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=Some Facts to Help Address Illegal Immigration in the Classroom! =

 When you take a quick search in google of the words Illegal Immigration all you seem to encounter is everyones opinion. The facts are skewed to one side or the other. What sides might that be... well as far as I can tell from the millions of google hits I received from typing in those initial words you are either for it or you are completely against it. I sifted through all the bias facts and information from both sides and I seemed to have come up with a few ideas on how to address this topic in the classroom if it ever comes up.

 Most students do not know the difference if they are sitting next to some one who is legal or someone who is illegal. What they say about the topic is most likely what they heard their parents say in the house. As an educator you want to be careful with addressing both sides of this issue. It can be very controversial for a teacher to show bias for either side. So the best warning  in a situation involving students and illegal immigration: TRED CAREFULLY!! **Now Onto Some Pointers:**
 *  First Things First: **
 * There should be a consequence if the students make each other feel bad. For example: an apology for hurting someone's feelings. These should already be established through the classroom rules.
 * The grade level that is being taught will determine how extensive you will go with an explanation of illegal immigration. This topic is not relevant to any elementary standards or the California Framework for Social Studies so unless it is a big topic of discussion or a huge problem among the students it does not need to be brought up by the teacher.
 * If you decide that this is a topic that is in need of being addressed then you should clearly define what the terms mean and explain both sides of the issue. One way of doing this could be:


 * 1) Explaining Ellis Island and how immigrants from all over the world have gone through and taken tests to become citizens. You could then define the terms of immigrant and illegal immigrant.
 * 2) You could lead the incident or problem into a discussion about coming to America and why people chose to come here for many, many years. This could also be a great open-ended higher order thinking question.
 * 3) You could create a debate and have the students defend each side. Of course this would be a better idea for older students. The students also need to be informed as to what makes a debate, the rules of debate, and they can only present facts not opinion when arguing their sides.

Resources: The students must use information from a legitimate news source, not opinion based information off of blogs.

<span style="color: #00c5ff; font-family: 'Lucida Console',Monaco,monospace;">CNN.com BBC.com Foxnews.com MSNBC.com Center for American Progress ABC15.com