[quote=FlyerInHi]Njtosd, we are not educating the whole world. We are educating kids who are here and part of us.
And so what if they live part time in Mexico? They are here and will be working here.[/quote]Um, except they don’t live “part time” in Mexico. They live full-time in Mexico and will continue to live full-time in Mexico. The vast majority of their parents can’t afford to live on the US side of the border. And they have kept coming, year after year … for decades. We have a never-ending supply of students who live out of the country filling up our public schools here in SD County. And for those who graduate from high school, completing their A-G requirements for CA public university entrance (and other language and science requirements for the UC, depending on declared major), they can and do take seats from US-citizen applicants in the CSU/UC systems (often with Pell Grants and Cal Grants funded by US and CA taxpayers). Add those freshman applicants (many are “Dream Act” applicants just by virtue of their CA HS diploma) to all the other CSU/UC applicants with foreign HS diplomas and out-of-state HS diplomas and we have a situation here in CA where we have tens of thousands of qualified US citizen HS graduates (born and raised in CA) who applied to multiple campuses of the CSU/UC, were not accepted to ANY campus and are essentially “stuck” in CC until such time they can get admitted to a CA public university as a junior. Which may or may not be the semester/quarter after they obtain their associate degrees …. assuming “life” doesn’t get in the way while they’re waiting. This group will NOT necessarily be able to earn an associate degree in two years, either. That all depends on the impaction of the particular CC they are attending and their willingness and ability to travel to another county CC to obtain their missing credits for their Associate of Transfer degree (favorite alternatives around here are Grossmont and Cuyamaca Colleges). Here in Chula Vista, SWC is terribly impacted. The recent “improvements” ($75M in voter-approved bond funds?) to the campus did NOT increase classroom space or class facilities. Hundreds of former “border crossing” local high school students (now graduates) can and do attend SWC while still residing in Mexico. The vast majority of this group of students undoubtedly qualify for fee waivers due to hailing from “very low income” households.
In short, FIH is claiming these thousands of students crossing the border every day to receive free (K-12) or nearly free (CC) educations in the US are “part of us” and are going to “work in the US.” That isn’t necessarily true. They have to be able to support themselves in the US and their “brethren” who were born and raised in the US can’t even support themselves in their own hometowns! And the US born and raised group typically has more “prosperous parents!”
Here in Cali, we have essentially been allowing Mexicans (in the border counties, the vast majority live in MX and never lived in the US, except as a “temporary guest” in someone else’s home) to use up our educational resources, court resources, social service resources, medical care, Federal food aid and to take up 40% or more of our state prison cells while US born and raised citizens wait in line with them for same finite services and number of seats (except to occupy prisons). Cali has been bulging at the seams with “undocumented aliens” and “anchor babies” for decades. The vast majority of “anchor babies” never lived in the US but were born in the US for the sole reason of getting their piece of the American pie when they turn 18 … and they and their parents admit this! Actually, they’re quite overt about it! I’m sure Congress didn’t consider what could happen in the second half of the 20th century when they crafted section 1 the 14th Amendment and added it to our Constitution. Of course, at that time, there was no such thing as “illegal immigration!”
You can talk to ANY county supervisor or mayor in this state (as well as the state treasurer on up to the governor) and they will ALL tell you the exact same thing that I am regurgitating here and have posted here in the recent and distant past. Nothing has changed and nothing ever will unless something is actually DONE about this (seemingly intractable) problem.
You can start by contacting your local reps here in the “border counties.” They ALL have a front and center box seat to Cali’s budget travails (which trickle on down to its counties and cities) and can intelligently discuss the causes with you. A short and simplistic answer would be that they are 65% due to rampant, unchecked, illegal immigration (and Federal birthright citizenship as a smaller byproduct) and 35% due to Prop 13 and its progeny, Props 58 and 193.
