Let graduates brought here as illegals attain permanent status

East Valley Arizona Tribune ^ | editorial

[hsmomx3]

That opportunity now lies before Congress in the form of legislation that would allow children of immigrant families to further their educations and careers after high school. It is important in the East Valley because each year, some very bright kids hit a brick wall at graduation, with enormous personal and social consequences. The young people in question were brought here by their parents. While the parents may have come or stayed illegally, the children had no say in the matter.

But the kids do receive one great benefit — a free public education through grade 12. The law requires public schools to accept all comers, no questions asked as to immigration status.

But once that diploma’s in hand, life gets hard for youngsters with no legal permission to be here. They can’t get a driver's license or a legitimate job, and they can’t attend one of Arizona’s three public universities without paying $13,000 a semester for international tuition. You could be a valedictorian and captain of the football team for all the law cares, but now you’ve hit a dead end.

The Student Adjustment Act, freshly introduced in Congress, would provide permanent residency status to students 21 and younger who have lived in the United States continuously for at least five years and are earning their high school diplomas. The students also must have no criminal record and be applying for college to be eligible.

Some object because this would be just another inducement for illegal immigration, but it’s doubtful the dirt-poor people who come here are thinking that far down the road. They’re here to do landscaping and lay bricks so they can eat for the next day or two; college for their kids is probably the farthest thing from their minds.

Keep in mind, too, that even if the law is not passed, these youngsters are not likely to return to their countries of origin; for many, this is the only home they’ve ever really known.

So we can either consign them to a lifetime of frustration, poverty and attendant social problems, or we can give them a chance to move ahead, earn a decent living and become productive members of the melting pot.

The choice seems like a no-brainer. Saying no would be a no-hearter.

[LiteKeeper]

< SHOUTING > WHAT PART OF ILLEGAL DON'T THEY UNDERSTAND????? </ SHOUTING >

[ETERNAL WARMING]

There are FEW jobs for American citizens, educated or not. Just what we need...more competition. Of course, the government and big business will love it. It will now decimate the wages of the educated just as the influx of illegals have decimated the wages of the blue collar workers. Ain't America great? Perhaps now, the educated will wake up and realize they've been had and a massive redistribution of wealth has taken place.

[Kuksool]

Would the editors be so sympathetic toward homeschoolers applying for college? I somehow doubt it.

[madfly]

Is this another name for the Dream Act? It's going to be a busy summer. I'll bet the University groups have been gearing up for the next 3 months to work against the racist, nonhispanics who honor the Constitution and the Immigration laws. Schools are not for learning any more. They are for indoctrinating and organizing, IMHO.

[dagnabbit]

Don't worry everyone. As soon as Clinton is out of office, this problem will be tackled.

[Fraulein]

Do NOT expect the Republicans to do ONE thing to fight illegal immigration.

We are fighting a war on terrorism while keeping our borders wide open. Explain to me how it is that in the name of fighting terrorism we can wage a war against Iraq while at the same time we leave our own borders unprotected?

American citizens break the law, and off to jail we go. Illegals break the law, and they just get more benefits.

Democrat and republican politicians are on the same side on this issue (though perhaps for different reasons), and hence voters are given no real viable policy alternatives on which to vote on this issue. We're just supposed to bend over and take it.

[Under the Radar]

How idiotic. Getting Plyler vs. Doe overturned would be much better for America. I say round them out, pitch them back to wherever they're supposed to be, and let them fix whatever problems their criminal parents fled.

Amen!

[Ten Megaton Solution]

Yeah, my tuition at a private university cost me lots and lots. So of course, I should be very happy to see kids here illegally get a free ride in the public schools (my property taxes) and be overjoyed to see the little darling go on to college (more of my money) at no expense to the poor little darlings.

After all, I'm a white male. That means I'm racist, selfish, and productive. All those sins must be expiated somehow.

[fifteendogs]

Oh please, simmer down. We can afford to educate all the illegals in this country for free. All the way through college. with room and board. All we have to do is increase the state and federal income taxes to 25 percent and 50 percent respectively. What's wrong with that. Of course the illegals wouldn't be taxed, that wouldn't be fair.

Property taxes should be raised to take care of any offsets and your property will be taken over by the state at your death. The property would be used to house new illegals coming into the country.

This is the only fair way to solve the problems of illegals in this country.

[dark_lord]

Hmmm...a couple points. But first let me point out that I am in favor of mining the border (kind of like the way the old East/West Germany border was set up.) That said...

First of all, technically their 1st through K12 education is mainly paid for in most states via property taxes. Which even if you are a renter you pay (because of course the property taxes are passed on to the renters.) So, while the illegals may weasel their way out of income tax, they get stuck with property tax along with the rest of us. So they are kicking in a share for the education up through K12.

Second of all, I don't think anywhere in the article did it say someone was proposing to give them a free ride in college. So...while we need to shut the border down hard and kick out the illegals we find -- we should focus on the facts.

[Tancredo Fan]

What is it now... his 11th year, or threabouts? Enough.

[texastoo]

In Brownsville, Tx. the government subsidizes the anchor mothers with their rent. For a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment, this anchor mother will only have to pay $200.00 per month for herself and her child. Not only does the child get a free education, but this child get free speech therapy as he has a speech problem. She also collects food stamps and gets free health care for herself and the child.

If her boyfriend, who is not the child's father, moves in with her then her rent will go to less than $200.00.

[janetgreen]

Yes, illegals do work off the books, and most don't pay taxes. You should see the construction industry here in California, you won't see many non-hispanic faces, and you won't hear much English spoken. They work for less than Americans can. 2 bedroom apartments house twenty people, something Americans don't usually do.

They have practically taken over many industries. Construction, Gardening, Nanny, Restaurant worker, Truck drivers, Office cleaning, the list goes on further. They are undercutting America's wages, and the mothers who have babies are collecting aid to dependent children. Hospitals and schools are overflowing. Some hospitals have closed. Now they want us to build new schools for the millions of new "citizens".

California is absolutely invaded, and Washington ignores it, in fact, encourages it.

In the last ten years I believe that millions of illegal aliens have come to southern California alone, and most of our elected idiots are Democrats, which blows Bush's idea that hispanics are conservatives. Most are not.

[Regulator]

Just a tiny little comment. The notion that the illegals are kicking in a share for education has one little cultural caveat. Property tax rates are supposed to be a function of the average occupancy of dwellings. That's one of the reasons there are occupancy limits in residential codes. Since it's an average, small families are unfairly taxed while large families (living in approximately equal value dwellings) are unfairly rewarded. It's an argument for simply charging tuition.

But the Mexicans here have solved the problem. Just put 2 to 3 families in a house. For most of them, this situation is usually far better than what they came from -- one American tract home is a palace by any Mexican standard. Just yesterday another poster jokingly paraphrased a SoCal newspaper headline:"House in La Puente burns, 30 people homeless".

This means that whatever property tax they are paying through rent is badly diluted by the large number of illegal occupants. City zoning codes are not just about harassment for the sake of property values. They're about making sure that costs are not disproportionate.

Enforcement of occupancy codes is defeated by the usual mechanism: any enforcement of such codes against the saintly Mexican illegals is "racist" and "discriminatory" and "victimization of poor people".

So the saw that "we pay taxes too" is just that. Anyone who wants to look at the California budget deficit will quickly realize that illegal aliens and their children are net negative contributors. And just because they pay sales taxes when they buy food and property taxes when they pay rent should not bestow any rights. They made the choice to come into the country against our laws, not us. The fact that some portion of their lives is not contrary to law is not a legitimating factor. It's merely an artifact of living here, nothing more.

[Regulator]

This is a huge backdoor immigration program

Dead on. HR 1684 is an AMNESTY, folks, just another one in a long line.

There isn't any goddamn reason that illegals educated here cannot go home to Mexico or wherever and enroll in a university. None at all. They and their families stole enough from America and got away with it. Time for them to take the stolen goods and leave. Let the people who followed the rules get to stay here and continue on.

[free me]

Thanks for the info! Well, I don't know what mechanism can be used now to overturn that monstrosity but I hope someone figures it out soon. We have to create an atmosphere here in America that makes life for illegal aliens very uncomfortable and unprofitable. Crazy rulings that prevent Government officials from cooperating with the INS have to go!

[dark_lord]

You make some very good points. If the local and state governments are not willing to enforce the laws, the people who elect their local and state representatives have the power to do something about that. If they choose not to do so -- then they may suffer the consequences. I suspect that eventually way more people than just the folks on this forum will get upset and react, but probably not before California has a complete "system crash".

[in the Arena]

The Student Adjustment Act, freshly introduced in Congress, would provide permanent residency status to students 21 and younger who have lived in the United States continuously for at least five years and are earning their high school diplomas. The students also must have no criminal record and be applying for college to be eligible.

Isn't illegal immigration a crime ?

[Regulator]

If they choose not to do so -- then they may suffer the consequences

Exactly. So far, there hasn't been significant damage to the enablers who run for office here - but then, money was flowing everywhere just a few years ago. People thought they could afford to ignore the problem. But now the system IS melting down -- hospitals closing, schools undergoing massive layoffs, etc. Still doesn't seem to be enough here in Lotus Eaters Land. They're convinced that someone, somewhere has the money, and damnit, they're going to get it. Except...the folks with the cash left town. They aren't planning to stick around for the big shakedown. So now California is stuck with the folks who want the handout.

Full system crash probably isn't too far off. It will happen when California has to go into the credit markets and bid high for bonds against the U.S. government which is currently in the same situation (only borrowing a lot more). At some point, the bond buyers will degrade their credit, and a lot will just say "no thanks". At that point, Davis and the Commies go down.

[glory]

I was going to post this very same thing. We were a aparty to this in Phoenix when we lived there. New homes being had easily now with all the incentives for low income folks to buy and they get at 200,000 home with 3000 sq ft and then add onto it to boot(I can think of two homes in our old neighborhood that "enclosed" the garage, built out using nearly all of their 1/3 acre lot, and then on top too(more of the second story). You would see about 20 kids waiting for the school bus on the side of our home--keep in mind this was a circle of homes about a 1/2 mile around--the bus picked up in 3 places on that circle. I drove around during this time many times and I counted about 75 children waiting for the bus in that 1/2 mile of homes! About 7 or 8 would come out of that one house I mentioned and it seemed as if there were 3 adult women there constantly running the home. We were paying the same in property tax and had 2 children--now who was paying more in to that lousy school do you think?(we would have homeschooled btw, not a chance in heck we would have used the schools there)

Right before we got out, a home close by us enclosed the garage and had the biggest low life immigrant types living in there. I counted about 6 guys waiting to go to work one morning in the front. These guys were living in the GARAGE that had an a/c attached to it and a seperate entrance--it was crazy! Sometimes they would wait on the side of our home(we were the corner home) and we'd find beer cans and all kinds of trash. Thankfully our side wall never got graffited(others did in the area), but we kept the wall from being too graffiti friendly by having shrubs and trees on that narrow strip of land. We counted our blessings we got out when we did. The neighborhood was going to pot fast.