Undocumented Teens Outsmarted MIT—and Still Cant Get Real Jobs in America
*The story of a group of DREAMers who built a robot and beat an MIT team in competition. Years later the teams reunite, the MIT kids had gone on to become engineers, but not the undocumented kids. Poignant and timely, given the unaccompanied minor crisis. You can watch the documentary “Underwter Dreams” HERE. VL
By Jonathan Alter, The Daily Beast
The subtext of the tough talk about the tens of thousands of child refugees flowing up from Central America is that like Mexicans they will be a drag on the American economy—wards of the state who suck taxpayers dry.
Governments at all levels will face short-term costs, of course, but the economic fear of immigrants has never been warranted. Beyond the humanitarian imperative lies a stark historical truth: From Alexander Hamilton to Andy Grove to Elon Musk, new arrivals and their children—toughened by circumstance and self-selected for pluck—have give the United States the energy and drive that has made us great.
Most reasonable people get this. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Sheldon Adelson (!) wrote an op-ed in The New York Times last Friday bemoaning the insanity of training immigrants at our best universities, then forcing them to go home. But in pushing for comprehensive immigration reform, the billionaires seemed most concerned about wealthier émigrés, whom they argued should be allowed to stay if they come with money.
Valid point, but it ignores the fact that poor, undocumented Hispanics—the ones most denigrated by Tea Party know-nothings—have much to offer, too, just as penniless immigrants (i.e. your ancestors) always have.
Those scraggly Latino kids on the corner you might think are thugs could be the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg if given half a chance.
To understand why that’s more than a platitude, check out Underwater Dreams, a seemingly modest human interest film that may be the most politically significant documentary since Waiting for Superman.
Click HERE to read the full story.
[Photo courtesy of “Underwater Dreams’]
