Posted on 12/16/2006 4:59:54 AM PST by Hadean
ATLANTA - High-performing students who grew up in Georgia but are undocumented immigrants soon won't qualify for discounted tuition at state colleges.
The change is necessary to comply with the state's new aggressive immigration laws that went into effect in July, said Burns Newsome, attorney for the Georgia Board of Regents. It means students who have high grades but are in the country illegally will have to pay the much higher out-of-state tuition rates rather than being allowed to pay in-state tuition.
Sen. Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, architect of the tough immigration laws, said the state should not subsidize the education of student who won't be able to work legally after graduation. The policy shift also wards off any potential lawsuits that have plagued states like California and New York, he said.
"Georgia doesn't need to be put through that," he said.
But others say the change will only hurt communities where high school drop out rates are high and college attendance rates are paltry at best.
"It's unconscionable to punish children for the sins of their parents," said State Sen. Sam Zamarripa, D-Atlanta, who fought against the immigration laws. "This initiative is essentially going after kids that are more Georgian than anybody who has moved here in the past five years. They like boiled peanuts. They like southern rock. They like the Braves."
It is unclear how many students will be affected because the Regents don't track the number of illegal immigrants at state colleges.
This year, in-state students pay $1,819 per semester to attend the Georgia State University, compared to the $7,276 per semster that out-of-state students pay. Tuition varies by institution.
Ten states offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, according to the National Council of La Raza. Many of those states have faced lawsuits from U.S. citizens paying out-of-state tuition rates.
What's unconscionable is to tempt even more parents to sin because of the payoff: to have their kids given an advantage denied to the children of legal citizens of other states who didn't break the law.
Government gets more of what it subsidizes. If it subsidizes single parent families and it gets more single parent families. If it subsidizes sloth and inefficiency, it gets more sloth and inefficiency. If it subsidizes illegal immigration, it gets--guess what?--that's right: more illegal immigration.
The Textual Appeal of Tupac Shakur
University of Washington
Among younger academics, hip-hop studies is rapidly becoming the new It specialty. One pioneer, grad student Georgia Roberts, has taught a class for the past four years that combines 2Pac's lyrics with examinations of texts like Machiavelli's The Prince and Sun Tzu's The Art of War. For extra credit, students learn the Humpty Dance.
http://radaronline.com/features/2006/09/the_10_most_moronic_college_courses_in_america.php
And, frankly, I'm against anchor babies, so I'm actually pretty strict on illegal immigration, but if these kids have spent their whole lives here, no one is going to kick them out. It's just not gonna' happen. No way. Does anyone here really think they're going to get kicked out? In your dreams...
They need good educations. Let them pay a lot of taxes, and not be a drain on the system! LOL
Well, you're really not against anchor babies. You support a policy that encourages more illegal immigrants to have anchor babies.
You want fewer anchor babies? Take away the incentives.
Ding, ding ding! We have a winner!
It is also worth noting that in Georgia, once a student is branded 'out-of-state', that status never changes even if that student spends the next four years living, working, and paying taxes in Georgia.
"Pieces" of paper mean things. The United States Constitution is pieces of paper, but 'paper' around which our laws are based. For every deserving illegal you cite, there are tens, perhaps scores of honest hardworking, even intelligent, aspiring immigrants who (and their parents) are following the law and waiting their turn. As a citizen of Georgia, and someone who actually pays taxes that help run the universities these illegals want to attend at a cut-rate price (something reserved for legal Georgians), I am offended at your suggestions of fast-tracking. The only fast-tracking that should be happening is fast-tracking back to the country from whence they, or their parents, illegally came.
Come on now Mr. ZAMARRIPA! You know full well that this in-state vs. out-of-state tuitiion thing is merely the incremental erosion of law that you liberals have practiced for decades. The illegals don't give a whit's damn about reducing the tuition. What they are really after is designation as a resident via in-state status, thereby becoming elligible to qualify for Georgia's Hope Scholarship program, something which will provide them completely free college education. This, my friend, directly affects other Georgia citizens and is something for which other Georgians like me will not stand
"...It is utter nonsense to keep hard-working, successful people *out* of the US or to keep them from education or employment that benefits us all. Just as it is utter nonsense to force such people to spend the ten or twenty of the most productive years of their lives having to fight to get citizenship,..."
Actions have consequences. If you break our laws by sneaking into our country without permission, you are not entitled to the benefits of a U.S. citizen, and neither are your children (if not born here...but that's another issue ). You are an invading foreigner. Years later, it has finally caught up with you, in the form of not getting special privileges at our universities. Tough nuts. So, you think refusing to give special tuition to invading foreigners is "punishing" them? How about deporting them, back to their home country? How about jailing them for breaking into our country illegally? Everything that these illegals have gained, they have taken without permission. Now you want to "fast track" them toward citizenship. I say fast track them back to their home country.
So you regard declaring infants to have committed criminal acts because their parents took them across the border to be "rational"?
Do you expect toddlers to honorably turn themselves in to the police so that they can be shipped back to a country they do not even remember?
And yet, if they *attempt* to get citizenship, this is what will happen to them. They will be forced out of the country, for at least a decade, to even apply. And this is the stupid part.
Would you be willing to leave the US to go to a foreign country, whose language you might not even speak, to live there for over a decade, just so you might be allowed back home? Assuming that you are not ethnically Mexican, that would be unconscionable. Would anyone here do that voluntarily?
It is right and proper that Georgia not give in-State tuition to illegal aliens. But at the same time, it is the federal government's fault that many of those illegals are not legal.
It is also self-destructive of the federal government. To refuse to allow educated people who are in every sense of the word American, to work in America and help our economy is ridiculous. They are precisely the people we want to invite to our country.
Hard working, intelligent, and honest people should be able to get citizenship within a year, especially if they have money. If they are worthless, criminal peasants, then tell them to get lost, no reason to even hold out hope.
And once someone is a de facto American, it is too late to kick them out because they do not have de jure citizenship.
Their parents might have committed a criminal act, but they couldn't have. Babies do not commit crimes.
Gee, I saw an old video clip recently of President Eisenhower calling illegal aliens "wetbacks". Can you imagine what the MSM would do to a President who would use a term like that nowadays?
The issue is not whether the out-of-country kids can go to college and pursue the American dream - they can. The issue is whether they should be given a discount while equally well intentioned in-country kids should not. Let them work a job and take out loans while they go to college. I did, and most other college kids do too.
Right...Uncle Sam put a gun to their head and forced them to jump the border.
"...it is the federal government's fault that many of those illegals are not legal..."
No, it is partly the fault of our government that they weren't prevented from coming here illegally, but mostly the fault of the invaders themselves.
"...if they *attempt* to get citizenship, this is what will happen to them. They will be forced out of the country, for at least a decade..."
You're darned right, they will. There are consequences to breaking into someone else's country illegally. If that's punishment of innocent children, it was done by their parents, not by our government. You are confusing the victim with the perpetrator, here.
"Would you be willing to leave the US to go to a foreign country..."
No. Nor should I, since I am an American citizen, as were my parents. And grandparents. And great-grandparents. And great-great grandparents, all the way back to 1699. If I broke into Mexico, though, you can bet your a** I'd be deported, and sure as heck wouldn't be going to Mexico U for in-state prices.
"It is right and proper that Georgia not give in-State tuition to illegal aliens..."
Yup.
"...To refuse to allow educated people who are in every sense of the word American, to work in America and help our economy is ridiculous..."
To allow the children of illegal aliens special privileges, otherwise reserved for American citizens, is what would be ridiculous. These slots will be filled by someone. The question is, who gets them? Americans, who own the country, who paid for it with the blood of their forefathers, or invading foreigners, who are eager to reap the unearned rewards of our great democracy? Seems like an easy answer, to me.
"Hard working, intelligent, and honest people should be able to get citizenship within a year, especially if they have money..."
No, we should make rules that we can all agree upon, regarding who we allow to become an American, and when. Then we should enforce those rules. And if someone breaks those rules, they would suffer certain consequences.
"...once someone is a de facto American, it is too late to kick them out ..."
Says who? Vicente Fox?
"...Their parents might have committed a criminal act, but they couldn't have. Babies do not commit crimes."
No, but those babies suffer because of their parents' illegal action, not because our government is unfair. Also, those "babies" aren't going to college. By that time, they're adults themselves, here illegally, thus committing a crime.
Senator Zamarippa would rather punish taxpaying American citizens than illegals.
Exactly! That is why I am encouraged by the recent ICE raids. These people may be out on the street in a few days or weeks and may just move somewhere else in the US, but companies like Swift, that hire them, are going to take a big hit financially if they have to completely replace their workforce every few months. Hopefully, they will soon figure out that it doesn't pay to hire illegal aliens and then the incentive for them to flock here evaporates.
I'm a legal immigrant to the U.S. currently on an H1B. My dependents can fo to school at in-state rates after we meet the otehr residencey requirements of the state. If I was on one of several other work visas while waiting for my green card, my dependents would not be allowed to go to college at in state rates. SOme visas even prohibit foreign children from attending public school under certain conditions. Illegals have no right to complain when legals have complicated restrictions to navigate for in state tuition.
If illegal aliens want a college education then they can either go to a state that offers it, enroll in online courses at a Mexican (or whatever country they are from) university or they can go back to their country of origin and enroll.
Geez, even American kids go to foreign countries for a college education without the benefit of knowing the language, culture or having an extended family around.
Besides, a college educated illegal alien still cannot be lawfully employed in the U.S.. See the WSJ's article from April 2005 on how devastated the illegal alien students in Texas were after realizing that they could not get a job. Why should any taxpaying citizen invest money in people who cannot be lawfully employed.
Because the illegals "like boiled peanuts. They like southern rock. They like the Braves."
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