(gentle music)
- [Wendy] Public education is really important for all of us
because it makes sure that access to a basic education
is not a privilege of the few,
but is actually available to all children in our society.
- [Carola] Every child is a resource,
and our role as educators
is to try to help them flourish
and become the best human beings they can be.
- [Wendy] When we invest in our kids,
when we invest in their education,
we help make them better workers in the future,
and that helps their future productivity
and in our future prosperity.
- [Carola] What we want is every person
to do the best they can and to learn to collaborate
with one another and see themselves
working towards a shared fate as the nation,
whether we do it well or not,
we'll have deep implications for the country.
(dramatic uplifting music)
- The 1982 lawsuit, Plyler v. Doe,
ruled that all students have the right
to attend school in the US,
no matter whether they're undocumented or illegal immigrants
or US citizens, every child has the right to go to school.
The state of Texas was arguing that it was gonna cost money
to educate undocumented immigrants.
And the Supreme Court said
that any money that they save is actually lost
when we don't have educated citizens.
And so it's not worth the savings, in fact,
to not educate students.
- And that was really based
on the principle that education is fundamental
to maintaining the fabric of our society,
and that if children that were undocumented
are denied an access to an education,
then they would actually make up a permanent underclass.
And it would really foreclose any opportunity for them
to contribute to our nation in the future.
The fact is that when we have the right supports
and services available to them in schools,
they are able to succeed and do really well,
but it does require schools to be flexible
and to be able to address those specific needs.
- [Julie] Building the infrastructure
for supporting the students, for supporting the parents,
for providing language access
is really very time and resource intensive.
- Generally in our classrooms,
we don't have enough bilingual teachers or counselors
or administrators who are able to communicate with kids
or their parents in their language.
And for kids who are unaccompanied
and have recently arrived,
many of them have already dealt with a lot of trauma.
They may have missed many years of schooling
as part of their journey here,
or just have less formal education in general.
So they technically have a lot of catching up to do.
And so what we really need to do
is be making sure that we invest in that system,
so that it's really meeting the needs of our students
and realizing their full potential.
- At the end of the day,
we really wanna provide the opportunities for folks
to be able to sustain themselves, their families,
and their communities.
And for those that are left behind
in the K through 12 system or in high school
that makes it exponentially harder for them
to have those types of successes.
(dramatic music)
Even though there is a guaranteed education
at the K through 12 level for undocumented immigrants,
that guaranteed does not extend to higher education.
Some states explicitly pass laws
to prohibit undocumented immigrants
from even attending higher education.
Other states have open enrollment for undocumented students
but may make them pay out-of-state tuition,
even though if those individuals were US citizens,
they would qualify for in-state tuition
because they live in those states
and their families have established residency
and their families have paid property and state taxes.
In terms of the most progressive states, like California,
we have the opening up of scholarships and financial aid
on top of in-state tuition availability.
For the states that have opened their doors
to undocumented immigrants in the higher ed context,
there has been a bevy of benefits,
and these universities and colleges
are aggressively competing for student enrollment,
because it is a net positive gain for them.
- The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program
that was instituted under the Obama administration,
helped address some of the barriers
that undocumented students face.
One, because it gave them access to legal status
and to work permits.
When you look at Dreamers, there is a perfect example
of how investing in our kids and investing in the education
and the opportunity of every child
can really have great benefits for us.
DACA recipients are going to college, working as teachers,
doctors in our hospitals and our schools,
as engineers in fortune 500 companies.
The fact that they had access to an education
has shown us what can happen
if we really believe in every child
and give them the opportunity.
- We have a dynamic of 100,000 undocumented immigrants
graduating from high school in the United States every year,
many of those individuals are not eligible for DACA,
because DACA had a cutoff.
As an undocumented immigrant,
without DACA or other forms of protection,
you don't have a work permit.
You don't have a driver's license.
You don't have an ability
to consistently make an economic living.
- [Julie] Students who are in high school
and then find out that they might not be able
to attend college, that's very distressing
and disappointing for them.
And that can often lead to them dropping out of high school.
- For the people that drop out or do not have a support
to be able to do those things successfully,
what we're really gonna see
is not earn as much as their peers,
to not have available the careers that they want,
to not be able to support their families,
to not be able to expand the tax base
or grow our nation's GDP.
- [Wendy] In other words, we lose out
on all of the contributions that individual could have made
had they had the opportunity
to realize their full potential.
- At the end of the day, immigration protections
are interrelated with economic security,
which are related to the ability to thrive and succeed.
We need to provide some sort of protection
for undocumented immigrant students,
especially for those that fall outside of DACA.
- I've learned in this work
that there are ultimately people
who just fundamentally disagree with paying for things
like a public education or really any public system.
But for those people who understand
that a return on investment can mean increased productivity,
all you really have to do is look at the numbers
and realize that if we have 25% of the child's population,
which is what children of immigrants are,
not having an access to an education
or a high quality education,
we are setting ourselves up for a really bleak future.
- When we think about as a public good,
as something that belongs to all of us,
it becomes a little bit easier to understand
why we wanna ensure that all students are able to take part.
Even students who get a degree
and then get a job and raise a family,
and then they teach their kids
and their kids have a really strong work ethic,
that's a benefit to society, too.
- At its very core education is going to be an investment,
a promise that our youth in the future
will be able to take part in our economy,
contribute to their communities
and take care of their families.
Every dollar in the context of education
that we send out comes back to us multiplied
in a wide variety of ways,
whether that's a new business that gets started,
a career path that gets fulfilled,
a community that is able to have better economic outcomes.
When you seek to strip education from undocumented students,
at the end of the day,
you're frankly just shooting yourself in the foot.
- [Wendy] And that is gonna put us in a really bad place
if we're having to invest in supporting
that segment of the population.
So it's always better to invest in kids.
And the research shows what long term outcomes are.
(uplifting music)
We can ensure that every single child,
regardless of their immigration status, their race,
where their parents came from,
has the opportunity to be the very best that they can be,
that's the safest bet we can make as a country.
- Today, we live in a world where the returns to education
remain the greatest investment a society can make.
It is education that gives the tools, the sensibilities,
the competency for the next generation.
In the here and now, you have to think through:
they're going to be your doctors and your nurses,
they're gonna be your cops,
they're gonna be the people that will remake
the fundamental social contract
that is at the heart of the American experience.
Either they will have the tools
or they will produce returns that will make our country
to be less than it can and should be.
To invest in them is to invest in us, in our future.
(gentle hopeful music)