Family
The Philadelphia Inquirer had a piece on the hardships families with deported parents and U.S. citizen children face. They talked about Chon and Ibed, a Mexican couple with three U.S. Citizen children, telling their story from how they met as two illegal immigrants to eventually having a family, to Chon’s recent deportation. It is a story that is typical in the field of immigration, one that is similar to most families with a deported parent and U.S. citizen children.
Around four million U.S.-born children have at least one parent with no immigration status, based on the findings of the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington. They also found that the proportion of adults who entered the border illegally, get deported, and try to cross again is growing. The current immigration policy has led to an increase in female-headed households, with mothers being forced to support their families since their husbands got deported, affecting thousands of U.S. citizen children in the process.
According to the Applied Research Center, an think tank organization in New York that recently analyzed Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, from 2000 to 2010, 8 percent of all deportees had U.S. Citizen children.
Tuition
A federal judge ruled that children of undocumented immigrants cannot pay higher out-of-state tuition in Florida just because their parents are illegal, based on this report by the Miami Herald. Judge K. Michael Moore held that the policy violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution by forcing these U.S. Citizen students to pay three times more than Florida residents. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of Florida U.S. Citizen students denied in-state tuition because they could not prove their parents’ legal status. This would provide thousands of students greater access to an education. At the University of Florida for example, in-state tuition costs $205 per credit hour, while out-of-states costs $947 per hour. Based on a Florida International University law professor’s analysis of the U.S. Census, nearly 9,000 children of undocumented immigrant parents are enrolled in Florida public colleges and universities in a given year.
Other states had similar rulings recently. In New Jersey, a state appeals court ruled that U.S. born student whose parents could not prove valid immigration status was wrongly denied financial aid. In California and Colorado, similar rulings were made.
Politics
CBS News summarized the Democratic and Republican immigration agendas based on recent convention speeches by members of both parties. The Democrats are committed to helping some undocumented immigrants get a “path toward citizenship”, “learn English and pay taxes”, and have a visa system that meets the country’s “economic needs, keeps families together and enforces the law. The Deferred Action Program illustrates this theme, and would likely be continued with an Obama reelection.
The Republican platform on the other hand is against any form of amnesty for those who intentionally violated immigration laws. They called for the Justice Department to stop their lawsuits against states with tough immigration laws. They also intend to deny federal funding to schools that provide lower in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. An increase in “show-me” laws such as those in Arizona and a possible repeal of the Deferred Action Program are possible repercussions of a Romney presidency.
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