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Prior days' news: By date | Search This week's print issue Back issues: By date | Search May 8, 2008Keep Admitting Immigrants, Governor Tells N.C. Community CollegesA day after the state attorney general’s office advised North Carolina community colleges to drop their policy of admitting illegal immigrants who meet other eligibility criteria, the state’s governor is urging colleges to continue admitting immigrants, according to The News & Observer. The earlier advice, in a letter to the system’s general counsel, suggested that the policy conflicted with federal law, but Gov. Michael F. Easley, a Democrat, said in a written statement today that federal law on the issue was not settled. He added that he was asking the attorney general to seek clarification from Washington on whether illegal immigrants were eligible to attend community colleges. —Charles Huckabee Posted on Thursday May 8, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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What “federal law on the issue … [needs to be] settled”? Illegal aliens — it seems wrong to call them immigrants, just as you would not likely use student to refer to a non-matriculated person who forces his way into your classroom — cannot legally do anything other than go home. Or do you allow people to walk in off the street and take your courses without your permission?
It doesn’t matter whether they work (illegally) and pay taxes that support the school. A burglar might invest his plunder and pay taxes that support parks, highways, and bridges, but he doesn’t have a right to stay out of jail so that he can use them. It also doesn’t matter whether parents brought the offender into the country as a child. A ten-year-old can’t be blamed if he’s supported by a criminal parent, but a college student who knowingly accepts ill-gotten money for tuition is an accessory to the parent’s crime. Similarly, college-age children who know that they, too, are in the country illegally are complicit.
Most of us who oppose illegal aliens don’t want to put them in jail — just send them home until they can enter the United States legally, as many of our parents and grandparents did. However, most of us also recognize that’s a pipe dream. Our will is weak, and the problem is complex. It can’t be solved by simply rounding up violators and busing them back to Switzerland, if that’s their home country. The water is too deep and too wide.
My point here is that whatever workable solution we eventually find has to start from the premise that we should not reward illegal aliens who have violated our democratically enacted laws. To return to the example at hand, state governments should not allow illegal aliens to attend state colleges unless that becomes part of a goal-directed federal solution to the overall problem that takes many more issues than college attendance into account.
— S. Britchky May 9, 07:06 AM #
It is a complex issue. It will take a long time to comprehensively address it. We don’t have that kind of time. I don’t think we have to wait to address the entire issue to begin addressing parts of it, particularly at a local level.
The state has to balance the ideal with the reality. Ideally, there would be no illegal immigration, or it would be straightforward to return illegal immigrants (they have moved here, after all) to their former countries. Simple, right? But the reality is that the state has to contend with the practicalities of economic impact, size of the population and our ability to identify and return them, how to address the crime rate for those who are here (we know education plays a role here, yes?)… etc. Practically speaking, it may be more cost-effective overall to allow everyone to seek education.
I’ve been wondering how you determine if a person is here illegally. If they can’t produce documentation? Our homeless population would seem to be ripe for deportation. If they speak Spanish and can’t provide documentation? I see a civil rights problem here – many Spanish-speaking people are born in the US. What if someone is born at home (still happens) and they have no birth certificate? What if I’m injured and can’t provide information needed to confirm my identity?
A woman who goes to my church is a recovering addict. She started using 30 years ago and used for 23 years. Her memory is shot. She didn’t know what state she was born in, what her birth parents’ names are (she was raised by others), didn’t remember where she went to high school… we had to do a lot of guess work and investigation to get documentation for her. In those years where she had nothing, could she have been accused of being an “illegal alien”?
— Debbie May 9, 08:38 AM #
Aside from exposing the person to being reported by anyone on campus, consider how would you ever determine residency for tuition purposes without documentation? Illegal means illegal and schools should not admit without documentation.
— Eric J. May 9, 08:59 AM #
Prudes.
— Bill May 9, 09:31 AM #
Hopefully, Ms or Mr Britchky is not a person who teaches in higher education. Such a person would or should hopefully have enough intelligence and honest to actually doing their homework regarding federal and state laws rather than raving like a Rush Limbaugh or Lou Dobbs – who spout their ignorance everyday in the media.
There is no requirement of citizenship to attend any U.S. public university or college. The 1996 Immigration Act left it up to the states whether or not to allow immigrant high school graduates without permanent residency visas to attend college and universities at in-state tuition/fee rates.
It is not a crime to be in the US without proper documents. It is a federal civil infraction. However, it is a crime to discriminate against anyone in housing or employment due to race, ethnicity, nationality, etc. Why don’t we hear a hew and cry about those crimes committed in our towns and cities every day ?
— Margaret Villanueva May 9, 09:54 AM #
I think it is tragically sad that people can be so heartless towards our latest immigrants. I see 18 year olds who want to attend college, but are full of fear because of their legal status. Many were brought here so young they do not remember life anywhere but here in the U.S.. How can they be seen as criminals? They do not have a home anywhere but here. They deserve equal opportunity for an education. An education that they pay for – they do not get federal aid no matter what their economic status is! I am tired of people acting as if they are getting a “free ride”!
— Dale Montgomery May 9, 10:44 AM #
I would like to second the points made by Ms. Villanueva and Mr. Montgomery and add a few of my own. I just can’t understand why a country that was founded on welcoming people who were searching for a better way of life would now want to close its borders. It is an extremely difficult and expensive process to enter this country “legally.” Many of our neighbors to the south simply cannot afford it. Is it wrong for them to want a better life for themselves and their children? When you get right down to it, they were the original inhabitants of much of this country.
— Sharon May 9, 11:08 AM #
At my institution, in another state, any student can sign a form indicating that they do not have the documentation requested as part of the application to demonstrate that he/she is in the country leagally. They can then attend as an undocumented student. They must pay full, out of state tuition for the opportunity to attend. It has been noted that it appears to be easier to attend as an undocumented student than it is to actually document that you are in the country legally.
— M May 9, 11:11 AM #
I completely agree with respondent Number One, S. Britchky, May 9, 07:06 AM
— kvc May 9, 11:23 AM #
In the absence of good laws or clear guidelines we get a mess of well-intentioned people who want to operate under their own interpretive incantations. Imagine traffic flowing where we all determine the intrinsic value of a yellow or red light. You got to be pretty far out to suggest we can all do it our own way. In fact we do, and the traffic situatrion is also a mess. Yellow can mean slow down, speed up, or anything else you determine at the moment.
I would love to see some of the commentators try to teach a class where each student determined his effort or participation, attendance, or manner of complying with the instructor’s design.
Get real!
Some things are RIGHT! Some things are WRONG. Not being able to determine the difference is an indication of your own experience and education.
— JOsephP. May 9, 11:26 AM #
Just for your information – Did you know that there are illegals in this country who have post-bachelorate education, have a professional job and contributing to make our country better, that don’t even know that they are illegal or who are just discovering they are? Why? Because their parents never told them. Do you hold responsible your parents’ mistakes for your present life? …Because they did not need documents to prove legality or not until proposed with marriage. What do these people do? They consider themselves Americans in every sense of the word and now find out they are illegal and should be booted out?! These “illegals” as many term them should not be grouped as a bunch of criminals, but as individuals.
— Mary May 9, 12:12 PM #
Illegal or not, anyone seeking to learn English and getting an education will most likely become a productive citizen instead of a burden on our society.
— Lourdes Silva Lupton May 9, 12:48 PM #
In this country, if one doesn’t agree with a law, one works to change that law. It is silly to suggest that some laws can be ignored simply because they make us feel bad. I like the people in my neighborhood who happen to be here illegally—they are working hard to support their families. They did, however, ignore federal immigration laws in coming here. That is wrong. Period.
If you don’t agree with our current laws in that regard, work to change them. You’re intelligent, capable people—call, write, make yourself heard. In fact, stop blogging this instant and DO SOMETHING. Please stop your whining and name calling of those who respect the law. Jeez, your really starting to piss me off with this stuff.
— Elaine May 9, 12:51 PM #
There are always consequences to actions. When people enter this country illegally, they should be deported, not escorted into the halls of academia. If illegals are provided a red carpet to the ivory tower, then we have a lot of people incarcerated we will have to apologize to. The Democratic governor of NC is wrong on this issue; as an elected executive he should work to uphold the law, not undermine it.
— Cicero May 9, 02:06 PM #
Just out of curiosity, why is the U.S. expected to take in everyone, regardless of ability to pay their own way? Just try to immigrate to a European country without education or proof of financial resources just because you “want a better life” (at someone else’s expense), and see how far you get.
It’s undoubtedly easier to make judgments about these issues when they aren’t in your own back yard, and when you aren’t paying for the consequences of illegal immigration yourself. Here in Texas, it is against the law to check the legal status of any child in the school districts. Home owners are taxed on property appraisals twice to three times the actual value of the property, because that’s what it costs to cover educating thousands of illegal immigrant kids — and caring for illegal families at the county hospital — and paying for their food and lodging through other government programs.
While the plight of the children of illegal aliens is sad, their parents made choices for them and the family will have to abide by those choices for good or ill. Studies have shown that most illegal immigrants are here for the money, not out of a desire to become citizens, and that they remove the vast majority of their income from the U.S. economy. One of the largest contributions to the GNP of Mexico is money “sent home” by illegal aliens in the U.S. — perhaps this is why we can’t get any cooperation about enforcing our sovereign borders?
— Kate May 9, 02:42 PM #
Illegal aliens are not immigrants. Immigrants should be admitted. Illegal aliens should not. And you shouldn’t use the terms interchangeably.
— Deborah May 9, 04:07 PM #
Immigrants with or without papers are people, interested in bettering themselves, not “illegal aliens”. I agree with comments 5, 6 and 7.
Every wave of immigration (e.g. Irish, Italian) has met resistance, its nothing new.
Kate, a couple of things: Billions of dollars in withheld taxes from undocumented workers are collected by the IRS and never claimed, maybe they should be used to help the “problems” in your backyard (which are already eased by the fact that you buy cheap produce and other services thanks to the immigrant labour). Also, Mexico’s economy ranks amongst the 10 largest in the world, while “money sent back” is a relevant amount, the country does not depend in any way on it. One more thing you might not know, the reason mexican peasants come to the US to harvest crops and do other jobs is that, although they own land and used to work it in Mexico, they cannot compete with the heavily subsidized US agricultural system, so they have to come here to work for their competitors. Talk about attacking the root of the problem. Show some compassion for less fortunate people.
— One more citizen of the world May 9, 04:53 PM #
Wow…the context of the word “Illegal” as used incorectly in USofA has a long history, isnt it? I mean, was’nt it not so long ago it was illegal for ‘some’ people to sit,eat,travel,study with ‘others’ ? And when did the doyens of Harvard.edu first made it ‘legal’ to have a tenured female faculty…1956? By the way I thought this country was founded on the principles of just 10 ‘laws’ from a historical book, aint it? I am not sure how that piece of ducument define an illegal alien, is it like “thou shall not love thy illegal alien neighbour”? Well, good luck to those who are thinking to pack people and send them back where they ‘belong’. But you know what, it sure can be done though, remeber the nut from europe who did it to the tune of 4-6 million ‘illegal aliens’ ? I think it was his user manual that some with coned hats and hooded faces tried to use here as well not so long ago !! Ok..the bottom line is this, pl do not forget the context of the ‘illegality’ as historically applied to humans in this country. One need to learn from the history and make sure that failed prejudices are not repeated, one way or another. This country is still, literally, a great nation as compared to many others in the world. The fair minded god fearing ‘legal non-aliens’ living here has a great duty to make sure it stays that way. But I still can see how some would argue that they need to have all types of border control and immigration control and what not, ‘cos guess what, their argument is to learn a lesson from history, remember what happened to the natives to this land for not having tough guys the likes of INS and ICE back then !!??
— Df/ A Legal 'Alien' May 10, 04:26 AM #