I remember the first day of school when Mrs. Peluso was talking about blogging. I had no idea, at first I was thinking about dropping the class. At the beginning I thought it was very difficult, and I did not want to lower my G.P.A. After she went over it a few times, and posted my first blog my anxiety level was down. She gave me a good feedback in her comment, then I became very confident while writing those blogs. I could not believe it that other people are reading our blogs. I was so surprised to receive a comment from someone in Canada.
In this short period of eight weeks , I had learned a lot . Wow , it is almost over, I hope I will have some time to keep posting regularly. Over all, it was a good experience.

Yesterday when I came back from work, I was watching on the news about some measures taken by Prince William County regarding visitor I.D system at all public schools. Anyone who wishes to visit should present an official I.D. The school would scan the bar code to verify all information about the person. Once cleared by the database maintain by the county, a printout sticker will be given including the visitor’s name and picture, as well as the school. The intent is to make sure all visitors are accounted for and also to keep the school safe.
From the Manassas Journal:
Visitors can show any government-issued identification card, school division spokesperson Irene Cromer said. The ID card could be issued by the United States government or the government of another country, she said
http://virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/demand-pwc-schools-only-accept-us-issued-id/
Most parents seem to support such decision by the county. At the same time, a few Spanish-speaking parents are concerned and believed that their personal information would be shared with the immigration service. As a result, to quote one of them: “I am not going to send my children to school”. Now, what can we do to help those people understand that verifying identification is good for children safety?

A few days ago, I was talking about my topic “Immigration” to one of my classmate and said that she’s tired of hearing about immigration. I do not blame her; the reason is that most people who are talking about immigrants are not expressing it in a positive way. Most of the time they are referring to illegal immigrants. I would like to make clear that not every immigrant is illegal; most of them follow the required legal process. As we may know, “ immigration is at one of its historic highs: Counting undocumented (“illegal”) immigrants, well over 2 million people a year come to the United states, and, compared with past immigrants, far fewer of them ever leave. In fact immigration now counts for 37 percent of the country’s population growth”. (A multicultural portrait of immigration: Petra Press, 1996).
Some U.S. citizens believe that all immigrants have become a serious threat to this country and would like to see it stopped. They are saying that immigrants represent a load to our tax dollar because they crowd our public schools; increase welfare checks, etc…Right now, illegal immigration is one of the most obvious problem. Is there a problem with the current system? What can they do to solve this problem? One of the solution could be to control traffic on all of the borders and enforce the laws to punish employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. It might work, you never know.

Like I said before I am an immigrant, that one of the reason I choose to write a few blogs on immigration. I have been in the United States for eight years. I tried to understand the American system to make my life easier. First of all I had to learning English. When I had any appointment especially pre-natal at the Hospital, my husband had to leave work to accompany me. I am not trying to generalize it, but not too many Haitian live here, so there was no one to translate for me. I have three children, all three of them used to go to Minnieland Day care. It cost me a lot. Finally I decided to use a baby sitter as they start going to school. Most of the time, I am referring to Spanish, because I meet a lot of them at work and I have a chance to talk to them a lot than other nationality, besides African. I am very thankful to those Spanish baby sitters who are helping with my children; only my husband is able to communicate with them. Out of four, only one can speak English, this is a reality. I am trying to encourage them to learn so English at least to defend themselves. My nephew went to a Catholic school, one day the director of that school had to call my sister to have a meeting to find out how come, my nephew was born here, and he had a heavy accent and they had a hard time to understand him. She even told my sister, if he still the same he will have to take more English classes. In this example, I am trying to point out one of the problems as an immigrant we are facing.

Many people come to the United States for different reasons such as freedom of religion, good fortune or to find a refuge. They are called refugees because they are forced to leave their homeland to escape persecution or dangers of war, natural disaster or political asylum. They do not feel safe wherever they were living therefore they are seeking protection and shelter in the United States.

For example, in my country Haiti, we had experienced many dictatorships; still today people are trying to leave the country to go somewhere else. Some people may be granted a visa before they settle here they usually hired a lawyer to help them upgrade their status trough the INS. The process is long and may take years. Sometimes it is really sad to see someone not able to go and paid respect to their love one when they have a death in their family.
A large number of Haitians, for emample, are escaping by boat in hope of a better life. They are generally sent back to Haiti.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/02/25/haiti.revolt/

Refugees

Birth rate

Immigration attracts everyone’s attention. Today many people are concerned about the high increase of the immigrant population. Among all the ethnic group, Hispanic is the fastest growing one. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2001), in the year 2000, “the number of people of Hispanic or Latino descent in the United States topped 35 million (12.5 percent of the population), surpassing the number of African American (12.3) and 3.6 percent or Asian Americans “. This makes Hispanics the largest community in America. From a cultural point of view, many Spanish-speaking immigrants believe that children constitute an economic asset; this explains why they have a high birth rate. Now how should we approach this problem? They start having children at a very early age and they do not use birth control. They believe that having children is about the same as social security. Their children would be able to care for them later in their lives.
Back Talk: Fertility Rates, Out-of-Wedlock Birthrates, and Immigration

I understand why many people are worried; such an increase of the population will strain the limited resources available. For example, in many part of the country there is a demand for more schools, hospitals, social workers, and along with that an increase in the food stamp line. All of this provokes budget shortages in many states.
WorldNetDaily: 'Family values' won't get help from immigration