Michael Kleen thinks immigration is the most important issue the country is facing right now, even more important than terrorism.

“I mean it (immigration) might not affect our parents’ generation but it’s certainly going to affect our generation in fundamental ways,” said the history graduate student. “I feel very strongly that if we don’t stop the current levels of immigration, in 20 years America will look completely different than it’s ever looked before.”

Kleen was one of four panelists for the Q-and-A Panel Discussion on Immigration, the last event on the calendar for Latino Heritage Month.

The discussion was in the Charleston Room of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union on Oct. 11.

The panel discussion was co-sponsored by the Latino Heritage Planning Committee and UPI, the faculty union.

Angela Aguayo, assistant professor in the communication studies department and member of the planning committee, organized the panel and moderated the event.

The idea for the panel discussion came out of the argumentation class Aguayo teaches.

“Last semester my students chose to talk about immigration because it was a topic that they thought was really important but didn’t know a lot about,” Aguayo said. “I really felt like there could be more done on our campus to kind of foster discussion about political ideas.”

Aguayo said she wanted a way for people who think very differently to talk and do so in a productive way, which led to the two-part series on immigration.

On Oct. 10, a documentary film by Ann Lewis on labor and immigration was shown.

Aguayo said there was a huge turnout for the film, estimating around 100 students and faculty in attendance.

Before the panel started, Aguayo was hoping a few more people would be interested in the panel.

Only about 30 people showed up for the Q-and-A panel portion.

The four panelists were Jon Coit, assistant professor in history; David Boggs, assistant professor of management; Eric Hake, associate professor of economics; and Kleen, member of EIU conservatives.

Aguayo said she picked people whom she knew had done work or research in the subject, or in some way were educated in immigration.

Kleen said he was chosen to be the “conservative voice.”

“I guess Angela had a hard time finding a conservative voice,” Kleen said. “I think there are some conservative professors here, but I think by and large they’re pretty liberal.”

He also had a column published over the summer on vdare.com, a Web site concerned with immigration.

There were four questions asked that Aguayo said were designed to touch on the broad issues associated with immigration.

The four questions focused on how immigration has functioned in history, the necessity for regulations, the assumption immigration policy has about immigration, and the diversity of immigration, as in who is allowed to enter and who is not.

After each question, each panelist was allowed to voice his opinion. While many times they might have differed, it never got out of hand.

Aguayo said she thought the event went well.

“The questions seemed to reflect people thinking critically about this subject,” Aguayo said.

She said she saw many students taking notes.

“Any time you can, I think, facilitate a different kind of learning outside the classroom – you know that’s maybe more informal – can sometimes be a good place for kind of thinking about and questioning one’s ideas,” Aguayo said.

One of those students was Jamar Herrod, senior English major, who originally came for extra credit for his sociology class.

“From not knowing much about immigration, I think I’ve learned a lot about just what’s been going on as far as immigrants and how it affects people and how it affects the economy and stuff like that,” Herrod said. “I think it’s not just a problem for just a few people, I think it affects everybody. It affects the country as a whole; it affects everyone.”

Herrod said going into the panel he just had a basic knowledge of immigration and said when he thought of immigration, he just thought of people coming into the country. His idea of immigration changed after the discussion.

“It brought up a lot of issues about immigration and what the country needs to do too,” Herrod said. “Just kind of respecting, understanding different ethnicities, to help us understand what immigration is and why people want to come into our country.”