Saturday, December 1, 2007
Winston-Salem journal
Easley backs open admissions policy
He pushes admitting illegal immigrants to community colleges

RALEIGH

Gov. Mike Easley said yesterday that he supports a new community-college policy requiring that all campuses admit illegal immigrants, a decision counter to the views of the five leading candidates to succeed him next year.

A community-college attorney recently informed all 58 of the state’s campuses that they cannot deny admission to illegal immigrants, overriding a 2004 policy that gave individual schools the option to decide whether to admit them. But Easley said that the children of illegal immigrants living in North Carolina shouldn’t be punished for their parents’ decision to enter the country.

“The people whom we are talking about ... came here as babies and small children who haven’t done anything wrong,â€