Thread: We must end incentives

We must end incentives

Licenses, college benefits reward illegality, encourage more of it.

By Dan Stein

More than 13 million illegal aliens are living in the USA because we accommodate illegal immigration. The federal government has consistently neglected its enforcement responsibilities, while many state and local governments actually reward people who violate immigration laws.

While the vast majority of Americans and New Yorkers have made it clear that they believe that this nation must enforce its immigration laws, Gov. Eliot Spitzer has attempted to give them driver’s licenses and college tuition benefits.

In addition to making life easier for illegal aliens by granting them driving privileges, the license also serves as the de facto identity document and would make them indistinguishable from everyone else.


New York is already saddled with more than $5 billion a year in costs for providing K-12 education, health care and incarceration for illegal aliens. Spitzer favors adding the cost of subsidizing a college education.

Many local policies in New York already accommodate illegal aliens by shielding them from enforcement, and providing benefits and services without requiring proof of legal residence.

Spitzer’s instinct seems to be to continue down this slippery slope. He wants to accommodate people who drive without licenses by giving them licenses. His response to people who bring their kids here illegally is to give them tuition benefits.

Rather than impose penalties to deter illegal aliens from driving without licenses or insurance by impounding vehicles and reporting offenders to immigration authorities, Spitzer used the pretext of road safety. Using the pretext of compassion, he has chosen to reward illegal aliens for bringing kids here.

New Yorkers paid the ultimate price for lax driver’s license issuance policies on 9/11, as the terrorists used these documents to escape detection as they planned and executed their attacks. Many hardworking New Yorkers will be asked to sacrifice their own children’s educational opportunities to accommodate and subsidize illegal aliens in state universities.

If this nation truly wants to control illegal immigration, then we must end incentives to break the law. Driver’s licenses and subsidized college education are two huge incentives that will only encourage more people to break the law.

Dan Stein is president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
http://oneoldvet.com/?p=3514#more-3514

It is plain here in NYC and NYS that 70 to 80% of the people reject Spitzers idea but can anyone show me an article in a major newspaper or from a major TV network that asks the logical 'next question":

Wouldn't this also indicate that the same number of Legal residents of of NYC and NYS are against amnesty and sanctuary?

Originally Posted by Ratbstard

It is plain here in NYC and NYS that 70 to 80% of the people reject Spitzers idea but can anyone show me an article in a major newspaper or from a major TV network that asks the logical 'next question":

Wouldn't this also indicate that the same number of Legal residents of of NYC and NYS are against amnesty and sanctuary?

It would be hard to determine how many illegal immigrants responded to the poll referenced above. The percentage of people rejecting Spitzer's idea would probably have been much greater if the poll had been taken only among legal citizens.