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Citizenship And The Right For Public Education For Undocumented Immigrants Essay

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As an immigrant to the United States from El Salvador, I was really inclined to attend Robert Koulish’s talk titled “Citizenship and the Right to Public Education for Undocumented Immigrants.” I came to the US when I was six years old in 2000, it has been 16 years since I have been here. I remember very little from my birth country and most of my memories have been made in the United States. The community that raised and helped to sculpt my values is not in El Salvador, rather it is in Maryland, USA. This is something I’ve always been aware about and it is something I feel was addressed in the talk by Mr. Koulish.
Mr. Koulish began his talk by addressing how many individuals have a false idea of what it means to be a citizen of the US. It is often signified as having the right to vote, idea that an individual is a full member of society, and the entitlement of certain rights. When moving to the US many immigrants look forward to the day they can become naturalized and be US citizens. But, Koulish suggest that the want to become a US citizen, goes above the right to just vote every couple of years. Wanting to be a US citizen is more of social citizenship. Koulish ask whether or not undocumented individuals, when lacking legal citizenship, do they lack the right afforded to a citizen? In terms of education, illegal immigrants face multiple hardships in the way of in-state tuition. What Koulish argues these young and eager students are being told is that they are not enough of

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