated more than $19.5 billion in sales and nearly 73,000 jobs in 2000.
(Source: Richard Vedder, Lowell Gallaway, and Stephen Moore, Immigration and Unemployment: New Evidence, Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, Arlington, VA (Mar. 1994), p. 13.)
Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy.
During the 1990s, half of all new workers were foreign-born, filling gaps left by native-born workers in both the high- and low-skill ends of the spectrum. Immigrants fill jobs in key sectors, start their own businesses, and contribute to a thriving economy. The net benefit of immigration to the U.S. is nearly $10 billion annually. As Alan Greenspan points out, 70% of immigrants arrive in prime working age. That means we haven't spent a penny on their education, yet they are transplanted into our workforce and will contribute $500 billion toward our social security system over the next 20 years.
(Source: Andrew Sum, Mykhaylo Trubskyy, Ishwar Khatiwada, et al., Immigrant Workers in the New England Labor Market: Implications for Workforce Development Policy, Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, Prepared for the New England Regional Office, the Employment and Training Administration, and the U.S. Department of Labor, Boston, Massachusetts, October 2002. http://www.nupr.neu.edu/11-02/immigration.PDF)
Immigrants don't want to learn English or become Americans.
Within ten years of arrival, more than 75% of immigrants speak English well; moreover, demand for English classes at the adult level far exceeds supply. Greater than 33% of immigrants are naturalized citizens; given increased immigration in the 1990s, this figure will rise as more legal permanent residents become eligible for naturalization in the coming years. The number of immigrants naturalizing spiked sharply after two events: enactment of immigration and welfare reform laws in 1996, and the terrorist attacks in 2001.
(Source: American Immigration Lawyers Association, Myths & Facts in the Immigration Debate", 8/14/03. http://www.aila.org/contentViewer.aspx?bc=17,142#section4)
(Source: Simon Romero and Janet Elder, "Hispanics in the US Report Optimism" New York Times, Aug. 6, 2003)
Today's immigrants are different than those of 100 years ago.
The percentage of the U.S. population that is foreign-born now stands at 11.5%; in the early 20th century it was approximately 15%. Similar to accusations about today's immigrants, those of 100 years ago initially often settled in mono-ethnic neighborhoods, spoke their native languages, and built up newspapers and businesses that catered to their fellow émigrés. They also experienced the same types of discrimination that today's immigrants face, and integrated within American culture at a similar rate. If we view history objectively, we remember that every new wave of immigrants has been met with suspicion and doubt and yet, ultimately, every past wave of immigrants has been vindicated and saluted.
(Source: Census Data: http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/censr-4.pdf)
Most immigrants cross the border illegally.
Around 75% of today's immigrants have legal permanent (immigrant) visas; of the 25% that are undocumented, 40% overstayed temporary (non-immigrant) visas.
(Source: Department of Homeland Security http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/index.htm)
Weak U.S. border enforcement has led to high undocumented immigration.
From 1986 to 1998, the Border Patrol's budget increased six-fold and the number of agents stationed on our southwest border doubled to 8,500. The Border Patrol also toughened its enforcement strategy, heavily fortifying typical urban entry points and pushing migrants into dangerous desert areas, in hopes of deterring crossings. Instead, the undocumented immigrant population doubled in that timeframe, to 8 million-despite the legalization of nearly 3 million immigrants after the enactment of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. Insufficient legal avenues for immigrants to enter the U.S., compared with the number of jobs in need of workers, has significantly contributed to this current conundrum.
(Source: Immigration and Naturalization website:http://www.ncjrs.org/ondcppubs/publications/enforce/border/ins_3.html)
The war on terrorism can be won through immigration restrictions.
No security expert since September 11th, 2001 has said that restrictive immigration measures would have prevented the terrorist attacks-instead, the key is effective use of good intelligence. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were here on legal visas. Since 9/11, the myriad of measures targeting immigrants in the name of national security have netted no terrorism prosecutions. In fact, several of these measures could have the opposite effect and actually make us less safe, as targeted communities of immigrants are afraid to come forward with information.
(Source: Associated Press/Dow Jones Newswires, "US Senate Subcommittee Hears Immigration Testimony", Oct. 17, 2001.)
(Source: Cato Institute: "Don't Blame Immigrants for Terrorism", Daniel Griswold, Assoc. Director of Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies http://www.cato.org/dailys/10-23-01.html)
Year Released: 2010

What evidence do you have that new immigrants don't want to learn English? According to the Census Bureau:

Among Spanish speakers, nearly as many were native-born as foreign-born — 17.0 million versus 17.5 million, respectively. This was not the case for the other three major language groups — all three were sizably more foreign-born. Also, of Spanish speakers, 53 percent reported speaking English “very well.”

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/cb10-cn58.html

Did you know there are over three hundred languages spoken in the United States? My grand-parents grew up speaking Polish, English and French. I am sorry my DW, a native Russian speaker, abandoned our efforts to raise a bi-lingual child.

Now, I am going back to watching "futbol" on Univision.

Anonymous wrote:They didn't even have social security or much in the way of public schools when that poem was written. You were invited to come. Not get free stuff or more stuff than people already living in the US.

Agreed. Trotting out Ellis Island doesn't work anymore. The public schools--heck, the public in general--back then might have allowed immigrants into the country, but they didn't tolerate these new immigrants not learning the English language. I think we can all agree that if not for a language barrier, the costs of educating these students would be much less and their chances of success would be much higher.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The article says no such thing, please read more carefully.

The article says merely that Hispanic and Latino students now make up more than a quarter (26%) of the student population in public elementary schools in Fairfax County.

How do you think they're getting here? Your blinders are incredibly large.

You do understand that there is a category of people in this country who are Hispanic/Latino AMERICAN, whose families have been here for generations. I have a Hispanic last name, but the last person in my family to immigrate to this country was over 100 years ago. Some of those Latino students are from American families.

Then they would know how to speak freakin' English and not need the ESOL services that are burdening the hell out of our school system.

Anonymous wrote:I hope all of you are going to show up at the Board of Supervisors public hearings and demand your taxes be raised to pay an increased education budget because there are scores of teachers ready to walk out on Fairfax County and go somewhere else based on the class sizes they have to deal with, increased workload, and lower pay.

bye bye

And some would call these "dreamers".........

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Immigrants, like you, also want their children to attend and learn at good public schools so that they can do better than their parents in life -- it is not right to tell immigrants that their children are not deserving of an education because they can only aspire to certain jobs that require no college degree.

No one is saying that. What they are saying is that it isn't right for these children to count as 2 students instead of 1 student and get extra resources. They are certainly deserving of an education, just not special treatment.

How, exactly, are these students who are the children of immigrants counted as two students? Are AAP children or special education students similarly counted as two students because they receive special resources? I really do not know, so please explain. Thank you.

I would like to know this, too, and I am an ESOL teacher. I know ESOL counts are figured differently for staffing, but as far as I know, they do not count as 2 people (I thought it was something like 1.2 or something like that). That said, we need smaller class sizes. I currently have a class of 17 students in ESOL 1. Some of them know a little bit of spoken English and some know absolutely nothing. I don't speak Spanish, but from what others tell me, their spoken and written Spanish is really elementary, too. Many of them have very little education in their home language. They are 16-20 years old, yet they don't know how to act in a school setting because where they came from it was a free for all in school. It is basically like teaching kindergarten or 1st grade in a 17 year old body. How many of these types of students do you think I should have in class so that they could learn and progress and hopefully graduate? We are doing the best we can, but it is nearly an impossible task when these kids come here with so little education at such a late age. This is not all ESOL , of course. We certainly have kids at other levels who are educated and move and progress, but there are certainly many, many students in FCPS who are like the ones I described above.

I am certain that you are a good and devoted ESOL teacher. However, shouldn't ESOL classes generally (where possible) be grouped by native language spoken, and taught by an instructor who is proficient in the students' native language?

That's bilingual education and we don't have that here in Virginia.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The article says no such thing, please read more carefully.

The article says merely that Hispanic and Latino students now make up more than a quarter (26%) of the student population in public elementary schools in Fairfax County.

How do you think they're getting here? Your blinders are incredibly large.

You do understand that there is a category of people in this country who are Hispanic/Latino AMERICAN, whose families have been here for generations. I have a Hispanic last name, but the last person in my family to immigrate to this country was over 100 years ago. Some of those Latino students are from American families.

I will. Sure.

I hope all of you are going to show up at the Board of Supervisors public hearings and demand your taxes be raised to pay an increased education budget because there are scores of teachers ready to walk out on Fairfax County and go somewhere else based on the class sizes they have to deal with, increased workload, and lower pay.