Resources
Session Two: March 7, 2008
Grappling with Immigration: Re-envisioning Americans
Participants' questions about immigration
Participants were invited to ask questions they had about immigration for Steve and Pramila to answer during the session. Below are the compiled questions.
- Some immigration seems to be motivated by desperation or extreme economic distress. Do we have a responsibility to support countries so that people don't feel forced to immigrate illegally in dangerous situations?
- Can you provide a brief overview of "dual-citizenship"?
- How do we educate Americans on immigration issues to get back to the ideals of embracing immigration when our nation was created?
- Why do our colleges focus so much on bringing in international students, but then we don't have the ability to keep them here when they're done?
- What does it take for people to successfully migrate to the US today?
- How do undocumented immigrants pay taxes?
- How do immigrants really feel about America (in terms of its struggles with immigration)? Its not very bad compared to what they are escaping from.
- Is the new I-9 form retroactive?
- How do you get information on "undocumented workers"? (A: Census estimations. Steve said 80 percent accuracy! That's not very good when it comes to people—100,000 immigrants at 80 percent accuracy equals 20,000 people unaccounted for.)
- How will the political race for the US presidency impact immigration legislation?
- If we had open door immigration, would it negatively impact the economy and/or infrastructure? E.g. could the education system handle it?
- If we help poorer countries, would we have as many folks wanting to immigrate here?
- Is it good to have complete assimilation into US culture, or what happens to diversity if we do?
- What income is considered "poverty"?
- How can immigration be controlled better in the future?
- How many immigrants should we allow annually? And how would we divide this percentage among groups?
- What are the requirements of immigrants who are getting a drivers license? Is their test bilingual?
Session Two was the second of the 10th annual 2008 NW Diveristy Learning Series - Grappling with Immigration: Re-envisioning Americans. The Series, held in Seattle, WA, is organized by The GilDeane Group, publishers of DiversityCentral.com.
Presenters were Steven S. Miller, Partner at Cowan Miller & Lederman in Seattle, WA, and special guest Pramila Jayapal, founder and Executive Director of Hate Free Zone.
