In my humble opinion not only are we doing a terrible job at educating our youth; but we are also condemning large numbers of them to a live of poverty.
Who is to say what our underprivileged youth could accomplish with the proper support and education?
Yes, this country was built by immigrants; but things have changed, we must accept that. Long gone are the days of prosperity for all. I would argue that today, our system is failing large portions of the population and addressing these failures should be our top concern.
The current environment of despair and hopelessness that suffocates many Americans makes it difficult to have a constructive dialog about immigration. Would you have this discussion in Flint, Michigan? Do homeless veterans have access to free Airbnb? Do aging Americans who on a daily basis must decide between food or medicine find this discussion fair? And you know I could go on and on...
I realize that modernizing our infrastructure or fixing our education system are very hard problems, addressing poverty and restoring faith in the system will be even harder. And yes, bringing prosperity and hope to all seems almost impossible; but these aren't reasons not to try.
My apologies for the rant; but I think many of the discussions around immigration fail to recognize that America is much more than the wealthy coasts. There is real suffering out there and we should be sympathetic to that and realize that despite our real or perceived cultural differences with the millions of disenfranchised Americans; this country is theirs too!