Ruben Feldstein

From Daily Planet Staff Reports

Five short presentations were given prior to the two keynote addresses during a program titled “Immigration: Myths and Realities” last Wednesday night at Beth Israel Synagogue in Asheville.

The speakers and their topics included Beth Keiser of Swannanoa Valley Friends Meeting, who addressed “Immigrants and Education;” Ruben Feldstein of Temple Beth HaTephila, “Immigrants Don’t Want to Learn English and Assimilate;” Austin Rios, Capilla de Santa Maria, “Undocumented Immigrants and Jobs;” Rob Cabelli, rabbi of Beth Israel Synagogue, “Crime, Money and Immigrants;” and Byron Ballard of The Mother Grove Temple, “Immigration Then and Now.”

Speaking first, Keiser, who addressed “Immigrants and Education,” lamented that “currently, nobody who is classified as an undocumented immigrant may enroll” in community-college classes in North Carolina.

“Until a few months ago, the 58 community-college campuses in North Carolina were allowed to decide individually whether to allow” undocumented immigrants to enroll.

Austin Rios

Beth Keiser

Rob Cabelli

Byron Ballard

At one point, the state even notified every community college that it “must admit all academically qualified students without regard to their immigration status,” Keiser said.

“This policy was crippled” when (state) Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office advised state officials that the policy was “too lenient” and “should be amended” to follow the 2001 federal law that, she said, mandates “no benefits” are to be extended to immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, she noted.

On May 14, Scott Rawls, the new president of the North Carolina community-college system, said the state needed to follow the federal law, noting in a memo to the system’s colleges that there was a ban — until further notice — on illegal immigrants’ enrollment, Keiser said.

Keiser admitted that she “sees in this dismal situation” many negative aspects, especially since undocumented immigrants were — prior to the ban — paying a disproportionately high out-of-state tuition rate.

The community-college ban is “devasting” to illegals’ youths, who have prepared themselves to try for the American dream.

Since “Hispanics have the highest dropout rate of any American youth,” the long-term effect of Rawls’ ban is “to create a generation of Hispanic youth with no future, except of crime,” versus getting an education and becoming productive citizens, Keiser said.

Ironically, she said, Rawls’ ban actually hurts legal citizens, who benefitted from undocumented immigrants’ partial subsidy of the system through payment of out-of-state tuition of $3,632 per semester versus in-state tuition of $672 per semester.

As it now stands, “The only state that currently bans undocumented immigrants from attending community colleges is North Carolina,” Keiser noted.

She then added, “There may, perhaps, be a brighter future on all this in North Carolina.” Specifically, she referred to House Bill 2717, which was introduced on May 28.

The bill, in part, states, “The State Board of Community Colleges shall not adopt any admissions requirement for any community college relating to a person’s immigration status, except as otherwise required by federal law. Nothing in this section prohibits a community college from requiring noncitizen students to pay out‑of‑state tuition.”

Regarding H.B. 2717, Keiser said, “I consider it a pragmatic and much-needed bill worthy of support.”

Next, Feldstein, who addressed “Immigrants Don’t Want to Learn English and Assimilate,” spoke of his findings in research into Hispanics by the Pugh Foundation, which bills itself as a “nonpartisan fact-tank in Washington, D.C.” He noted that the organization’s objective is “to gather and disseminate information as objectively as possible.”

While Feldstein said he has “a little problem” with how Pugh asks questions, many of its findings appear valid.

As for the contention that immigrants resist learning English and assimilating, Pugh’s research shows that “as fluency increases across generations, English is the main language the longer they are here,” Feldstein said.

Next, Rios, who leads a Hispanic congregation in Hendersonville, addressed “Undocumented Immigrants and Jobs,” noting that the scenario is an “economic refugee situation,” which he termed “really dubious and scary to me.”

Undocumented immigrants cross the border into the U.S. illegally “because of our specific economic policies” that have resulted in prosperity for many American citizens.

Many of these undocumented immigrants “are keeping the construction industry afloat,” Rios said. “I think we’re living in very scary times — as a Christian — very similar to the situation the Israelites found under the Pharaohs.”

Cabelli, who spoke on “Crime, Money and Immigrants, said, in essence, “The old saw about illegal immigrants increasing crime in this country is just that — a myth.”

Specifically, he asserted, “There is absolutely no correlation between crime rates and illegal immigration.”

After a pause, Cabelli asserted, “So this is one myth worth throwing out.”

Indeed, he said there are indications that undocumented immigrants instead are disproportionately the targets of crime, rather than the perpetrators.

“Among criminals engaged in petty thievery, illegal immigrants were considered walking ATMs — easy targets for criminals,” Cabelli said. “In an odd way, they’ve made the streets safer for others.

“Another myth is that they (undocumented immigrants) take away resources without giving anything back,” he noted. “In fact, dare I say,” undocumented immigrants “live in a world of taxation without representation ... In fact, their payroll checks are subject to taxation and, unlike legal citizens, they’ll never recover the benefits.”

Census figures show that from 1990 to 2000, North Carolina’s Hispanic population grew 400 percent, the largest increase by percentage in the United States in the last 10 years, and Tar Heel Hispanics annually contribute about $756 million in taxes — direct and indirect, he noted.

“So, in fact, while it is, at times, popular to complain about the drain on the state’s resources, they (Hispanics) use way less doctors” and other other health-care, education and prison resources than U.S. citizens, Cabelli contended.

“In fact, it is arguable that in the absence of undocumented workers, the U.S. economy would suffer greatly.”

The final brief talk was given by Ballard, who addressed “Immigration Then and Now.”

In her research, Ballard said she found that U.S. citizens about a century ago “feared the same about immigrants,” although most at that time were Italians and Jews, with 800,000 and 1.6 million, respectively.

In 1885, the U.S. Congress excluded all contract laborers from being admitted legally into the county as immigrants.

In 1917, Ballard said,” the U.S. closed the door to those who couldn’t read or write.”

Ballard said less than 1 percent of Italians and around 3 percent of Jews admitted to the U.S. as immigrants “were professionals.”

Today, “most immigrants — legally — are from Asia” and other locales that are historically nontraditional for the U.S., she said. “Most are middle class ... The point is, the job a Western North Carolina immigrant holds is not necessarily” depriving legal citizens of jobs.