Through recent political debates attention has been brought to immigration policies in the United States. Many questions arise from the broad topic of immigration, the most important being are undocumented immigrant children entitled to a free public education. As a taxpayer to the American government, this issue directly affects me and my values. I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to become an educated person of our society, but only if you pay your share of the way. Too many people in our country get by without paying taxes, which in turn makes taxes higher for others that do pay theirs. My experience in public high school in Illinois was one of many examples of how undocumented immigration is affecting education in the U.S. The state of Illinois is one of the most broke state governments in the country right now; therefore, schools are strictly funded on property taxes paid by patrons of each district. Parents of students who did not pay taxes were using the same facilities and teachers to get an education at the cost of families who did pay property taxes to fund the schools. 

My first source "5 Facts about Illegal Immigration in the U.S." focuses on immigration from Mexico to the U.S. Obama's recent executive order is mentioned and how it could possibly expand deportation relief but it is currently under review by the Supreme Court due to a lawsuit. The five facts that Krogstad and Passel focus on are based mostly on unauthorized Mexican immigration to America and how the numbers have been changing throughout the years. They go on to show how immigrants are concentrated in certain areas around the country. Unauthorized immigrants make up a decent portion of our work force and school children's parents. This article was written by Jens Manuel Krogstad and Jeffery S. Passel. They both specialize in Hispanics, immigration, and demography in America. They are credible because they work for the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan research institute, that does demographic research, public polling, media analysis, and provides information social issues. This article is informative because it focuses on ethos with providing statistical research, graphical evidence, and shows the distribution in the country. It shows very little bias and covers all the questions of who, what, where, when, and why.

My second source is about Donald Trump's immigration platform and how, if implemented, it would impact millions of undocumented immigrants. The article examines how Trump's proposed plan for immigration is faulty in regards to the proportion of illegal immigrants in the labor force and how the total number of undocumented immigrants has been declining for years now. The article explicitly focuses on Mexico for their immigration statistics. It was helpful for the research question because it discussed different problems Americans see with immigration. This article was written by an Editorial Board for the Washington Post. The Post is credible because it is one of the oldest newspapers in the country and the most widely circulated. Since it is based in our nation's capital, it has an emphasis on politics. This article is argumentative against Donald Trump and his political views on immigration. The bias is mostly against Trump's plan for immigration reform but also touches on the Republican party as a whole.

In my third source, Neuman goes through different immigration policies prior to 1996 that have been applied over the years. He explains how there has constantly been a battle between the judiciary and legislative branches if laws are constitutional or not. The Immigration Act of 1996 was initially enacted to decrease the amount of undocumented immigrants that entered the United States and increase the consequences if immigrants were caught disobeying the law. This did not solve many problems because it was left up to judges to interpret, many times leading to varying verdicts. Two big issues arose from this. First, was who the immigration laws apply: documented immigrants versus undocumented and second, was this act constitutional. Gerald Nueman is an expert in international human rights, immigration, and comparative constitutional law at Harvard Law School. He previously was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and a professor of law at Columbia University. He is credible because he has experience with law making not only from a domestic view, but from a worldwide perspective. Nueman does present the immigration topic in an ethical way because he distinguishes between documented and undocumented immigrants which is important to recognize because some people are here 100% legally while others are not. 

My research question is arguable because some people do not think you should have to pay for education at all and others think that you should have to. Many Americans are concerned with where their tax money is going. Americans do not want to be giving hand outs to people that do not contribute their fair share of tax money for education. The wide range of perspectives on immigration mostly stems from Republican versus Democratic political views. This does not have much affect on me because I consider myself a left wing republican. The perspectives of the sources do not affect my own because my beliefs are not easily swayed and they were not dealing with education, but the laws and policies behind immigration in our country. I am aware that some people will be against my view on education regarding immigrants. Some may argue that if undocumented immigrants are not getting an education, there will be a higher percentage of people on the streets, higher crime rates, or an increase in uneducated people entering the workforce. I will be able to refute this with more research such as types of jobs immigrants likely hold, crime rates in cities with high immigrant populations, and looking at data showing how immigration, taxes, and education are all related and affect one another. 

 I need to revise where the focus of my research is. I started out the ILPs researching with a focus on immigration policy regarding the upcoming presidential election. I quickly realized this would be difficult to find credible sources because it is still in the beginning stages of debate. I know these articles do not go directly with my new research question, but they were helpful in getting a base of our current immigration policies. I could see new approaches that candidates are taking towards it because of how education and immigration directly affect each other. I decided to take on this research question because I have first hand experience of this at my high school. 

