Posted on 01/08/2013 12:34:51 AM PST by neverdem
Bill would allow illegal immigrant students to qualify for tuition assistance for higher education
Young immigrants are flooding Gov. Cuomos phone lines and Twitter account, asking him to use his State of the State address Wednesday to call for tuition aid for undocumented immigrants.
The so-called New York State Dream Act, which has the backing of Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, would open the states Tuition Assistance Program to all college students, regardless of immigration status.
Jackson Heights teen Antonio Alarcon plans to make many calls and posts on @NYGovCuomo.
The governor should be focusing more on the Latino community, said Alarcon, 18, a student at LaGuardia Community College whose parents brought him to the U.S. illegally from Mexico at age 11. We are looking for TAP. It would give a lift, to get financial aid. ... We are expecting better things to happen this year.
A coalition of immigrant groups sent the governor a letter about the issue Monday.
Were really making a big push for it to be included, said Natalia Lopez, a youth advocate at non-profit Make the Road New York, which is hosting a Queens phone bank Tuesday.
The governors office did not immediately return a request for comment.
Undocumented immigrants qualify for state resident tuition for higher education but they cant currently get state-backed financial aid.
The bill, introduced last year by Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem) and Assemblyman Guillermo Linares (D-Washington Heights), would change that.
It has bipartisan support in the city, but has been criticized by some Republican lawmakers, who say it would wrongly reward illegal immigrants.
epearson@nydailynews.com
Bill would allow illegal immigrant students to qualify for tuition assistance for higher education
L/E should rigorously investigate the latino criminal uderworld running endless "non-profits" sucking up tax dollars to push a racist agenda. Corrupt parasites undermining the US political system. Govt documents were surely falsified to hide the corrupt use of tax dollars. L/E might find the latino underworld doled out tax funds to finance drug habits, sex romps, free eats/travel, posh vacations, and other outrageous conduct.
Hispanic Federation honchos--Roberto Ramirez (left) and Luis Miranda--have a BIG $$$ecret.
The Hispanic Federation has numerous existing ties to latino crime family nonprofits---corrupt political machines.
Twi$ted web of political nonprofits in Bronx, NY / By CANDICE M. GIOVE; w/ Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein
EXCLUSIVE The dating life of Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera (ousted from office by voters) has shed light on a web of Latino nonprofits in The Bronx groups that benefit a close-knit network of political insiders as much as the community.
Rivera installed a boyfriend, Vincent Pinela, as head of the Bronx Council for Economic Development, a taxpayer-funded nonprofit he admits being unqualified to run. He alleges she used the group to fund their dates and her campaign.
But the Bronx economic council is only one nonprofit of many organized under the Hispanic Federation, which has taken in $24 million in taxpayer money since 1998. The federation has ties to almost every Hispanic lawmaker in The Bronx, including Rivera, but primarily benefits two men: political strategist Luis Miranda, who co-founded it and once served as its president, and Roberto Ramirez, a former Bronx Democratic Party boss. The men run a private political consulting firm, the MirRam Group. Its paid by the Hispanic Federation and is hired by politicians who steer taxpayer money to the nonprofit.
A NY Post investigation has found:
<><><>* The Hispanic Federation paid MirRam and Miranda Towns, a firm registered to Miranda and his wife, $681,644 between 1999 and 2008 for consulting, records show.
<><><>* In 2005, the federation paid MirRam $88,000 to survey Latinos on topics including the mayors race. At the same time, MirRam was paid $1.37 million by Fernando Ferrer, then a mayoral candidate.
<><><>* Ramirez and Miranda gave political allies jobs at the nonprofit. Ex-Secretary of State Lorraine Cortez Vazquez, who had been Ramirezs chief of staff, made more than $180,000 a year there.
<><><>* The Hispanic Federation paid MirRam $33,000 this year to lobby the City Council, records show.
<><><>* The group often pays out small amounts, from $400 to $800, to individuals without detailing why on official documents as required by law. A source in the group said these are sometimes payments for favor. "I have to pay a lady who is bringing latino seniors to a political event, the source said. They promised to send the lady to the Dominican Republic with her family in exchange for rounding up votes. An Hispanic Federation spokesman lied---and said the payments were for families of victims of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed in Queens in 2001, or "other people in need."
Miranda launched the Hispanic Federation in 1990, the year Ramirez won an Assembly seat in Fordham. Ramirez left politics in 2000 and handed the party reins to Assemblyman José Rivera, father of sexpot Naomi, in 2002. Insiders say that if you want influence in The Bronx, you have to deal with the Hispanic Federation and, by extension, MirRam consultants. Nonprofits, for instance, pay the Hispanic Federation to do their bookkeeping.
Rivera's Bronx Economic Development council was charged $12,000 a year for Hispanic Federation services according toher boytoy Pinela. Every year, the federation throws a fund-raising gala packed with politicians---a bash at the Waldorf-Astoria last Apri1 brought out mayoral hopefuls City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Bill Thompson and New York Giant Victor Cruz.
But the blurring of a nonprofit and a consultant group means theres little or no accountability, said the source inside the Hispanic Federation. If we were helping the Little League around the corner to get bats or gloves . . . the ends justify the means, the source said. But when you are giving extra money to a senior center because they delivered people to a [political] event, its a different story.
A federation spokesman called the allegations simply untrue, saying it only provides funds for those in need of disaster relief. As for payments to MirRam, the group noted that Miranda was no longer its president and MirRam is arguably the top Latino lobbying and strategic consulting firm in our city.
SOURCE http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/twi_ted_web_in_bx_Fxatn1KxaBpb4reW6SaeqI#ixzz24f02JyRG
One more article that convinces me we are becoming a leftist nation, at least on the political level. I wish the country good luck, because it will need it.
This is the amnesty push.
we have a debt beyond belief.
we have the US giving two FREE naval frigates to the Turkish military. FREE, Gratis, at no charge!
and this doofus is giving immigration amnesty!?
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