You are here: Home / Archives for Education

America Needs A DREAM

October 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The problem with the immigration debate in this country these past several years has been the discussion is taking place on two different levels.

1) Immigration is bad for AmericaAmerica Needs a DREAM
2) Immigrants are people and deserve rights

Because our national discussion is happening on two different levels, it will just go around and around in circles, never really getting anywhere, until we start having the same discussion. It’s true that immigrants should be given equal rights in this country, but we need to defend our position on the same grounds we are being attacked.

Check out “America Needs A DREAM” for FREE in Amazon lenders library!

I have written an ebook that focuses on responding to the arguments the anti-immigration movement dishes out. We need to be talking about how immigrants are beneficial to the US, and how badly we need to correct the laws that are currently not serving our best interests.

w/ bonus Interactive DREAM Act Discussion Guides

In the back of the book are a few interactive discussion guides that will help keep this discussion on the same page and take away the arguments that the anti-immigration movement would like us to believe are truths. They are not, and I include links to studies and articles that back up these arguments, taking the wind right out of their sails, and exposing the lies.

Please go to Amazon.com and buy America Needs A DREAM, or, if you have an Amazon Prime account, you can check out the book for free. The interactive discussion guides in the back is well worth the $1.95 all by itself.

Don’t forget to sign up for my mailing list to be notified on important the Dishwasher’s Son events.

We all need to dig in and let our politicians know what we want them to do, and why they need to be doing it. Until we make this crystal clear, we are going to be living this debate indefinitely.

Mike J. Quinn
Author
America Needs A DREAM
The Dishwasher’s Son
Filed Under: DREAM Act, Education, Free eBooks, Immigration Debate, Immigration reform, Laws, Military, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

The DREAM Act and Students

July 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The DREAM Act has a lot to offer students who were brought to the United States as children. It has even more to offer the US.

The United States’ college and university system attracts some of the best students from all over the world. A college diploma from a US private college or state university is built on cutting edge information, making it extremely valuable.

Aside from the education they receive, students will often intern at companies within their fields of study, gaining practical experience in their industry. This marriage of education and experience makes them exceptional candidates for the workforce and creates some of the most sought after graduates on the planet.

If that weren’t enough of an incentive to come to the United States to study, we also have a vibrant community of investors who are always looking for the next big thing. Large complexes of specialized industries are often set up near colleges and universities that are known for excellence in a specific field.

Combine all these elements into one localized and easy to access area, and we have created a very nurturing environment for product and company creation. This also enables young startups to hire talented people and speed their product to market.

Silicon Valley is just one example of such an environment. When you combine Stanford University with Hewlitt-Packard, Apple Computer, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Intel and Sand Hill Road, you can see how such an ecosystem functions with amazing speed and strength. It’s no wonder that other parts of the nation have created industrial ecosystems surrounding their educational institutions as well.

So, it is with good reason many people come here from around the world to study and increase their chances for a good life. If we make it a priority to send these educated and talented people back home when their student visas expire, investors will be reluctant to pump money into a future product or company, knowing all of their investment in time and money will be going back home with them. The venture capitol community will not want to see their dollars exported to other countries with little hope of recouping their investments. This means less money will be put into work in our country to produce products and jobs, and our many micro economies scattered across our nation will feel this effect. Add to this misery the creation of a highly competent competitor in another nation, and the recipe for our economic success is dubious.

Since we are the ones who trained the student and gave them access to our considerable knowledge-base and investment resources, shouldn’t we be the ones who benefit from this ecosystem as well? Could you imagine what our national impact on technology would be like if we deported Sergey Brin of Google? Andy Grove of Intel? Andreas von Bechtolsheim and Vinod Khosla, co-founders of Sun Microsystems? Just those four (and there are many, many more) would have changed the face of our nation incredibly. Four people. That’s all it would take to create monstrous competitors in other countries, and if some people were to have their way, it would become policy to send these kids home when their studies were completed.

Throughout American history we have taken in immigrants, making it one of our national heritages. College graduates could easily be considered some of the best human capitol other countries are producing. How could we not want them?

When a company has a highly prized product or commodity, they are usually quick to take advantage of all the benefits it can bring them. Our educational system is one of our nations most prized institutions. We should be capitalizing on this resource and exploiting it’s potential for generating wealth and jobs inside our country. This is not a zero-sum gain. We need all the help we can get to stay competitive and financially strong. Are we so afraid of internal competition that we will purposely reduce our talent pool at the expense of raising our competitor’s? If we would we be so willing to export one of our greatest national resources to other nations, we might as well raise a flag of surrender right now and crown some other country as the new “Alpha” dog, and watch their strength and influence grow. They will obviously want it more than we do.

Our American can-do attitude got us where we are today: the world’s greatest innovator and financial powerhouse. If we are to stop our decline and stay ahead of increasing global competition, we will need to dig deep into our national strengths and step-up our competitive game, not export our resources and step-it-down.

For more information on how the DREAM Act will benefit our nation, read my new book, “America Needs A DREAM.”

Filed Under: DREAM Act, Education Tagged With: ,

History of the DREAM Act in two minutes

June 29, 2012 by 7 Comments

The Dream Act has been circulating in Congress for over a decade. It began on April 25, 2001 by Representative Luis Gutiérrez and was called the “Immigrant Children’s Educational Advancement and Dropout Prevention Act of 2001. It was a compromise to all the comprehensive immigration reform bills that failed to get through Congress in the decade and a half since Reagan’s landmark immigration reform bill in 1986. What President Reagan was able to pass through Congress was itself a small part of the comprehensive immigration reforms being batted around Congress during the previous two decades.

We have a long history in ignoring legislation for one of our largest economic engines.

In 2008, after failing several times to get the backing of Congress, Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, announced she would work with the authors of the DREAM Act to add some language that would make it more palatable for Republicans to vote for.

This DREAM Act (v2.0) was then reintroduced to Congress, trimmed again by Republican lawmakers, making it more restrictive for who is eligible and excluding some of the benefits they would receive. The DREAM Act v2.0 still failed to pass a vote in 2009, even with a Republican co-author.

Back to the drawing board it went and Republicans got to water it down some more and make it even more exclusive by adding background checks, biometric data, specifying specific crimes that would make some candidates ineligible, and more. Surely this Dream Act (v3.0) would sail through Congress.

Wrong again. The Republicans, who were in the minority used filibusters twice, to overcome the majority Democratic vote. This means that no matter if the Republicans were the majority or the minority, they could effectively control the Senate.

The backers of the DREAM Act refused to let it die, and as the bill went through its most recent changes in 2011, it had been stripped of many of the benefits that had been designed to encourage the best and brightest of our undocumented citizens to stay and participate in making this country better and safer.

We all know this latest version of the DREAM Act (v 4.0) is still too generous for the Republicans to sign off on. It appears Conservative Republicans are proving to be the greatest obstacle to getting any bill through Congress that will legalize our currently undocumented citizens, and have been for half a century.

It should be noted that in 1798 the Republican party was among the first class of people to be purposely excluded in our first immigration laws. Apparently politics has a very short memory. The Republicans are trying to put the blame on President Obama for not having passed the DREAM Act when the Democrats were in the majority of the Senate. They would like you to forget all about their filibusters. It appears they already have.

Filed Under: DREAM Act, Education, immigrants, Laws, Politics Tagged With:

The Republicans vs the DREAM Act

June 23, 2012 by 10 Comments

The Republicans have been trying to defeat The DREAM Act since it first started circulating Congress in 2001. This bill was created as a compromise to all the comprehensive immigration reform bills that failed to get through congress in the decades after President Reagan’s landmark immigration reform bill in 1986. In 2008, after failing to get the backing of Congress several times, a Republican, Kay Bailey Hutchison, announced she would work with the authors of the DREAM Act to add some language that would make it more palatable for the GOP to buy-off on.

 

This DREAM  Act 2.0 was then re-introduced to congress. You would think this version would have been a slam dunk, as Republicans got to put their fingerprints all over it by making it more restrictive on who is eligible and excluding some of the benefits it bestowed upon those who qualified, but even after being able to amend the Dream Act and make it more restrictive, that still wasn’t good enough. The DREAM Act v2.0 failed to pass a vote in 2009.

 

Back to the drawing board and Republicans got to water it down some more and make it even more exclusive by adding background checks, biometric data, specifying specific crimes that would make some candidates ineligible, and more. Surely this DREAM Act would sail through Congress.

 

Wrong again. Just as the DREAM Act went through its last changes in 2011 and had been stripped of many of it’s benefits that had been designed to encourage the best and brightest of our undocumented citizens to stay and participate in making this country better and safer, the Republicans were proving to be an increasingly negative obstacle.Their best effort for trying to evade the issue has been ” self deportation.”

 

Stopping President Obama from accomplishing anything in his first term appears to have become their primary objective. Most of the initiatives the President put forward have been stalled by the Republicans. The only DREAM Act the Republicans seem to have been working on was a one term Democratic President.

 

Now that the Republicans have watered down the DREAM Act into something more likely to be called a SHORT NAP Act, they continue to vote it down and deny the Democrats (and Americans) another victory. And guess what? Along comes a Republican with a NEW idea!

 

He hasn’t said what it is, but his new DAYDREAM Act will surely have what it takes to get Republican support in Congress. This time it will have one thing that the other three versions didn’t: a Republican author. (Those blasted Democrats are always getting in the way.)

 

But what about history repeating itself you may ask? I have been wondering too. I don’t think this version of the DAYDREAM Act will pass either. Just think of all the years of effort and compromise the Democrats– and some Republicans went though in order to appease the stalwart ultra-conservative Republicans. Do you think the Democrats will vote for this version whenever it gets revealed?

 

Me neither, and I also think that’s just what the Republicans want. This way they will have an excuse to blame the Democrats for this stalemate.

 

The DREAM Act as it stands right now has been crafted by both Democrats and Republicans. If that won’t help it pass through Congress, I don’t think anything will.

 

Some Republicans liken the latest, most stripped down version of the DREAM Act as “back door amnesty.” I urge you to read the article below on the DREAM Act and what it really says about the bill, in it’s latest version. How could any sane person see this as a gift that will be used against us by masses of undeserving people? It is so restrictive and sets the bar so high for those to qualify, and STILL doesn’t guarantee anyone citizenship –just the opportunity to apply for it– AND only the best of the best will qualify.  Smart, ambitious, strong, sacrificing. Who wouldn’t want these fine young people to be a part of their nation?

 

Yet the DREAM Act is still is not good enough for our Republican Ultra-conservative Congressmen, who have forgotten they work for us. Somewhere along the way, these elected officials began to fill themselves with themselves and I don’t think there’s anything other than themselves they are capable of thinking about. If you were to ask Congress what was the best solution to our immigration woes for the good of the country, do you think you would get a truthful reply? I don’t think they’ve even thought about it in that context.

 

After you read the article below, I urge you to let Congress know how you feel. I left a link to their contact info too. And let’s not forget about the House of Representatives.

 

Any logical person would come to the conclusion that if they can’t pass a law that has been eleven years in the making with help from both Republicans and Democrats, then they are incompetent of doing so. What happens to you or I when our bosses think we can no longer do our jobs? Yep, we get fired.

 

Congress, you are on notice.

 

Give something for the President to sign or you will not be invited back, and the people who will be filling your current positions will know that the same fate will apply to them, but instead of having eleven years to get something done, they will have just one term, or the rest of their current term to get the job done. We need people in our government who can play nicely with each other and help solve our nations problems. Jokers, posers and frauds need not apply.

 

Mike J Quinn is an American citizen with a Multi-national family and has managed restaurants for over 25 years. Currently he is working to unify his family in the United States in an increasingly difficult and hostile environment. He is also the Author of “The Dishwasher’s Son” an upcoming novel about an American teenager and local Arizona Minuteman volunteer who gets accidentally deported along with his co-workers and must sneak back into his own country using the same methods he defends against with his Minuteman unit. Along the way he must learn to deal with the Mexican heritage he has denied his whole life.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act

 

http://www.dreamactivist.org/text-of-dream-act-legislation/

 

http://www.house.gov/representatives/

 

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Filed Under: DREAM Act, Education, immigrants, Laws, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

We still need a DREAM Act

June 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The DREAM Act has not been magically approved by President Obama. He does not have the power to create laws all by himself, no matter what the hyper-conservative pundits keep trying to say. Unfortunately we have a small portion of our population who do not want the US to change from a white ruled country, and they are doing everything they can to stir up as much fear as possible to mobilize the uninformed to do their bidding.

I can’t believe the enraged articles I have read about the supposed passing of the DREAM Act. These small groups must speak very loudly to be heard, and you can read all about how small their groups really are.

Doing a search on DREAM Act- news, returns 112,000 results. scanning the first page I see 23 articles on the DREAM Act. Reading them all I noted there were:
15 unbiased news articles,
5 pro DREAM Act articles,
and exactly 3 anti-immigration rants.

I believe in freedom of speech, and I believe that very few countries actually have it available to them. To me, working hard against anything like the DREAM Act, that is so fundamentally American, and would be economically and socially good for our country, is the most Un-American activity a citizen could possibly do, aside from terrorism.

Filed Under: DREAM Act, Education, immigrants, Laws, Politics Tagged With:

America without the DREAM Act

June 7, 2012 by 1 Comment

The DREAM Act will help us grow as a nation much faster than choking off the supply of fresh new talent into our workforce. Americans are being sold a line of baloney that says America would be better off with less immigrants. The problem with that argument is there is centuries of proof that shows the opposite. This video demonstrates that point perfectly. Click on the following link if you cannot see the CNN Video with Fareed Zakaria

Filed Under: DREAM Act, Economy, Education, Employment, immigrants, Immigration's effects on citizens Tagged With: , , ,

The GOP is Dreaming Act

May 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

 

The Dream Act has been in circulation in Congress since 2001. It was created as a compromise to all the comprehensive immigration reform bills that failed to get through congress in the decades after Regan’s landmark immigration reform bill that squeeked by in 1986. In 2008, after failing to get the backing of Congress several times, a Republican, Kay Bailey Hutchison, announced she would work with the authors of the Dream Act to add some language that would make it more palatable for Republicans to buy-off on.

 

This Dream  Act 2.0 was then re-introduced to congress. You would think this version would have been a slam dunk, as Republicans got to put their fingerprints all over it by making it more restrictive on who is eligible and excluding some of the benefits it bestowed upon those who qualified, but wouldn’t you know it? Even after being able to amend the Dream Act, and turn it into a more restrictive measure for keeping the best immigrants residing under the radar with us today, that still wasn’t good enough. The Dream Act v2.0 failed to pass a vote in 2009.

 

Back to the drawing board and Republicans got to water it down some more and make it even more exclusive by adding background checks, biometric data, specifying specific crimes that would make some candidates ineligible, and more. Surely this Dream Act would sail through Congress.

 

Nope. Just as the Dream Act went through its last changes in 2011 and had been stripped of many of it’s benefits that were designed to encourage the best and brightest of our undocumented citizens to stay and participate in making this country better and safer, the Republicans were getting crankier and more power-drunk.  Stopping President Obama from accomplishing anything in his first term appears to have been their primary objective. The only Dream Act the Republicans were working on was a one term Democratic President.

 

Now that the Republicans have watered down the Dream Act into something more likely to be called a Short Nap Act, they get to vote it down and deny the Democrats another Victory. And guess what? Along comes a Republican with a NEW idea!

 

He hasn’t said what it is, but his new Dream Act Lite will surely have what it takes to get Republican support in Congress. This time it will have one thing that the other three versions didn’t; a Republican author. (It was those blasted Democrats that kept getting in the way.)

But what about history repeating itself you may ask? Yep, I have been wondering too. I don’t think this version of the Daydream Act will pass either. Just think of all the years of effort and compromise the Democrats went though in order to appease the Republicans. Do you think the Democrats will vote for this version whenever it gets revealed?

 

Me neither, and I also think that’s just what the Republicans want. That way, they have an excuse to blame the Democrats for this stalemate.

 

This bill has been modified and tabled so many times it should be called the, “Nightmare on ‘C’  Street.”

 

The Dream Act as it stands right now has been crafted by both Democrats and Republicans. If that won’t help it pass through Congress, nothing will.

 

Some Republicans liken the latest, most stripped down version of the Dream Act as “back door amnesty.” I urge you to read the article below on the Dream Act and what it really says about the bill at is stands today. How could any sane person see this as a gift that will be used against us by masses of undeserving people? It is so restrictive and sets the bar so high for those to qualify, and STILL doesn’t guarantee anyone citizenship –just the opportunity to apply for it– AND only the best of the best will qualify.  Smart, ambitious, strong, sacrificing. Who wouldn’t want these fine young people to be a part of their nation? Yet this still is not good enough for our Republican Ultra-conservative Congressmen, who have forgotten they work for us. Somewhere along the way, these elected officials began to fill themselves with themselves and I don’t think there’s anything other than themselves they are capable of thinking about. If you were to ask Congress what was the best solution for the good of the country, do you think you would get a truthful reply? I don’t think they’ve even thought about it in that context.

 

After you read the article below, I urge you to let Congress know how you feel. I left a link to their contact info too. And let’s not forget about the House of Representatives.

 

Any logical person would come to the conclusion that if they can’t pass a law that has been eleven years in the making with help from both sides of the fence, then they are incompetent of doing so, and you know what happens to you or I when our bosses think we can no longer do our jobs? Yep, we get fired.

 

Congress, you are on notice.

 

Give  the President a decent immigration bill to sign or you will not be invited back, and the people who will be filling your current positions will know that the same fate will apply to them– with one major difference: instead of having eleven years to get something done, they will have just one term. We need people in our government who can play nicely with each other and help solve our nations problems. Jokers, posers and frauds need not apply.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act

http://www.dreamactivist.org/text-of-dream-act-legislation/

http://www.house.gov/representatives/

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Filed Under: DREAM Act, Education, Ethics, immigrants, Laws, Politics

Illegal immigrants won’t assimilate into our culture

May 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Hate speech often shows up in the form of a supposedly logical argument. Sometimes, like the following, it is just plain racist.

 

illegal immigrants arriving in this country in large numbers won’t be unable to effectively assimilate into our society-  

There are many variants to this theme such as, “they make us conform to them instead of them conforming to us” and “why should we have to learn their language, they should have to learn english” and “if I went to their country they’d make me learn spanish” and on and on.

 

This is really code for- “So many foreigners will come here they will take over our country.”

This has been an ongoing theme in the United States for well over a hundred years and is a driving force in the argument against immigration. Although a majority of white’s do not subscribe to this belief, this is a purely white myth, used to stir up other white’s into taking action in order to keep this country a white ruled U.S.A. It’s called protectionism and the white people who use this phrase are trying to protect our nation from the threat of mongrelization that they feel will occur once the throngs of immigrants get here, breed and take over their country. Then it won’t be the good ol’ white United States of America any more. Paranoid much?

 

How to combat this-  Whenever you read or hear this, you will know the people communicating this are acting out of fear of people who are not like them. This is a wholly racist argument and talking rationally with these people is pointless. You can point out that this hasn’t happened throughout the entire history of the United States, even after several rounds of immigrant recruitment drives* in our past, but it won’t stop them from continuing to say or write it. The only good you can do when you confront someone like this is purely for the benefit of anyone else who hears it. Giving other listeners a more intelligent and rational point of view so they won’t be left with just that one misguided opinion is a worthy cause. It also counters the effect of not saying anything and making it appear that that phrase is unchallenged and therefore correct by default.

 

For more information see the report on assimilation of immigrants.

 

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/11/assimilation_tomorrow.html

 

* Immigrant recruitment in U.S. history

Americans from the industrializing Northeast pursued their recruitment policy even more vigorously after independence in 1776, seeking to lift European barriers to exit that were commonplace at that time. After independence, the new republic campaigned vigorously in the name of freedom to bring about an “exit revolution” throughout Europe.

 

From the 1830s on, railroad and shipping companies actively promoted emigration from northern Europe, and, in many cases, the multiplying US consulates functioned in effect as labor-recruiting and land-selling agencies, eventually reaching all the way to remote Norway. Simultaneously, American entrepreneurs enticed newcomers from across Western Europe by way of private missions.

 

These are just a couple of examples of the U.S. aggressively recruiting immigrants in our history.

 

Source: http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=401

Filed Under: Assimilation, Education, Hate, immigrants, Immigration Myths, Immigration's effects on citizens

Illegal immigrants make us pay to educate their kids

May 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Why should we pay to educate their kids- 

This really means: undocumented immigrants don’t deserve to have their children benefit from our educational system– they’re not good enough.

How to respond-

Would you rather a bunch of kids grow up next door to you, being really stupid and unemployable, whose only recourse would be to really live off the taxpayer or drive up the crime rate? If that doesn’t shut them up, do you need the aggravation of continuing this argument? Besides, although schools do not collect immigration data it is noted that the overwhelming majority of children in K-12 are American Citizens due largely to the fact that immigrants don’t often bring families across the border due to the hazards and dangers of the process. Most children of undocumented immigrants are born here in the United States and are therefore U.S. Citizens. They have every right to be educated here just like every other U.S. Citizen.

Filed Under: Education, Hate, immigrants, Immigration Myths, Immigration's effects on citizens

Illegal immigrants make us teach spanish in our schools

May 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

They make us teach spanish in our schools- 

What this means is they really don’t know what they are talking about. This is more ignorance than hate, although hateful people use this as an argument to try to add to the credibility of their position. How this all came about is they either overheard it from a friend or walked by a classroom and heard the teacher teaching in Spanish.

How to respond-

Quite frankly I too was a little miffed when I walked past my son’s classroom and heard the teacher of another class speaking spanish. It wasn’t until much later that I learned they only do that for a few years, while they teach them english. If you’ve ever taken a foreign language you know they ALWAYS use your language as a basis for communication. If you walked into a french class and the teacher refused to speak english, you would learn french much more slowly, especially when you got tired and frustrated at not understanding very much of what was going on and were getting poor grades because of it. They aren’t teaching spanish as much as using spanish to teach them english.

They may counter with the argument, “We shouldn’t have to spend money to hire bi-lingual teachers to teach them english.”

Answer: A bi-lingual teacher costs the same as an english only speaking teacher, but now you are helping an immigrant learn english, which is really what you want in the first place– less spanish speaking people in the United States.

If they won’t stop there, then move along. You just shot down one of their favorite arguments and now they’re going to hit you with all the other ones until your ears bleed.

Filed Under: Education, Hate, immigrants, Immigration Myths, Immigration's effects on citizens