October 3rd, 2011
I’ve got a piece in the Standard about the Texas illegal immigrant in-state tuition law. It’s so carefully nuanced that I won’t bother to try to summarize it here. But if you must have a take-away, it’s something like, Romney: Boo!
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Over at Beltway Confidential they seem to think that you’re aiding and abetting a conspiracy to violate federal law. Or something.
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SkinsFan,
While you are no doubt correct that folks from Latin America don’t risk their lives to come to the US for the in-state tuition, there is no doubt that the more goodies we lavish on immigrants, the more those goodies act as a magnet for the immigrants.
However, that said, for me it is not a pragmatic/utilitarian debate but one of principles — we have to start saying no to illegals period. No matter how they tug on our heart-strings or how many wonderful things they’ll do for our country — there parents came here illegally and therefore they are illegals and we need to deport the whole lot. The national question, for a guy like me, is a matter of first things and we are not taking the issue seriously. Plenty of Republican big-wigs don’t take illegal immigration seriously because their big business allies like the cheap labor. I think they are all wrong and the wave of immigrants from Latin America over the past 20-30 years has not been good for America and we need to get serious about reversing the flow and sending the immigrants home.
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Better to talk about this column than the latest Florida poll that shows your boy Perry in single digits among likely voters. Odd that you had so much fun crowing about the CNN poll on 9/12, but Perry’s complete collapse in Florida (where the primary WILL be decided) isn’t worth a mention.
Lame.
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Oh and Fake Herzog nailed it. The party that defunded NPR because it’s an unnecessary and unwise use of taxpayer money has no business subsidizing the higher education of illegals no matter how small the impact. It’s time to say no to people, even if it makes us heartless.
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I can’t believe I am agreeing with Evan here, but he’s right. Not because it was heartless of Republicans to attempt to defund NPR, but because we don’t have the luxury anymore of wasting money on the likes of NPR, instate tuition for illegals, and etc. and etc.
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Texas doesn’t subsidize college tuition for illegal aliens. In Texas, in-state tuition is not a subsidy for residents to stay in-state for college. It is largely used, as JVL points out, to shape the demographic make-up of the student body. It doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime, or any more so than any other student who attends those schools and pays in-state tuition. There are two options here:
1- Make illegal aliens who graduated from HS in TX pay out-of-state tuition.
2- Allow illegal aliens who graduated from HS in TX pay in-state tuition.The outcome of option #1 is that few/no illegal aliens will attend college in TX, thus entering the labor pool without higher education.
The outcome of option #2 is that some illegal aliens will get a college education at no additional cost to the taxpayers.
Which option do you prefer?
Remember, we’re talking about people already here and extremely unlikely to leave. We can offer them an opportunity to become skilled workers, or force them to be unskilled workers. -
SkinsFan,
Skilled workers that can’t be hired legally until amnesty (or some nebulous and insanely-unlikely-with-this-congress path to citizenship) happens.
And Last points out in his column that the majority are attending Community College where the subsidy is minimal, which quite literally means that the additional cost for out of state tuition is minimal. So why offer the subsidy other than pandering?
I’ll give Last credit for offering a far more compelling defense than Perry has managed.
SkinsFanPG October 3, 2011 at 11:53 am
The simple truth is that if Romney were running against a bunch of candidates who were all against in-state tuition for illegals, he’d support it and say, “you don’t have a heart.”
I support in-state tuition for illegals, seems like a no-brainer for me. If you graduated from high school in any-given state, you ought to be eligible for in-state tuition for public universities in said state. I seriously doubt this increases illegal immigration. I cannot envision someone about to risk their lives to come to the US thinking “I can’t wait until my kid gets in-state tuition.”