Thread: AR: Issue of illegal aliens’ tuition reintroduced

Issue of illegal aliens’ tuition reintroduced in Legislature
BY LAURA KELLAMS

Posted on Wednesday, March 7, 2007
State lawmakers will again consider whether to extend instate tuition costs to the children of illegal aliens, a revival of a divisive proposal the Legislature narrowly defeated in 2005.

Sen. Hank Wilkins, D-Pine Bluff, on Monday filed what he’s calling the “Access to Postsecondary Education Act of 2007,” which requires that resident tuition status at public universities be granted to illegal aliens’ children who’ve attended high school in Arkansas at least three years.

Wilkins said the measure would provide opportunity to people “who are, for all practical purposes, Arkansas citizens.”

“Quite frankly, when we do things like that, we raise everybody’s boat,” he said.

The proposal resembles one Wilkins co-sponsored two years ago, a bill championed by former Gov. Mike Huckabee. It passed the House but failed by two votes in the Senate amid questions over whether it violated federal law.

At the time, then-Attorney General Mike Beebe issued a formal opinion that the proposal was vulnerable to challenge. Beebe, now governor, hasn’t taken a stand on Wilkins’ proposal. His spokesman, Matt DeCample, said that if there are similar legal concerns, then Beebe’s statements in the 2005 opinion would hold true.

Since the issuance of that opinion, similar laws have been upheld in Kansas and California. An appeal in the Kansas case is pending in the 11 th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta, and an appeal in the California case is pending in state court there.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes such laws, reports that 10 states allow illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition. The Missouri House last week moved in the opposite direction, approving a bill that would bar illegal aliens from admission to state colleges and universities.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the advocacy group, said Missouri’s measure indicates a recent trend. He said a sign of the idea’s growing lack of popularity is that Massachusetts rejected a similar proposal last year.

He said such laws say to illegal aliens, “If you come here illegally, we’ll reward your child with a subsidized college education.”

Opponents in Arkansas already were lining up Tuesday.

Betsy Hagan, president of Eagle Forum of Arkansas, said she heard the bill had been filed and went to the Capitol to start lobbying immediately.

“It’s about the rule of law.... I realize that the state problem goes back to the federal government, but we need to stop it here, where we’re not encouraging them to come here,” Hagan said of illegal aliens.

Wilkins said he knows he’s in for a fight, mostly because his memories are fresh from the previous regular session. He is black, as was the House sponsor then, and he said they both received death threats laced with racial slurs.

“That does not deter me from doing what I believe is right,” Wilkins said. “This is the right thing to do. I’m never going to be deterred by threats from ignorant people.”

SB 981 contains a clause stating that many children of illegal aliens “have proven their academic ability” and that educational opportunities should be offered to all children so they can contribute to the state’s economic viability.

To qualify for in-state tuition under SB 981, students must have graduated or earned a General Educational Development diploma from an Arkansas high school and must file an affidavit stating the intent to obtain legal status. The bill wouldn’t offer state-funded scholarships to illegal aliens, as the 2005 proposal would have done.

Arkansas residents enjoy a substantial discount on tuition rates. At the University of Arkansas, for example, full-time tuition for one year is $ 4, 590 for a resident and $ 12, 724 for out-of-state students.

A 1996 federal law bars illegal aliens from obtaining financial benefits at a public college that are not allowed to all U. S. citizens.

Opponents have argued that because in-state tuition isn’t afforded to citizens who live outside Arkansas, it would violate federal law to offer the benefit to illegal aliens.

That was the argument made in the Kansas case by out-of-state students paying higher tuition prices than illegal aliens. Dismissing the case, the judge said the out-of-state students had no legal standing to sue.

Meanwhile, another immigration-related bill filed Monday, the last day to file legislation, would require the state to document all it spends on illegal aliens.

Rep. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, is calling his legislation the “Arkansas Taxpayer Protection Act.” He said the idea would be to have the state track any spending on illegal aliens.

At first Woods said the state could figure that out by asking people who receive state services to sign a form saying whether they’re illegal aliens. But he said later that since most of the state budget goes for education, prisons and the Department of Health and Human Services, state workers who deal with those budgets could come up with ways to track what they spend on illegal aliens.

“We’ve got to start somewhere,” he said. “It all boils down to a lack of action on the federal level.”

He said that when he comes to Little Rock, no one’s talking about illegal immigration. When he goes home to Springdale, he said, he has telephone messages from people demanding to know that the Legislature is doing something about it.

Arkansas has one of the nation’s fastest-growing immigrant populations. The Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D. C., a nonpartisan research organization, estimates that 40, 000 illegal aliens of different ethnic backgrounds lived in Arkansas in 2004.
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/183782/

Federal aid should be cut for any school that provides in state tuition for illegals and their children. I don't want to support a school that supports illegals.

I heard the other day on one of the tv talk shows that if a state allowed illegals in state tuition, they had to let American citizens to have instate tuition also!

Wilkins said the measure would provide opportunity to people “who are, for all practical purposes, Arkansas citizens.”

Too bad Wilkins that for all legal purposes, they're illegal aliens.

“Quite frankly, when we do things like that, we raise everybody’s boat,” he said.

This guy's boat definitely has a bigggggggg hole in it and so does his head.

The Missouri House last week moved in the opposite direction, approving a bill that would bar illegal aliens from admission to state colleges and universities.

The Show-Me State is leading the way.

Originally Posted by nittygritty

I heard the other day on one of the tv talk shows that if a state allowed illegals in state tuition, they had to let American citizens to have instate tuition also!

Seems like a no-brainer doesn't it?