Undocumented and disillusioned, I decided to leave America. This loss is mutual.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Undocumented and disillusioned, I decided to leave America. This loss is mutual.
Washington Post, Jan 25, 2018, Ariel Rodriguez

At 15, I arrived in the United States with a suitcase full of clothes, a picture of my golden retriever and the excitement of starting my new life. That was 10 years ago. Last month, the day after I graduated from college, I got on a nonstop flight that carried me and my new journalism degree away from the place I call home, back to a place my family and I once waved goodbye to. I am unsure I will be allowed to reenter.

The decision to leave for Mexico City was difficult. My family and I made it as a group. We began discussing it after President Trump was elected — based in no small part on his negative rhetoric about undocumented people. We also began hearing sad stories about people being apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, sometimes separating children who were full U.S. citizens from parents. Trump seemed to have little mercy for beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which I did not qualify for by a matter of days anyway. Ultimately, my parents and two older brothers agreed. We would leave the United States once I finished my education at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

That education came at a high cost. Ninety percent of my income went toward tuition. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal financial aid. I found myself busing and waiting tables in small local restaurants where background checks were not a priority. After very full days, I would come home late at night to work on the homework due the next day. Despite the financial stress and workload, however, school was the only place I felt normal. I was treated just like an American there, even though English wasn’t my native language. No one questioned whether I held a green card. I was rewarded for my hard work.


Read More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/undocumented-and-disillusioned-i-decided-to-leave-america-this-loss-is-mutual/2018/01/25/a41fec10-f655-11e7-b34a-b85626af34ef_story.html?undefined=&utm_term=.0ecaa9d97ccd&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

[Right_in_Virginia]

A different perspective on this tug at our heartstrings story:

An illegal alien says goodbye to America
HotAir, Jan 27, 2018, Jazz Shaw

https://hotair.com/archives/2018/01/27/illegal-alien-says-goodbye-america/

[Smokin Joe]

Well, Bye!

[ConstitutionRose]

I worked for my tuition also.  No loans, no handouts, no food stamps and I had two kids to support, also no child support.  What is he whining about.  He has earned a good education and has the opportunity to use it in the land of his birth and nationality.  He maybe should have chosen another, more useful major.  He can get in line and immigrate legally is he really wants to be a US citizen.

[bolobaby]

Good - take your degree and don't challenge real Americans for American jobs. Go enrich your own country with your (*snicker*) journalism degree. Good luck!

[truth_seeker]

Go home dude with your degree, and make your own country better.

In the early-mid 1800s Sweden was a shithole, due to a combination of thing. Blight hit the agriculture. Oppression was the theme of the religious/spiritual system, whereby the states church took census, recorded marriages/births/deaths and examined your bible verse recitation proficiency.

During the second half of the 1800s around 1/4 of Sweden's population emigrated to North America. They faced huge hardships on the journey, and more hardships when they reached America.

Back home the Swedish government was not ignorant, to what had taken lace. They sought to improve the country, and today it ranks among the highest standards of living in the world, and personal/religious freedom is also near the top of world rankings.

Read: "The Emigrants," by Vilhelm Moberg

 

[Sanguine]

I worked for my tuition also.  No loans, no handouts, no food stamps and I had two kids to support, also no child support.  What is he whining about.  He has earned a good education and has the opportunity to use it in the land of his birth and nationality.  He maybe should have chosen another, more useful major.  He can get in line and immigrate legally is he really wants to be a US citizen.

Same here.  I worked for mine AND raised my kids at the same time.  No taxpayer-funded-government-handouts for me.

[Slip18]

Same here.  I worked for mine AND raised my kids at the same time.  No taxpayer-funded-government-handouts for me.

Same here, except I lived with my older sisters who liked to party heartily.  Law class at 8:00 a.m.  Tough, too.

I was offered so many school loans.  Nope.  Would not do it.  Pay back is a you know what.

[Cyber Liberty]

A J-School grad?

 

[Cyber Liberty]

In the 80's, I went to ASU and it was about $35 per credit hour.  I just looked up the price at ASU, and for Engineering school it's now $769, plus fees, for a total of $984. Almost 30X the price, plus books, and that's in-state.

This is why today's students rack up huge loans.  If you don't get a full-ride Scholarship you can bloody well forget college if you don't' take out the ginormous loans.  The days of earning your own way through school are long gone.

https://students.asu.edu/tuition/breakdown?acad_year=2018&include_summer=0&residency=RES&acad_career=UGRD&admit_term=&admit_level=&acad_level=&honors=0&campus=TEMPE&acad_prog=UGES&program_fee=UP0012&corporate_partner=

[skeeter]

A J-School grad?

 

Really. Golly how will we ever get by with one less journalist?

[WingNot]

A J-School grad?

Doesn't that degree rank right behind Women's Studies as least employable degrees in the US today.

[Cyber Liberty]

Doesn't that degree rank right behind Women's Studies as least employable degrees in the US today.

Yeah.  This guy's gonna be a bang-up Reporter in Mexico.

[Sanguine]

In the 80's, I went to ASU and it was about $35 per credit hour.  I just looked up the price at ASU, and for Engineering school it's now $769, plus fees, for a total of $984. Almost 30X the price, plus books, and that's in-state.

This is why today's students rack up huge loans.  If you don't get a full-ride Scholarship you can bloody well forget college if you don't' take out the ginormous loans.  The days of earning your own way through school are long gone.

https://students.asu.edu/tuition/breakdown?acad_year=2018&include_summer=0&residency=RES&acad_career=UGRD&admit_term=&admit_level=&acad_level=&honors=0&campus=TEMPE&acad_prog=UGES&program_fee=UP0012&corporate_partner=

You are correct.  Two reasons for that, one because the Feds are making taxpayer funds available for student loans so demand and availability of funds make for more demand and allow tuition to be raised, and here in Texas at least, the state contribution to education has decreased placing more of the tuition burden on the student.

[Smokin Joe]

You are correct.  Two reasons for that, one because the Feds are making taxpayer funds available for student loans so demand and availability of funds make for more demand and allow tuition to be raised, and here in Texas at least, the state contribution to education has decreased placing more of the tuition burden on the student.

The other side of that is that you just about have to have a BA to wait tables. Evwrything hs a certificate or credential attached to it. Back when, we just did it.

Which stinks for those of us who did our Bachelor's work 40 years ago when even that degree was not so common. Some of the 'majors' nowadays sound like a chapter title in an intro course book.

[Frank Cannon]

At 15, I arrived in the United States with a suitcase full of clothes, a picture of my golden retriever and the excitement of starting my new life.

No one invited you here eff up.

[RoosGirl]

In the 80's, I went to ASU and it was about $35 per credit hour.  I just looked up the price at ASU, and for Engineering school it's now $769, plus fees, for a total of $984. Almost 30X the price, plus books, and that's in-state.

This is why today's students rack up huge loans.  If you don't get a full-ride Scholarship you can bloody well forget college if you don't' take out the ginormous loans.  The days of earning your own way through school are long gone.

https://students.asu.edu/tuition/breakdown?acad_year=2018&include_summer=0&residency=RES&acad_career=UGRD&admit_term=&admit_level=&acad_level=&honors=0&campus=TEMPE&acad_prog=UGES&program_fee=UP0012&corporate_partner=

$984 per credit hour?! Holy smokes.  I just looked up UCF, which is where I graduated from in '99.  I think tuition was around $40/credit hour, up to $212/credit hour now for in-state tuition.  Out of state is $750.  An engineering degree is now 128 credit hours, which I think is quite a bit lower than when I was there.  I had no idea tuition had gone up that much.

[Slip18]

Little Alex came here with a photo of his Lab Retriever.  He left here with a nine-year-old poodle.

What happened to the Retriever?

 :huh?:

[Smokin Joe]

Little Alex came here with a photo of his Lab Retriever.  He left here with a nine-year-old poodle.

What happened to the Retriever?

 :huh?:

Those were not chicken fajitas...

[Oceander]

Little Alex came here with a photo of his Lab Retriever.  He left here with a nine-year-old poodle.

What happened to the Retriever?

 :huh?:

The retriever obviously didn’t come with him, and may have died in the interim. 

[WingNot]

Those were not chicken fajitas...

Never eat at a mexican restaurant that is next door to a pound.

[Frank Cannon]

What happened to the Retriever?

The dog was eaten for Christmas dinner. Retriever is delicious with some Adobo.

[Cyber Liberty]

$984 per credit hour?! Holy smokes.  I just looked up UCF, which is where I graduated from in '99.  I think tuition was around $40/credit hour, up to $212/credit hour now for in-state tuition.  Out of state is $750.  An engineering degree is now 128 credit hours, which I think is quite a bit lower than when I was there.  I had no idea tuition had gone up that much.

Yup.  If you don't have a Full Ride you are screwed.  Gone are the days of working your way through.  It's infuriating, considering you are now expected to have at least a Bachelor's of Arts to be a barista at Starbucks for anything more than minimum wage.

I had no idea how bad it is until I just did that search on tuition rates at ASU.  Yet another way of creating a dependent class of Proles.

[dfwgator]

In the 80's, I went to ASU and it was about $35 per credit hour.  I just looked up the price at ASU, and for Engineering school it's now $769, plus fees, for a total of $984. Almost 30X the price, plus books, and that's in-state.

This is why today's students rack up huge loans.  If you don't get a full-ride Scholarship you can bloody well forget college if you don't' take out the ginormous loans.  The days of earning your own way through school are long gone.
 

It's a Vicious Circle,  when Students get loans, colleges can jack up the price all they want because they know the loans will cover it,  there's no incentive to keep costs down, so in effect, loans do increase the price to the point where the only way to afford it is to get a loan.

[Fishrrman]

Good bye!