Mothers Against Illegal Aliens quite possibly is the stupidest organization I've ever heard of. The first I heard of them was from www.mediamatters.com where organization president, Michelle Dallacroce made the statement - "Well, I'm -- I have a question. What jobs do the women and the children do that we have to have them here other than their children's job is to dumb down the American children and overpopulate our schools?". You have to ask, how exactly are immigrants dumbing down American children? Do illegal immigrants have some sort of crazy communicable disease that is rendered benign by the citizenship process? I had to take a look at the website to try and find some answers, for such an unfounded statement I thought there must be some kind of backing for it or it would be unimaginable to take something like that onto national television. Then again... it was FOX News.
www.mothersagainstillegalaliens.com - first of all, the web address is horrendously long. You can't even hope to get a lot of web traffic with something like that. To answer the question of how immigrants supposedly dumb down American children, I went straight to the mission statement:
"Our beautiful Nation has been turned into a jungle by the mass invasion of illegal aliens - the streets of America; the neighborhoods and communities where we live; the malls and stores where we shop; the schools where our LEGAL children attend - and yes, even the churches where we worship - are now the Citadels of fear, bigotry, racism, physical danger and hate! The LEGAL children of America’s 21st century have become the scapegoats and the victims of this invasion of illegal aliens. They have become - the get behind, the left behind, the back of the class, the back of the bus, the get off the playground, the get out of my way - pawns and victims of peer abuse and societal indifference."
Fixing a broken immigration system is a worthy endeavor, but the MAIA statement is overtly racist to all immigrants. It is statements like theirs that have polarized the discussion, where a justified attack on illegal racism extends itself to all immigrants. Our nation has been turned into a "jungle" of illegal aliens... she sees them in the streets, the malls, the schools, etc. Pray tell how she knows that they are illegals. If they look hispanic, chinese, non-white obviously they must be illegals. If you couldn't tell, I was being facetious. Churches are now the citadels of fear, bigotry, racism, physical danger and hate? WOW. Perhaps she's seeing something that I am not. Is there some sort of underground illegal immigrant violent uprising going on in the churches? Come on. We all know why American children have fallen behind, they've fallen behind because Americans have become apathetic and have become used to an idea of entitlement. The belief that America is destined to be the wealthiest and strongest nation forever is the cause. We seem to have lost the competitive spirit, children are thrown in front of the television, indoctrinated into a life of consumerism before they can even speak words. What cause are we fighting for, what new space race are we having dreams about, what are the mysteries of the universe that we can unlock? I am pessimistic about the number of children interested in these questions.
Even college admissions has become a game. I went to Columbia University because I wanted a world class education, I wanted to be amongst the brightest minds we had to offer, and to open my eyes to new ideas. Every year I feel that college has become increasingly commercialized, universities are just name brands that we try to get into in order to pad our resumes and get higher paying jobs. We are even willing to pay thousands of dollars to practice a standardized test, we are willing to pay thousands for professionals to edit our college essays. Who is actually getting into the school, the child or the supporting cast? Our children are falling behind not because of illegal immigrants, but because they are not learning. Initiatives like no child left behind are fueled by a corporation-esque evaluation system, education cannot be run like this. As schools try harder to meet federal accountability measures, we teach students how to take tests, they are not actually learning anything. They are just becoming a statistic that makes that number counters happy. With favorable numbers, we forget that education's goal is to teach.
update:
There have been a number of comments on this article and for future readers, I would just like to clear something up. I am in favor of fixing the immigration policy of the United States, it is broken, it has been broken and especially given the security risks illuminated post 9/11, we should have come up with a solution by now.
Illegal immigration from Mexico, which is the thorn in the sides of most people interested in this subject should be examined. Mexicans come to the United States because of increased wages, plain and simple. The effort should have been on the Congress and the President of the U.S. to pressure President Fox of Mexico, and now President Felipe Calderon, to stimulate the Mexican economy and provide a stable job market and stronger economy so people wouldn't want to leave Mexico in the first place. Another thing we SHOULD have done and still should do is get rid of NAFTA, I think by now we can all see that it was the mother of all stupid ideas from the Clinton administration. NAFTA may have stimulated the member states' economy for a while, but we killed the Mexican economy with it so that we could flood their market with cheap American crops. There is 0 incentive to start non-subsistence farming in Mexico when the U.S. provides cheap goods that is kept afloat by protectionism.
The commentors are correct though, there are a lot of problems with illegal immigration, hence why it's "illegal". However we as a nation cannot be so willing to look for a scape goat for our domestic problems that we immediately blame illegal immigrants. How many of these mothers walk down the street and whisper nasty things every time they see a Hispanic face?
Mothers Against Illegal Immigration takes the most flagrant quotes by congressmen and uses them as arguments, substantiated or unsubstantiated. There have been a lot of questions about the effects of illegal immigration on the American healthcare system. In 2000, the Rand Corporation found that illegal immigration creates very little burden on taxpayers.
http://www.rand.org/news/press.06/11.14.html
If we take a microeconomics look, especially in very dense populations of illegal immigrants like California, we see a lot of serious healthcare issues. A large number of hospitals and emergency rooms closing, declining healthcare quality, high healthcare costs, etc. We take these statistics and instantly attribute them to illegal immigrants. Is that a possible cause? Sure. Is it definitely? No. Given that healthcare costs have been rising all over the country it is hard to automatically attribute it to illegals.
Healthcare in the U.S. has suffered hardships for many reasons. A large part of the burden is from those on Medicare and Medicaid, and those that are uninsured. There are many more Americans uninsured (40 millions + citizens ) than there illegal immigrants from mexico (~ 6 million), they cost a lot of money. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has tracked the decline in employer sponsored healthcare to be the number one reason for the massive increase in uninsured Americans over the last few years. While President Bush may tell you the economy is healthy, it is severely in debt. Americans are feeling the pinch and understandably they are looking for someone to blame. Look at the facts and the whole picture before you default to blaming illegal immigrants for the woes of a nation where illegals comprise ~3% of the population.
We should also put a lot of attention on middle class families like that of Terri King, who I believe left a comment on this blog. Terri's family is a sobering look at how healthcare costs are becoming increasingly unaffordable, even for upper middle class families. As care for Terri's new born approached $2 million, they were also approaching the upper limit of her husband's maximum lifetime health insurance. We have to be ashamed of our healthcare system if mothers like Terri are forced to make decisions of whether or not to take her newborn to the hospital or to take a chance and save a hospital visit and its costs for a more serious visit later. Affordable healthcare and health access is a right, and the fact that it is becoming further out of reach for increasing numbers of Americans should be a wake up call to our President and Congressmen and women.
