Just one of those reminders about how far we have gone in accommodating illegal aliens in this country – at the expense of every American citizen, including those of Hispanic descent.

As I’ve mentioned, over half of my students are Hispanic of one variety or another. As a result, I have Hispanic students who are in the country illegally, legal resident aliens, naturalized citizens, and US citizens by birth – even some who are third and fourth generation or more. And it is those latter students, American by birth, who have gotten the not so subtle signal that they really don’t count when it comes to programs for Hispanic students.

Yesterday my 10th grade students got their score sheets from the PSAT test they took this fall. The next administration of the test will be this coming fall, and could qualify them as National Merit Semi-Finalists, and also for the National Hispanic Recognition Program run by the College Board.

One of my students did exceptionally well on the PSAT, showing the potential to qualify for one or both of these programs if she continues to work hard and makes sure she participates in the test preparation programs that we offer at our school. This young lady is a very special girl – intelligent, poised, athletic, and well-spoken, as well as very motivated. In other words, she is everything that I or any other teacher could ask for. I took her aside for a moment to offer some praise and to urge her to take advantage of the programs our school offers to prepare students for the PSAT, SAT, and ACT tests. In the course of this, I mentioned the NHRP.

The response I got to the latter suggestion shocked me.

“Oh, no, mister, they won’t take me. I’ve got papers.”

I really didnÂ’t think I heard her correctly, so I asked her to repeat herself.

“I was born here, so they won’t take me.”

Now I was able to fix her misconception by showing her the qualifications for the program on my computer, and assured her that US-born students of Latin American heritage qualified for the program.

But in the back of my mind I was really disturbed, and became even more disturbed as I realized that this perceptive young lady had picked up on an essential truth about our schizophrenic policy regarding illegal aliens.

We throw benefits at illegal aliens, especially illegal alien students. We make special exceptions for them and run special programs for them in our schools. Most people take those programs for granted, and to raise a question about their legitimacy is to risk being labeled a racist.

But this girl, an American of Hispanic ancestry, was not so politically correct as to avoid the truth. She implicitly named the problem – too often the benefits of special problems accrue not to those who follow our laws, but instead to the lawbreakers. And that, my friends, is simply wrong. It is time that we put American citizens and legal aliens first.

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