Gallegly on School Funding

In Elton Gallegly’s April 4 Column Right (“No School for Children Here Illegally”), the Republican congressman from Ventura County seeks to enact congressional policy to exclude illegal immigrant children from California schools.

“Just because someone has succeeded in breaking into your house, that does not entitle him to a seat by the fireplace, a warm meal, and a good night’s sleep,” Gallegly argues. I find this colorful analogy particularly ironic.

The parents of these “illegal” children are already in our homes: We entrust them with our young and with cooking our warm meals, and at shamefully low wages. These “lawless” people help to build our homes and harvest our food (in Ventura County). These hard-working domestics, agricultural workers, laborers in textiles, building trades and countless other sectors of our economy are counted on to keep prices down and inflation in check. Gallegly would deny these children their only hope for a decent future: education. By punishing children for the “sins” of their parents, he has taken our most noble and prophetic impulse, concern for all our children, and reduced it to a base and fallacious argument of dollars and cents.

EDWARD MARKARIAN

Van Nuys

Gallegly’s column was very well timed. A headline the very next day read “State Test Finds Students Lagging.” Hopefully, Californias will see the correlation.

The reason why our students lag so miserably in reading, writing and math is directly related to the tremendous number of illegal immigrant children attending our schools. The classrooms are overcrowed. The statistics are astounding: 56% of fourth-graders, 38% of eighth-graders and 36% of 10th-graders do not speak English. Our teachers are overburdened with an impossible task.

N. McBETH

Rancho Cucamonga

In Gallegly’s mean-spirited piece, he claims “when facts fail, it is ‘race’ that rises.” Here are some facts that he ignores. Fact: Immigrants pay taxes, whether they are here legally or not. Fact: Many of their tax dollars, such as Social Security, will never help them. Fact: Immigrant children grow up as Americans, whether we call them that or not. They speak English, play baseball, watch TV, work hard, go to college and raise families. And they will pay taxes all their lives. I know. I’m one of them.

Fact: Denying an education to undocumented children will not send them home. I know. I’ve visited their home countries. I’ve seen the poverty they are escaping. Gallegly’s plan would create a class of poorly educated, low-skilled Americans.

It amazes me how little value some people place on education.

MIGUEL MUNOZ

Pasadena