On the way into work this morning I heard an interesting thing on the news. Our governor, Rod Blagojevich and a panel of state agencies wants to implement "welcome centers" for immigrants. Places for them to go to apply for job training, health care and other services. Brief coverage of this topic can be found here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0612130224dec13,1,2398289.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
Before we go further it should be noted that there is no funding for this project yet but its something you all might want to keep an eye on. Keep in mind, this project refers to both legal immigrants and the illegal sort.
Juan Salgado, a member of one of the panels working on this proposal said "Like any asset, you can invest in the immigrant population and it has the potential of gaining more return. Or you don't invest and it deteriorates," Another person argues that the education initiatives involved in this proposition will help us create a bilingual workforce to compete in the global market. To me this is a laughable concept. Not because its not an admirable concept but because this is coming up at a time when our existing citizens are suffering from poor educational and job opportunities already.
How about we work on the educational system we already have? How about we teach our children to read? 80% of outgoing college seniors in a recent poll at a state funded institution said they have no intention of ever reading another book ever again. This seems to point to a failing in what we have already! Or, how about we offer job training to all of the families that have recently fallen out of the middle class because their manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas? And health benefits? Again, there are Americans who don't have this benefit. Why don't we put our time and effort into helping them first?
I'm certain there is far more detail behind this plan but after just reviewing the broad strokes it seems that the money could be better spent on our current citizens!
Any thoughts?
Everyone have a great day!
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