ALIPAC: Community colleges open doors to illegal immigrants
Community colleges open doors to illegal immigrants
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By: Amy Eagleburger, Senior Writer
Issue date: 11/29/07 Section: State & National
The N.C. Community College System decided this month to require all system schools to admit illegal immigrants, altering a 2004 decision to leave that admissions decision up to the individual colleges.
The rights of illegal immigrants have become a hot topic in North Carolina, which has one of the highest illegal immigrant populations in the country.
Chancy Kapp, assistant to the president for external affairs for the NCCCS, said system attorney David Sullivan conducted a study that prompted the decision.
"In his opinion the system had been misinterpreting the open-door policy - we were not allowed to put nonacademic barriers to applicants," Kapp said.
About 300 illegal immigrants are currently enrolled in the state's 58 comprehensive community colleges and pay out-of-state tuition, Kapp said. Total system enrollment in full-time programs is nearly 200,000.
Most of the schools already admit illegal immigrants, but the recent decision has forced some, like Wake County Technical Community College, to revise their admissions policy.
"We don't have a choice, so now we're going to abide by what the state board is requiring us to do, and that's fine," said Laurie Clowers, the college's public relations director.
In the past, the college has required applicants to show appropriate documentation to prove their residency and immigration status. Now it will simply treat illegal immigrants as out-of-state students.
Clowers said that she does not expect the new regulations to appreciably increase enrollment and that the number turned away in the past because of immigration status is not significant.
The decision adds to the current illegal immigrant debate, including whether or not illegal aliens should be allowed driver's licenses and be eligible for in-state tuition at community colleges.
"We shouldn't be training illegal aliens for jobs that it is illegal for them to have," said William Gheen, president of the Raleigh-based Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee.
"Those community colleges have been built by generations of taxpayers, and public polls show that 80 percent of North Carolinians don't want any taxpayer benefits or welfare going to illegal aliens."
Closer to the border, El Paso Community College in Texas has been admitting illegal immigrants since classes began in 1972.
"We don't ask if they're legal or not; we just ask if they are a resident or not," said Paula Chavez, admissions manager for the college's international students office. "We're not a policing agency. However, we do tell them that there are chances they take when they cross the bridge."
Chavez said that El Paso's location as a border town has made admitting illegal immigrants into degree programs a natural choice. The only time it is ever political is if a student is caught crossing the border.
All illegal immigrants are directed to the college's international office, where they can fill out the I-20 form to receive a student visa, which allows them to legally complete a degree program. Approximately 400 to 600 of the college's 24,000 students per semester have such a visa.
In North Carolina, the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC will be making every effort to rally voters against allowing illegal immigrants into the state's education system.
"We are going to launch a state PAC to ensure that every voter knows which lawmakers stand for or against this issue in illegal immigration by next November. We're going to be bringing in national resources to aid in the battle in North Carolina," he said.
"All hell is about to break loose."
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