Somewhere in Athens, Georgia exists a university within a university, aptly called Freedom University. The teachers are volunteers and the students are undocumented immigrants who’ve been shut out by the Georgia Board of Regents policy, which forbids undocumented students from attending five of its top public universities.
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Once again, people are excluded based on something as arbitrary as the side of a man-made border on which they were born. Access to resources is given solely on the basis of membership to this elusive club called U.S. citizenry, but is this ethical? Absolutely not.
There are those who would question why these undocumented students haven’t taken the steps to become legal. What they don’t understand is that finances, or lack thereof, are usually what precludes person from pursing the “legal” route. Just think about it — the people who are most likely to be in search of a better life in the USA are probably the least likely to be able to afford it.
Furthermore, a person who’s risked it all to come to the USA in search of a better life would be hesitant to risk it all to go through the process when they know they will likely be sent back. Once you go from legal to illegal status, or if you were never legal in the first place, you will often have to go back to your original country to “get right.” People do not want to risk this consequence for a variety of reasons, including things like having children or other family who are already legally established in the US.
The Georgia Board of Regents maintains that the restriction on undocumented students is in place to ensure that qualified documented (legal) students are not bumped by undocumented students. I understand the desire to maintain some level of equity, but aren’t academic requirements in place to ensure the most qualified students are admitted? How is the university made better by bumping the most academically qualified student (regardless of immigration status)?
I truly believe that people who question why undocumented immigrants aren’t pursuing legal immigration status aren’t considering the financial aspect of what they are suggesting. And what of the many people who were brought to the country as children of one or two years old — well below the age of consent? These children were raised to adulthood in the US and for all practical purposes they are American, save the paperwork. Practically speaking, they are foreigners in their country of birth as well as in the USA — caught between two worlds with no place to call “home.” To make matters worse, many of these undocumented immigrants are eventually deported and forced to live as foreigners in their home country.
When you’ve had the opportunity to sit on the other side of a border that a person doesn’t want to be on, and talk to them about how they were brought to the USA at 2 or 3 or 4 years old and then deported in their twenties, it changes things — changes the way I see this issue anyway. There are no easy answers…
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