Resposne to a post editorial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301528.html

 

Dear Mr. Vlanton,

 

I read your editorial in the post today and really appreciated the light you shed on the millions children who are far too often ignored on this topic of immigration reform. But I think what you propose is too ideal and too harsh.

 

But however many people are eventually able to gain legal status, there is one thing that should be required for all seeking to make a new life in this country: education. It is a matter to which Congress has thus far paid little attention.

 

Any new immigration bill should require that all immigrants 25 or younger, before qualifying for permanent resident status, graduate from high school or earn a GED.

 

Like you, I strongly believe that education is the key to success. It is something my parents have always stressed to me. But I also look at my parents story and believe it was an impossibility. My mother and father and my father's two older sisters and younger brother all arrived in the US as Immigrants from Vietnam in 1981. My oldest aunt was 25 at the time, my mother and father both 20 and my uncle, 17. They had lied about my uncle's age to the immigration officials to make him eligible for high school. My father was also eligible for high school, but the administration had denied him the right because of his lack of English speaking ability. I was born six months after their arrival, and so he had no choice, but to make money to support his family and his younger brother. My mom took a few English courses to be able to read and write, but she too had to get a job.

 

Education, even free education is a luxury for the immigrants that arrive in this country with nothing more then the change in their pocket. I don't disagree that there should be more programs and legislation to help immigrants obtain a high school degree or GED, but I do disagree that it should be a requirement to become a citizen.

 

Eventually my Uncle went on to BU on a full scholarship to get his masters in education. My Mother and Father and Aunts all took the US citizenship exams and passed the requirements to be able to say the Pledge of Allegiance in historic Fanuiel Hall.

 

What made their journey successful is their desire to achieve a better life, which is a unifying value all immigrants have. They want a better and safer life for their children and their children's children. The Regulations congress comes up with in the coming months will have a strong affect on the fabric of this country and what it means to millions of people. I'm not saying make the process easier, but I say approach immigrants with more compassion and less as problems who need to be assimilated, reeducated, and fenced out like rodents.