Picture an undocumented student, and the first image to pop up is unlikely to be an Asian one.
Yet a recent report by the University of California Office of the President revealed that 40 to 44 percent of undocumented students in the UC system are Asian. This is definitely not “a Mexican thing,” which is how one undocumented student characterized the Asian community’s dismissive views towards undocumented immigration.
“People will ask you: ‘Are you AB 540? Because obviously you are not Latina,’” explains Tam, a 24-year-old of Vietnamese descent who recently graduated from UCLA (the last names of the undocumented students in this article have been withheld to protect their identities).
The 2001 state law AB 540 lowers the cost of tuition at California public universities for students who attended a high school in the state for at least three years. According to the UC Office of the President, over 1,639 students have benefited from AB 540; out of those, 1,200 were legal residents or citizens.
Out-of-state students attending California colleges filed a suit in 2005 challenging the law, objecting to the state’s practice of allowing illegal immigrants to pay significantly lower tuition than they pay. The suit was dismissed by the Yolo County Superior Court in 2006.
But on September 15, the Court of Appeal in Sacramento issued a ruling that challenges AB 540 on the grounds that it contradicts federal law, which holds that states cannot grant educational benefits based on residency.
But life continues for those who have made it to college. Faced with financial burdens and legal concerns in addition to the normal college student worries about classes and career, today’s unexpected and overlooked Asian undocumented students are screaming for help.
Tam came to the U.S. when she was six years old, and like many Americans, she wanted to go to college. Although undocumented students come from low-income families, they are not eligible for any kind of state or federal financial aid. Tam needed her parents’ help to pay for school, but she refused to ask.
“My major was English and I did not want to deal with ‘We’re paying for your education, so you will have to study what we want,’” explained Tam, who paid for school with money from work and private scholarships.
Ana, a third generation Japanese Peruvian, could not find enough scholarships to cover the costs of attending college without financial aid. Her parents are low-wage employees who could not afford it either. An aunt helped her secure a loan, but it is not subsidized by the government, as some student loans are, and interest is accrued every month. Yet it is helping her go to college.
“This how I paid my first year, and how I plan on paying my second year,” she said.
Not only she will get out of college in debt, but Ana is also frustrated about her future. Because of her legal status, she won’t have the same experience as fellow graduates in civil engineering.
“It doesn’t matter if you were admitted into the university, you are still not able to get internships and jobs, which are the real stuff,” she said. Without experience and legal status, Ana doubts she will be able to utilize her degree when she graduates.
Currently, the only path to legalization for these students is the DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, which would allow undocumented students who have graduated from college in the United States to receive conditional residency and eventually legalization. The future of the bill is uncertain, but with the bill’s fiscal implications along with the current economic recession, support for it is low.
Furthermore, there is not much information for undocumented Asian students on how to even get to college. Those that exist are mainly in Spanish or English.
“Asian students who aren’t fluent in English or Spanish can’t access this information, so they have trouble getting the information they need to pursue opportunities and make knowledgeable decisions,” said Kathy Gin, co-founder of Educators for Fair Consideration, an organization that provides scholarships to low-income first-generation college students.
One’s immigration status is also a sensitive topic for Asians, and among Asian families, talking about it to even just ask for help is a taboo.
“When we came here and we were filling out the high school paperwork, my mom would say ‘Don’t talk about it,’” said Ana, who did not know the gravity of her status until she was enrolled in school.
Roseanne Fong, new student program director at UC Berkeley, explains that Latino students are more outspoken about one’s status.
“Asian students are more reluctant to come forward,” Fong said. “I have to read between the lines. For Chicano/Latino students, by the first email, they will tell me about their status.”
This silence and shame may be related to culture.
“From what I can infer, students from Asian families enforce ‘secrecy’ for fear of being deported-this explains the fact that they have to be very guarded and careful,” said Jere Takahashi, director of the Asian Pacific American Student Development Program at UC Berkeley. “They have fear that [if they speak up] it will lead to investigation and eventually deportation.”
Nevertheless, the stereotype of undocumented students being solely Latinos can benefit and harm Asian undocumented students. On the one hand, Asian undocumented students don’t suffer from many of the negative stereotypes facing Latino undocumented students. But silence means isolation, according to Gin.
“While undocumented Latino students can often seek support from Latino student groups or academic programs targeting Latino students, Asian undocumented students may not know whom to reach out to,” Gin said. “They may have trouble finding communities in which they can comfortably, openly and safely share their experiences with other students.”
All these people will do very well, in their home countries where they belong. We just can’t afford them anymore.
So about 75% of those who benefit from AB-540 are LEGAL and yet we still hear all of this uproar about it?
Wow, so much hypocrisy!
Excellent article!
Of course it’s not a “Mexican Thing” – it’s a discussion on illegal immigrants in College. The illegals from Mexico are uneducated vs. the Asian immigrants.
I don’t care where you are from, if you’re here illegally, you need to go back to your home country and apply to come here legally. Illegal is just that, against the law!
No one cares whether or not an illegal alien is Mexican or Asian or of any other descent — they are breaking the law by being in the United States. Their parents made the decision to bring them here and see if they could game the system. Such young people’s grievance is with their parents, not a country that is only recreating order by denying illegal aliens social services and deporting all those who are caught. Race or ethnicity has nothing to do with the situation.
“Ana is also frustrated about her future. Because of her legal status, she won’t have the same experience as fellow graduates in civil engineering.”
Ana, please thank your parents for screwing up your life and the opportunities you may not get the chance to discover. Parents need to realize that the choices they make to come here illegally WILL affect their children. All the illegal lovers cry about how families get split up if ICE ever shows up, but no one seems to blame the parents for putting their families in that situation. They need to learn about personal responsibility. The DREAM Act is just another form of amnesty.
ENFORCE OUR LAWS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!!!
THERE WILL BE NO AMNESTY!!!
OUR ACCEPTABLE IMMIGRATION REFORM
#1. Secure Our Borders!!!
#2. Mandate E-Verify for ALL Employees!!!
#3. Mandate E-Verify for ANY Benefit!!!
#4. Stop the Underground Economy!!!
#5. End Birthright Citizenship for Illegals!!!
……and make it retroactive!!!
#6. End Chain Migration!!!
#7. Make English our Official Language!!!
#8. Cut Off Federal Funds to Sanctuary Cities!!
NOTHING MORE!!! NOTHING LESS!!!
Compared to other developed nations, the number of Americans with advanced degrees is declining at time when we need highly skilled workers more than ever. If anyone in America who wants to become an American and is willing to work hard enough to get a degree and contribute to our society, I don’t see how we can lose.
Well, folks:
This er, ah, “discussion” exemplifies and demonstrates the entire enigma that is these benighted states of amurrika.
Well, at least that is this single view.
“Legal” and “illegal” are relative and NOT absolute concepts, and those who subscribe to same sans distinctions or discrimination, here in the “best” sense, are simplistic, if nothing else.
The humongous fact of “Latino” “immigration” is that there is NO way and no “fence” AND no “law” that can stem the tide, so long as we continue to make life “at home” unlivable by our hegemonistic ways and support of oligarchs in the face of “socialistic” regimes like Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador?, never mind the immediate neighbor south of Calexico and Mexicali and El Paso and Brownsville?
Buzzm1 and Deport-Em are barking up a tree that even Lou Dobbs must admit is “unfeasible.”
The real way to keep these pesky types OUT is just exactly what we are doing: reducing America, as other and more qualified observers have said, to the status of a “Third World” country.
When we too are as poor, or nearly so, then there will be no magnet for the oppressed and dispossessed.
As for that dual economy, that’s how half? the country is surviving, likely. And more, now that earnest, hard-working Americans are barely, doubtfully”, “making it” in the “free enterprise” “democratic” and no-holds-barred marketplace of Goldman-Sachs and WaMu.
The immigrant-baiters, to me, are like the no-marriage-for-gays bunch, in that they apparently assume that someone else doing better OR demanding equal rights are somehow deducting from their bank accounts OR self=respect.
For them, I have good news and bad news today, and all of it out of the London Guardian online, to wit:
1: Roseanne Barr’s observation that we are today “a nation run by old men on Viagra.”
2: An American officer, a captain, in Afghanistan, whose sentiments were headlined by the Talibani, one presumes, retort: “You may have the watch, but we have the time.”
3: China plans “a string of Tibetan dams” to “improve living standards.”
4: That the recent “auto accident” death of Austrian neoNazi icon Jorg Haider involved his driving at twice the speed limit, which I figure, roughly, at between 80 to 85 mph? More to the point here, a subconscious death wish? Would that Hitler had heeded same.
5: The “great schlep” of Jewish-American Obama people to the snowbird havens of mid-Florida to win over their grandparents who believe that Obama is “muslim” and a supporter of Hamas? My suggestion is that they ALL tune in to Uri Avnery in Tel Aviv, and contemplate even Ehud Olmert’s recent thoughts on Mideast realities.
That said, the Dubai factotums ARE, indeed, a mite scary, especially one observation I read online that the principality’s sheik, or at least one of them, was quoted as saying, paraphrased, “You need slaves to build monuments,” the thesis related to that ongoing 180-story, 1000-metre high challenge to the skies that encompasses three “climate zones” in its upthrust hubris,
AND the encampments of imported “alien” laborers recruited for these vertical pyramids.
It’s part and parcel of the new, soon to be old?, world of capitalist “finance” such as the claimant to the title of the most expensive city in the world and the dilemmas and surrealties said claim involves.
So, folks, what matters sundered families and struggling students, much less “fences” and “laws” proclaimed by the lawless, as in preemptive, “first-strike” neoconnings, to Hell with the rest of the world. Of which we are a relatively “small” part.
And if racism and violence dominate this election, then one can only assume that we not only “asked” for it, but we also “deserve” it.
Frank Eng
“Undocumented students” can be categorized as aliens who are unlawfully present in the USA or who have unlawfully entered the USA without inspection. As a result, an undocumented student may be subject to removal proceedings should he or she be unable to establish admissibility and eligibility for lawful adjust of status to remain in the USA.
Title 8 U.S.C. 1362 describes, “in any removal proceedings before an immigration judge and in any appeal proceedings before the Attorney General from any such removal proceedings, the person concerned shall have the privilege of being represented (at no expense to the Government) by such counsel, authorized to practice in such proceedings, as he [or she] shall choose.”
Aliens may obtain representation from a non‑profit, religious, charitable, social service, or similar organization that is established in the United States and is officially recognized by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) in the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
Additionally, aliens may be represented by an accredited representative who is affiliated with a recognized organization (an organization that has been recognized by the BIA as specified above).
If you are interested in becoming a accredited representative through WHOmentors.com, Inc. to give non-legal assistance to aliens (nonimmigrant or immigrant), please e-mail Rauhmel@WHOmentors.com or call 415-373-6767 to receive an application along with a current tuition fee schedule.
Or, write:
Rauhmel Fox, CEO
WHOmentors.com, Inc.
110 Pacific Avenue, Suite 250
San Francisco, California 94111-1900
Unemployed F-1 international students on post-completion Optional Practical Training (OPT) status may apply for unpaid employment to maintain F-1 status and eligibility for adjustment to H-1B temporary worker status. Send inquiry for application along with a current tuition fee schedule.
About WHOmentors.com, Inc.
WHOmentors.com, Inc. is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt 509(a)(2) research corporation that is primarily engaged in interdisciplinary scientific applied research to gain knowledge or understanding to determine the means by which a specific, recognized need may be met.
The majority of economists agree immigrants are good for the economy but the xenophobes and bigots have been successful in launching a campaign of misinformation.
http://www.columbustelegram.com/articles/2008/10/16/news/local/doc48f7689bee59d469094552.txt
Terrific piece. Wish this had wide distribution and was used in classes at American high schools, colleges and universities. Considerable ignorance among folks in the Midwest, Atlantic Seaboard, and especially the South about the condition of Asians in the U.S.
Excellent Article. These students, raised in U.S. have been receiving education in U.S. their whole life. If U.S. doesn’t do something about these students, the government is wasting excellent students
Education is important in USA. However, there are many channels to get educated. The formal college education is not the ONLY way. You can learn yourself by reading books. The most important aspect is what are your goals in life. You must set your goals clearly and in a definite term, then you can work on it consistently until you reach it.
I think that it does not matter you are legal or illegal as long as you have to the business skills to make a lot of money in the USA. And you will definitely live a good and fulfilled life here. To aquire the business knowledge, skills, and experiences will take time, determination, perserverance, and consistence. If you have your mind set on the goal, you are willing to work hard for many years to accomplish the goal. I think that there is nothing else can block you in the USA. In fact, you are here now. You are the one who is responsible for your destiny.
If someone blocks the front door of a house, you can find other ways to get into if you are really want to.
Use your head, keep learning all the time, and gain understanding of how the US business world work, you will make a lot of money for sure. Once you have the money, you can live the life you want to live.
But be cautious and wise in life and business.
Money-making skill is the key to live a better life in the USA.
Whatever ways to get your education do not matter that much; as long as you have the knowledge and know how to use for your best interests.
omg.. people.. these students have spent most of their time studying and studying to achieve higher education. How will they feel to find out that they can’t do it no matter how hard they try? America needs to know that students are the future and it doesn’t matter if they are illegal! What’s the whole point of being legal if they can’t even give the effort that illegal students can give? Their identity may be “illegal immigrant” but some of them deserve to go to college more than these “legal” immigrants.. so why should we say bad things about these students who are looking to their future and already have a huge obstacle infront of them? We shouldn’t say “go back to your own country” because obviously they can’t.. that’s why they are here.. duh! and we can’t say for them to come to America again for legalization because they are probably too old to wait for all the paper work.. they are students going to college not some five year old who don’t even know what “illegal” means to their future.. and about the parents.. they probably had a reason why they chose to come illegally.. financial.. legal.. or whatever.. but whatever it is.. it probably was the only choice.. it is not like they came to america to screw over their children’s life.. so yeah.. these students need a fair chance at the future..
it wasn’t their decision and it is not fair for these young bright people to waste their talent just because of their identity or label.. they should be treated with their talents and their personality!
how sad will they be if they can’t even go to college and they spent the first seventeen year or so of life studying so much?
Undocumented workers, students, people, deserve to be here just as much as anyone else in our country. Maybe those of you who commented about sending them back to their countries where they came from should do a little research, educate yourselves just a tiny bit on how the USA was formed. Ya might just learn that it is a nation of “immigrants”. Who are you to tell anyone to go back “home”. Unless you are Native American, you are not indigenous to this place and maybe you should go find another home in your ancestral country if you’re so threatened by the diversity that our country is made up of!!! By the way referring to people as “aliens” is crude, rude and plain IGNORANT!!! Educate yourself. Prioritize what is truly causing our economic crisis! It’s not undocument workers, it’s funding a war in Iraq that serves Bush administrations’ private interest!!
Dear Marisol:
“Of the light”?
Whatever, you ARE a light in this darkness of fear and denigration.
“Citizen” is totally ignorant or hsi situation, but the trio of commentators following are on the mark.
Someone else’s gain is NEVER our lossl, and someone else’s loss is EVERYone’s.
That said, hearken to some of today’s online headlines:
The London Guardian posts three? lead pieces on the
Brits’ domestic fracas between “Tory” and”Labour,” sorta like our GOP and Dems.
Upshot: regardless of party, the governator is MONEY, honey. Oh, and “public relations,” as in spin and hype.
Our tight little island cousins are currently embroiled in an intramural struggle between those who are sucking up to the Russki billionaires and those who are sniffishly askant.
Both are as bemusing as our own mirror images.
Meanwhile, UN-Habitat has issued a report that is both enlightening and scary.
But, then, who will listen? Other than those of us who can’t make any difference in the equation.
Ah, weep for us. All of us. Wagner’s shoemaker was “right,” as in perspicaceous. It’s “mad, mad, overall mad.”
Frank
P.S.: Hope others are as amused as I by today’s Austrian reports of their late fascist leader’s sexual didos. apart from his death-wish auto “accident.” Hey, the sexual part is, in fact, “reassuring.” It’s the political part that is more than troubling. Haider’s hijinks were/are HIS prob, but his party’s projections are humanity’s problem.
American Society is highly hypocritical toward many issues. From the way immigrants (legal or illegal) have been treated throughout its history can expose even more hypocritical and multistandards American Society.
You can trace back the US immigration histroy and the hypocricay can be clearly exposed in front of you.
Being a immigrant, our strength is to overcome adversities and obstacles in the USA. There are some opportunities in the USA. It is up to the immigrants who are willing to work hard and smart to make the most out of it. Learn how the US systems work, how to best manipulate the system, or find loopholes in the system; so you can exploit it and make the most for yourself. To do so, it takes knowledge, courage, learning, determination, and perservance.
Overcoming obstacles can strengthen your personality and make you a much better person.
The only way in life is hard way. Dont’ expect anything easy at all. Easy things will not last long.
Don’t blame the situation you are in instead of making the best of the bad situation for yourself.
Being illegal immigrants do not mean that you can not succeed in the USA. In fact, you can if you put your heart and mind into your dreams. With persistent hard work, you can realize your dreams no matter what other say.
Find out what you want in life, set a goal, and work persistently to it. You will accomplish much more than those legal ones.
Community organizers and policy-makers rallying for undocumented students describe how ironic it is that the U.S. already brings in an educated workforce from foreign countries, but decides not educate the talented undocumented immigrant youth residing within the nation. The U.S. has increasingly outsourced high-skilled jobs to foreign immigrants to fill in the current shortage within information technology, engineering and other sectors through special occupation visas. Initially, the cap for the H-1B occupation visas, as they are called, was set at 65,000 per year, which matches the same estimated number of undocumented youth graduating from high school every year (see Passell, 2003). In 2008, H-1B visas hit the 65,000 cap within a two day period and tech companies are pushing congress for more visas even with the down-turning economy(Herbst, 2008). Many high-skilled foreign workers with H-1B visas apply for and become permanent residents, thus adding to the immigrant population (Lowell, 2001). Many of those who apply for H-1Bs to live and work in the U.S. are RECENT COLLEGE GRADUATES from their respective foreign country. Therefore, why can’t we decide to further invest on currently residing talented undocumented youth rather than importing more foreign workers??
Dear Frank:
You really are an “Eng” in this dark world.
Viagara? Facsist Dildos? Legally or illegally, you *absolutely* need to get laid.
This is an excellent article and we need to support our undocumented brothers and sisters. If all of you anti-immigrant people were not born in this country, I highly doubt you will not come to the United States illegally. We need reform OBAMA!
Sancho:
Getting laid would be nice.
Even at 89.
Actually, EVERYone would be better off getting if off, no?
Then they would have considerably less reason to stick their noses into other people’s er, ah, adventures.
OR worry about whether “civil unions” and/or “domestic partnerships” are “marriages.”
P.S.: All this, and Kinsey too.
And, Sancho:
Are you auditioning for the role of MY “Sancho”?
If so, you’re hired.
And we can BOTH enjoy titlting at contemp windmills.
Aside from all those fragrant and prurient side issues, that is.
Take, for instance, the current NewsWeek feature suggesting? that the Mainland is today’s “most stressful society.”
Talk about pots and kettles.
Of course, the lengthy article about the former cadre who went “postal” and murdered an innocent at a Great Wall belltower is MORE than impressive and obviously relevant.
But poor Tang Yongming is/was not all that much different from Jing-hua Wu AND that “Indian”-American father who chose to murder his own family.
All for WHAT?
For “face”? as the NewsWeek piece states, and may I remind them that the (dis)honoring of “face” is UNIVERSAL, and NOT tribal, and that their editors lack the fly’s-eye view, which is encompassing.
Their gay editor, surnamed Jefferson, who summons parents and grandparents in the cause of his pique at the passing of Prop. 8, yeah, I concur here, BUT . . .
This guy’s favorite flick is “Breakfast at Poofany’s.”
Okay, so Blake Edwardses’ chef-d’oeuvre IS an authentic classic of drop-dead chic AND misty-eyed “romance,” and chalk one up for one of the all-time “bests” of theme tunes in “Moon River,” but how could ANYone not proclaim, in the selfsame breath, the bad-breath horror of the Mickey Rooney cameo?
And, bottom line, “Breakfast” is a sadsack take on the western notion of “romance” and “marriage.”
Aside from the fact that Audrey is THE wistful waif for all time, and that the rest of the cast is more than adequate, the “infrastructure” for this flick actually glorifies the inanities of Tiffany toffs, hillbilly husbands, wastrel “writers,” never mind their Ayn Rand keepers, AND their fifty-buck powder-room tokes.
Ah, wildnerness, indeed.
BULLETIN:
For L.Gonzales, “AsianPresident,” and all you other supermachos lurking in the bushes:
The true “psychic” fact(or) here is simple: It’s ME “Tarzan” and YOU “Jane.”
Bottoms up?, anyone?
P.S.: I think somewhere online of late, at least one headline noted that even as the Obama age is dawning in the full flux of hate crimes and misdemeanors, the zeitgeist is also evincing the outpouring of “bigots” from the woodworks.
Tempus fugits, and the more things change, the more they remain pointless.
Yeah, both legally AND illegally.
Yes, even at 72, I would agree, Frank, if everyone got laid, we’d spend less time being workaholics and spend more time with our loved ones:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,482761,00.html
I imagine we would also hate each other less if we all “loved” each other more, if you know what I mean. If we could also learn to tolerate gays more, then perhaps we would also embrace immigrants:
http://www.livenews.com.au/articles/2008/05/29/Women_love_gays_hate_immigrants
I’m sure Kinsey would agree. Take care.
I think that this article shows that being an immigrant is not about the color of your skin, but that we are all (even Native Americans) equally “immigrants” and deserve the same rights. Instead of arguing about who is “illegal” or “legal”, I think that people should recognize that placing a hard-working immigrant who hurts no one in the same category and with the same treatment as a native-born, violent criminal with the label “illegal” says more about the inadequacy of our labels and the need for reform of our immigration laws than it says about the people we call immigrants. Here’s hoping that we’re not just tilting at windmills when he hope for reasonable and practical immigration reform free of labels, extermism, and hate and that we recognizes the humanity of the people we are labeling.
Belonging? what is belonging ? who does a child belong to? if a person has the power to give a better future to a child what possible reason would there be for not doing so? Where do children belong? the better question is what belongs to these children…
Many of these undocumented students have been here in the US almost their entire lives. You people need to stop focusing on legal status and focus on the benefits. Look, the US already invested in K-12 education for these children and there are quite a few who are intelligent enough to make it to college, so why not allow them to do so, grant them their citizenship and allow them to invest back into the country.
The educated work force at the top is shrinking… as someone mentioned we are outsourcing many top level positions or searching for others to come here. You have kids who are gonna become highly payed citizens- this equals tax payers.
We need them people, all of them, the educated and the non-educated… admit that we need them. We need them for Social Security if we want to salvage it, we need them to become educated to make money and to buy houses, we need them to come out of the shadows… we need them… all of them- the economy cannot survive without them.
The DREAM is a great idea… how can you blame someone for the choices their parents made? And if you go back to the situation that their parents were in, how could you blame the parents for making the choices they made.
What are you going to do, wait for proper papers and starve and possibly die while you do, or do something about it, anything you can.
I doubt any of you would allow your children starve… if you would you’re all cowards. Figure it out people.
If the person is accomplishing something positive and contributing to our country by getting an education and trying to be successful, the family should be allowed to stay. On the other hand, if they are simply committing crimes and using up health care and welfare, they should get the boot. Pretty simple!
Hi Jade,
Just for the record, if you are undocumented you do not qualify for Welfare, nor do you qualify for many health care programs. In addition, many undocumented people who have children that are US citizens and who do qualify for Welfare (or other types of government assistance) do not even apply out of fear that they will be deported. So, many children who can legally collect or receive benefits do not out of fear that the parents will be reported to ICE and deported.
The idea that undocumented people collect and abuse Welfare is a HUGE misconception.
But, other than clearing that up, I agree with you.
To the ones who hate and discreminate:
you possess an unhealthy mind, and it shows the moment you open your mouths; you can heal.
To the supporters of anti-immigration laws:
most of you are just natural complainers because you live miserable lives. More than likely you are ambitious and money means everything to you, but you lack true virtue. leave it to the politicians or become one yourself.
To the ones who pursue the well being of their loved ones:
1)do the research= educate your selves; of course is not easy to attend college
2)work hard=strive to become a master of your craft
3)as humans we need to acknowledge the fact that there’s a supreme divine force=embrace God.
Thank you for this article. I am glad to hear someone of Asian descent say it is not a “Mexican” thing. There are nearly 2 million undocumented Asians living in the U.S., yet I don’t see as many people within the Asian community stepping up and protesting. We need both the Latino and Asian communities to fight for comprehensive immigration reform. I do not think it is fair for Latinos to be the ones fighting for their rights and taking the heat while Asians wait on the sidelines. The DREAM ACT and all the other acts for legalization will benefit Asians also, so they need to step up to the plate and be out there protesting for immigration reform.
Anyone ever tried emigrating to India. Cant be done. Yet these people, escaping from the slum of India and its corruption, have the affront to criticize Western countries that dont want their culture and infrastructure to be overrun by the most prejudice and work shy people in the world. Dont be sucked in by the degrees (many not worth the paper they are on) or by the funds they use to buy Green Cards (how did they get the money, how many people went hungry?). Remember that for each one legal immigrant from Asia, you get the mother, the father, brothers, sisters, children then all of their relatives, like a pyramid that has no bottom. Eventually the USA will be swamped with these people, and many will be using up any social services, any schooling etc. while they turn neighborhoods into slums and push drugs etc. Canada, UK, Australia, UAE and many other countries have experienced this. Why cant we learn from them.