Immigration bill affects schools, too

EDITOR,
 
Last month, the citizens of Scotts Valley voted to enact a school tax. On Friday, July 6, the California senate passed an “anti-Arizona” immigration bill. It blocks local police from referring a detainee to immigration officials for deportation, unless that person has been convicted of a violent or serious felony.
According to the Public Policy Institute of California, we have about 3 million undocumented aliens in California. According to Wikipedia, there is about one school-age child for every four undocumented aliens in the United States. From that information, one could reasonably estimate 750,000 school-age children in California have parents that have ignored American immigration laws to come to our state. There are 6 million students attending California public schools and the total amount spent from state and local revenues came to about $60 billion or $10,000 per student. One could say that California taxpayers spent $7.5 billion dollars on 750,000 children of parents that are illegally residing in California.
Though my children are too old to attend Scotts Valley Schools, I don’t mind increasing taxes to pay for increasing costs of education, as long is the money is spent on American children.
You people in education need to understand there is a limit. The poor of the world might want to better their lives by coming to California, but do California taxpayers desire it, and more important, can they afford it? The California legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown seem to believe Californians want more of the world’s poor people.
Please contact state Sen. Sam Blakeslee (916-651-4015) and state Assemblyman Bill Monning (831-425-1503 or 916-319-2027) to voice your opinion. I can assure you that more than 100 immigrant’s rights groups voiced their opinion to push the recent “anti-Arizona” bill. Our legislators should also hear from you.
Michael Duffy, Scotts Valley