Week 11 Blog- Debunking Myths on Immigration

Hello all. Today's lesson was on Chapter 9, Facilitating Learning. I believe this is a very important chapter because being able to make something happen or making something easier isn't always easy. Carl Rogers's three core conditions include realness, acceptance, and understanding. Learning and adapting well to these three conditions will allow you as well as help you establish credibility and influence your students. This is just one component of many more to start your journey towards achieving the ability to facilitate learning. There is much more to facilitating learning, but today I went to a diversity event about immigration called Debunking Myths on Immigration by the Iowa Immigrant Education Coalition so I would like to talk about that for a bit today.

There are currently around 11.5 million undocumented (a.k.a illegal) immigrants in the United States today. There are many myths out there which are currently very wrong for the most part. Some myths that were discussed today were those like: immigrants don't pay taxes, they take up many jobs, they don't want to learn English, they don't even want to become citizens and they only bring about higher rates of crime are only few of the many myths about immigration. Immigrants and immigrant labor are actually vital towards Iowa's economy. The Iowa Policy Project estimates that undocumented immigrant families pay between 40 and 62 million dollars in state taxes per year. Many small businesses depend on immigrants for intense labor such as farming industries. The sad part is many can be considered better Americans than a lot of people today; we as Americans take for granted our citizenship and the services offered by our great country. America was built on mulitculturalism, yet many immigrations policies defer or make it almost impossible for immigrants to become legal Americans because it takes to much time and money. There are currently five to eight thousand immigrants (born in America automatically U.S. citizens) in accredited high schools and we have to think of them as potential assets to our country, yet we are still trying to deport them when all they know is what is in the U.S. There are millions living in the shadows of our lives today and have to put up with horrible work conditions, but are unable to go to authorities because they have no legal documentation. If you are reading this blog, take it and pass it on or even attend a different lecture on immigration to learn more and pass it on once again to decrease these myths.