Posted on 06/22/2006 1:29:47 PM PDT by goalinestan
Most Utahns feel a state law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state college tuition should be repealed, according to a new Salt Lake Tribune poll.
Seventy-one percent of the 625 registered voters who were interviewed by telephone for the statewide poll this week said Utah should "repeal the current state law that offers the discounted resident college tuition rate to the children of undocumented immigrants."
Ruth Bick, a 63-year-old Ogden resident, said Utahns should not have to pay taxes to subsidize a college education for undocumented students. The state's middle class already is burdened enough with big tax bills, she said.
"Taxpayers should not have to pay for illegal children to go to school here," said Bick, a poll respondent who calls herself a political independent. "I just don't know what the answer is."
Layne Barnes, a West Jordan Republican who also participated in the poll, said children of undocumented immigrants already get free assistance and a free public school education, so "they should not be rewarded for breaking the law."
"I have no sympathy for them," he said of undocumented students.
But Shane Andrews, a stay-at-home dad and poll respondent, said in-state tuition is about wanting to "make them [undocumented Utahns] better people.''
''If they can't better themselves, their only alternative is to seek more public assistance," said the 32-year-old Republican.
The 2002 Utah law grants in-state college tuition rates to undocumented students who attended a state high school for at least three years and graduated. Last year, 169 students qualified for the tuition rates under the law, state numbers show. Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, has sponsored a bill for the past three years to repeal the law, but he has had no success. Still, he has said he will try again.
Philip Bernal, Salt Lake County Hispanic Democratic Caucus chairman, said the poll results on the tuition question "are not positive for education or Utah's future." Bernal, who didn't take the poll, said it's all in the wording of the question because the poll could have asked: Should Utah residents, who have attended at least three years at a state high school and graduated, be allowed to pay in-state college tuition?
There's a "misperception" statewide that the law allows undocumented students, many of whom have spent most of their education in Utah schools and cannot apply for federal financial aid, to pay less tuition, Bernal said.
"They're residents of Utah like everyone else," said Bernal, who had worked in higher education for 34 years. "It's not a benefit - it's a right they have."
In a January 2006 Tribune poll, nearly 60 percent of respondents said Utah should "repeal the state law that offers the discounted resident college tuition rate to the children of undocumented immigrants."
The statewide telephone poll by the Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Inc. was conducted Monday and Tuesday and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Minorities make up 16 percent - Latinos 11 percent - of the state's population and 12 percent of Utahns do not speak English at home, according to the U.S. census. The poll did not ask about respondents' ethnicity.
Many Utahns also said they support building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border (56 percent); oppose a path to citizenship for immigrants who are in the United States illegally (54 percent); and feel the state government should not have a public information Web site in Spanish (46 percent).
Bick said a pathway to citizenship is out of the question. A wall would give the United States "control of the border." And she doesn't want millions of state tax dollars spent on translating services into different languages.
''I hate that I have to 'Press 1' to hear English,'' Bick said. ''If they're here, they should know English.'' Barnes, a Utah Minuteman Project supporter, agreed. He went to the border in Fall 2005 with a group of Minutemen to learn more about the area and definitely supports a wall.
"I would help build it," Barnes said. He hears a lot on the news about Latinos committing crimes and blames them for Utah's unsafe streets. Barnes said he is frustrated that the employees at the fast-food burger joint in his neighborhood only speak Spanish.
"They're illegal aliens," he said. "I'm tired of being a victim."
Bernal said the wall being built on the border is not welcoming.
''It's the United States saying . . . we don't want to be neighbors,'' he said. ''If we decide later we don't like people who speak French, are we going to put a wall on [the U.S.-Canada] border?''
That I was unaware of but I hope it's true. :) All the endorsements in the world can't overcome how that looks.
Well put! (especially roommates who steal all of your stuff and expect you to give them more)
It's deeper than that, it's all about the North American Union and most of America is blissfully unaware it's in the works and even on the WH website.
Cannon is a solid conservative, with a ten year track record and a 97 ACU rating.
Jacob has his "FastPass" which grants any illegal holding it eventual amnesty.
Jacob's finished after admitting to that little item.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1652068/posts?page=22#22
Not very secret, huh?
Most Americans realize that the North American Union is about trade, only, between the three nations.
It has nothing to do with sovereignty, or blurring borders, or any of the other conspiratorial nonsense that has been spouted on this website over the past week.
Right now I don't trust anyone because they will all say anything to get elected or re-elected. Look at Specter as a prime example... did Cannon's brother reverse his position?
Thanks, I appreciate it.
If only that is all it is.
I don't know anything about Cannon's brother. But, Jacob's "FastPass" will do him in.
That's all it is, Tancredo and Corsi's spooky music musings notwithstanding.
It certainly won't help, that's for sure.
Besides eliminating borders from Canada to Mexico, it requires the US and Canada to secure Mexico's Southern border between Guatamala and Belize'.
If illegals get in State Tuition then a person from Md. or NC, or any other state should get the same thing.
Its just plain crazy that an American citizen should be expected tp pay more than an illegal immigrant.
Nuts. crazy, BS, Whoever allowed that is out of their mind.
It does none of those things. Stop buying Corsi's bull.
They're victims you know, so really, we should try to do whatever we can to reward their illegal behavior.
Will also provide Kansas City with a brand nes Mexican Consulate to make "decisions" regarding any funny little American Laws that need tweaking.
Oh ok, if you say so. And while we're at it we'll vote for Chris Cannon, Chas Hagel, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Arlen Specter, Mike DeWhine and the rest of the useless RINOs who'd sellout their own grandmothers and the country for a buck.
the new Inland Port will be used in addition to, not instead of, the East and West Coast Ports.
And the Mexican Consulate in Kansas City will have no affect on American law.
This entire thing has brought out the tinfoilers in droves, it seems. And, like most other conspiracy theories, this one is full of falsehoods and fantasies.
Nothing to do with Corsi. I'm not a union person, never have been, never will be, but this is one more move to bypass the unions by bringing cheap Chinese goods into the new port, they are building in Baja, and truck into middle America... by Mexican truckers vs. American Truckers...
This will have yet another adverse affect on the middle class in this country. If it's good it's good, if it's bad, it's bad, but I'd feel much better with a public debate on the issue.
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