A Small Town Wrestles with Immigration

Fremont, Nebraska deals with whether to repeal an ordinance to require renters to prove their citizenship status and making it a crime for landlords to rent to illegal immigrants.  The town is home to a Hormel packinghouse, and a large Hispanic population.  The debate centers around teaching English as a second language in the schools and social costs of the undocumented immigrants.  However, some of the talking points don't really hold up well:

Their influx drove the Hispanic population in this part of Nebraska from less than 1,000 in 1990 to nearly 16,000 today, roughly 20 percent of the population in the state’s northeastern corner. (Fremont’s population in 2012 was 26,167.)
But other facts about the Hispanic presence in the region are less cut-and-dry. Proponents of the ordinance point to Washington Elementary as evidence that overwhelming numbers of Fremont preschoolers arrive unable to speak English, but the school’s former principal told me that by the time those students are fifth graders, they’re score highest among the city’s elementary schools on statewide reading comprehension exams. Similarly, the CEO of the Fremont Area Medical Center said that while it’s true Hispanics account for roughly half a million dollars in unpaid medical bills each year, uninsured Hispanics actually pay up at a higher rate than uninsured white patients.

My experience has been that Hispanic immigrants are extremely hard-working, and contribute to making their community better, with strong families and family ties.  I would like to see immigration reform which would allow many more legal immigrants, and would allow more of these workers who are already here come out of the shadows and participate more in society.  The Fremont ordinance will hopefully go by the wayside.