But there IS evidence that illegal aliens STAY here because of it. It is not a canard. Nothing should be done that would encourage an illegal alien to come here or stay here.
I guess the kids who have already lived here a decade or more “stay here”. But since they have no place to go ( they have never lived in their “home country”, they might not speak the language, they are americanized, all their friends are here, everything they know is here), and they have no means (they have no job, they don’t have a home to move into back in their home country), and the federal government is NEVER going to deport them, I believe you are wrong to suggest the in-state tuition is what is keeping them here.
But you said there is evidence — so where is it? Did they do a survey and find that there were kids who would move back to a country they’ve never been to if they had to pay twice as much for college?
Fact is, these kids are willing to pay lots of money for college, they aren’t destitute useless vagrants. If you have kids in high school, they probably know some of these kids, are friends with them, and would be pretty upset if they were thrown out of the country.
And given that we are talking about a few thousand kids each year, this is an absurd issue to throw out a good conservative candidate over.
What REALLY keeps illegals in this country is that we have jobs, especially in good conservative states with sound policies like Texas. Obama has done a good job of getting illegals to leave, by destroying the economy and limiting the incentive for illegals to come here to get jobs.