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Comment by blasteye | Hacker News Reader

Property taxes only make up 1/4th the school budget in CA.

Also let's do some math shall we. California has 12.3% illegal immigrant student population. Remove them and the same funds that currently exist would be funding 87.7% the current student population.

California currently spends $8,694/student. If you remove the illegal immigrants that becomes 8,694/0.877 = ~9913/student. Not great but a $1219/student gain in funds isn't shabby either. FYI california has ~6 Million k-12 students, or in other words the illegals are costing tax payers 6.66 Billion/year in k-12 education.

Now reducing our student population by 12.3% would also mean reducing the number of schools. There's likely even greater savings as not everything scales horizontally / sub-horizontally.

https://ed100.org/lessons/whopays https://edsource.org/2017/how-does-california-rank-in-per-pu...

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1. The parents of those children contribute to the economy and pay taxes, and by deporting them you are harming the local economy, and also reducing your tax base. Thus the gain will be less than $1200/yr.

2. Some of the kids of unauthorized immigrants are US citizens, if they were born in the US, so your number 12.3% is not accurate. That is the number who's parents are unauthorized.

Edit: According to the source you cite, 80% of the children of unauthorized immigrants are US citizens, much higher than I expected. [1]

3. With proper education, these children will grow up to be productive, contributing members of society as doctors, engineers, etc. They will grow the US economy and pay taxes.

[1] http://www.pewhispanic.org/interactives/unauthorized-immigra...: "Children of unauthorized immigrants made up 7.3% of U.S. students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade in 2014, though the share varies by state. Most (5.9%) are U.S.-born children who are U.S. citizens at birth. The rest (1.3%) are unauthorized immigrants themselves."

> The parents of those children contribute to the economy and pay taxes

It's unlikely the parents pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits like free schooling for their kids.

And at the same time by working here they illegally decrease wages and jobs for the most marginalized Americans.

> Some of the kids of unauthorized immigrants are US citizens

They wouldn't be here in the first place if we enforced our immigration laws.

> With proper education, these children will grow up to be productive

Not with current levels of funding they won't.

And I don't see any political will in California to double the education spending per child.

> They wouldn't be here in the first place if we enforced our immigration laws.

A couple things to consider:

1) This is a nit pick, but remember that many of these children likely have a parent who is a green card holder or US citizen, and another parent who is an unauthorized citizen.

2) More importantly, these children are here, and they are citizens. You can't (or at least, modern societies should not) retroactively revoke citizenship. There are two separate questions here: first is how do we handle/regulate immigration into the country, and second is what do we do about people who are already here? These are related but separate issues. Figuring out how to educate children of unauthorized immigrants is part of the second question.

Edit:

> Not with current levels of funding they [children of unauthorized immigrants] won't [become doctors and lawyers]

It takes time. The America dream works across multiple generations. Studies show that 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants have much higher income than their parents: for example the median income goes from $45k to $58k from 1st to 2nd generation [1]

[1] http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/02/07/second-generation-...

> These are related but separate issues.

Without solving the illegal immigration problem any fix to the education problem only increases strain on the system.

California has shown no political will to solve the underlying problem of illegal immigration.

> Figuring out how to educate children of unauthorized immigrants is part of the second question.

We (royal we) know how - it will just take time and a lot of money.

Nobody wants to spend that money unless it's for a long term fix.

In the mean time the poor and middle class Americans in California get poorer (or in many cases leave the state).

> It takes time. The America dream works across multiple generations

The American dream is not magic or inevitable.

Like any complex ecosystem it's only sustainable up to a limit.

There is significant evidence we are well past that limit.

> It's unlikely the parents pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits like free schooling for their kids.

I think it's a mistake to assign the educational benefits people receive (whatever age they are at the time) to their parents.

Why?

The money has to come from somewhere.

It is a parents duty to provide for their kids.

We have a welfare system that can step in when the parents can't take responsibility and this system only works when those parents are a small minority.

I think it's valid considering it's usually parents who pay for their children's schooling if it wasn't free. The benefit here is monetary, not academic.

That's an interesting point. On the other hand, where education is free it is so, to a large extent, because it is considered a worthwhile investment into a society's future.

Cant upvote this enough!

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