Mistaken Beliefs about Immigrants

Immigrants, both legal and illegal, have been painted as uneducated criminals who decline to acculturate and just seek to steal off of U.S. public services. From side to side study findings, personal story, and observations of the media, I address and expose the top 5 mistaken beliefs about immigrants.

1) All Immigrants in the USA Are Mexican:

At the same time as media coverage on the tapering of the Mexican-American border might specify or else, immigrants don’t all composition a brown blur of Mexicans. In actual fact, immigrants are more colorful than the pink, purple and blue blushing faces of xenophobes sensitive to rolled-Rs.

According the 2007 Census American Community Survey, China, Canada and India also pinnacle the list of US-entering immigrants.

2) Immigrants Don’t Want To Learn English:

Aside from the immigrants that are in fact from England, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

A 2007 survey by the United Way of Salt Lake, a group of people resources organization, revealed that 80% of its respondents had taken official English classes. Supporting this form is the fact that many ESL classes are getting jam-packed with enthusiastic students, such that they are over ability and not capable to lodge everyone.

“This proves that the interest is absolutely there”, tell me Vivian Hart, Executive Director of Pronto, a New York society resources organization that provides free ESL classes. “Many citizens just aren’t able to take benefit as a result of limited state funding”.

While I’m sure there are some immigrants that don’t bother to learn English, I’ve by no means seen anyone walk passed me with their ears plugs singing nana nana boo boo at the same time as I’m explaining a grammatical question to a Spanish-speaker. They roughly always show inquisitiveness and join in when I’m teaching. Immigrants do want to learn.

3) Illegal immigrants are criminals:

The idea of a legendary, dangerous illegal immigrant is like the Boogie Man: not genuine and only used as a panic tactic. The media has dishonestly concocted the flagrant lie that illegals have a higher tendency for crime. This only distracts from the genuine issue at hand: immigration reform.

4) Illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes:

At the same time as they may have been able to avoid the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, illegal immigrants have not been able escape the crumb-snatching hands of Uncle Sam.

The truth is that 2/3 of illegal immigrants give Medicare, Social Security (that they never get back or advantage from), and central and state income taxes.

Actually, in 1996 the Internal Revenue Service started giving out identification numbers so that workers without legitimate Social Security numbers could pay their taxes. Nowadays, about 8 to 12 million illegal immigrants are paying their reasonable share.

5) Illegal immigrants are a public charge:

If anything, illegal immigrants re-charge US economy. They force money into the U.S. by paying sales taxes that obtain put towards public utilities (like road maintenance). They too pay property taxes that go towards the schooling of our children and use their wages on local business products and services.

Demonstrating this point is a study conducted by the National Research Council. The learning found that the taxes paid by children of low-skilled immigrant families (most of who are illegal) in fact drive an average of $80,000 dollars more to Uncle Sam than the value of public services they consume.

As you can see, immigrant’s framework a body of hardworking, taxpaying, law-abiding people. They’re American citizens in their own right. Take what anti-immigrant spread merchants have to say with a grain of salt and always find out the negative side of the story.