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Different versions of this e-mail state that the forwarder received it from a friend of mine who is a professor at a school in Florida, from my sister who is a teacher in Oregon, and from a teacher classmate working in California. The above-quoted item is yet another anti-immigrant screed chock full of inaccurate and misleading information, which we'll attempt to tackle here point by point: Right away this piece jumps the track by making the common mistake of tacitly equating non-citizen with illegal immigrant and suggesting that anyone who is not a U.S. citizen contributes nothing and should not be entitled to any government-provided benefits or services. There are many classes of persons (e.g., immigrants who have obtained permanent residency status, political refugees, guest workers, foreign students) who are not U.S. citizens but nonetheless are in the United States legally, are gainfully employed, pay taxes, are subject to the same laws as everyone else, and are entitled to (at least some of) the same governmental benefits and services provided to citizens. Federal educational grants and loans such as the Pell Grant are available only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents; they are not available to illegal aliens or other non-immigrants who are in the United States legally but temporarily. The money provided by a Pell Grant is based on need (i.e., recipients don't all receive the same amount). The maximum Pell Grant is currently $4,310.00 per year — although it might be possible, it's difficult to imagine that anyone could cover all her school and living expenses for a year on that amount and still have money left over, even with subsidized housing. CARIBE (Career Recruitment and Instruction in Basic English), which is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is a program aimed at helping refugees obtain basic fluency in English and enter the U.S. workforce. It is not a college-related program, it is not provided to all immigrants (only refugees), and it is not available to persons who have obtained permanent residency status through other means. WAIT (Why Am I Tempted) training appears to be a program for delivering key health and youth development messages to middle school and high school students that has nothing to do with adult or college education or providing credit cards to immigrants. If this hypothetical Dominican student is a Pell Grant recipient but not a U.S. citizen, then she must be a permanent resident of the United States. That means she and her U.S.-resident family members are required to pay taxes on their worldwide income, and she therefore is not getting a free ride by availing herself of taxpayer-funded programs provided to citizens and legal residents. All foreign-born permanent residents of the United States have the option of returning to live in their countries of origin if they so choose. However, those who do so (other than temporarily) lose U.S. permanent residency status and have to go to the end of the line to regain it (and there are no guarantees that it will be granted again). Again, this is misleading rhetoric which unfairly and inaccurately implies that all non-citizens and foreign-born persons don't work, don't pay taxes, have no responsibility for following any rules, and are getting their living expenses and educations paid for by preferential programs not available to U.S. citizens. Permanent residents who qualify for federal educational assistance still have to support themselves, still have to pay taxes, still have to obey U.S. laws and other regulations, and are eligible for programs that are also available to U.S. citizens. Furthermore, it's curious and contradictory that the writer is demanding that foreign-born residents LEARN THE LANGUAGE while simultaneously decrying programs (such as CARIBE) created to help accomplish that very goal.
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