Thread: NC: Hurrah! Colleges to bar illegal immigrants

Originally Posted by NoBueno

Why would anyone thinks it's a good idea to provide a higher education to a group of people who have proven the rule of law in this country is simply something to be manipulated and ignored.

When you're rich you could care less who loses his job. To our crowned elites like the Bush's, McCain's and Clintons working Americans are nothing but "little people" to be shoved around.

Added to Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/article-3452--0-0.html

Community colleges won't admit illegal immigrants – for now

Triangle Business Journal


The board governing the state’s community colleges voted Friday to bar illegal immigrants from admission until it comes up with a permanent policy on the issue.

The vote brings at least temporary clarity to a situation that escalated in May, when the state attorney general’s office recommended that the North Carolina Community College System stop admitting illegal immigrants. Since then, however, federal immigration officials have told N.C. leaders that no federal or state law prohibits the admission of illegal students – leaving the decision in the hands of the board.

On Friday, amid political pressure, the board decided to put off a permanent decision until it can complete a study on the issue. In the meantime, illegal immigrants won’t be admitted to the community colleges.

The number of illegal immigrants at the community colleges is a small figure, estimated to be below 0.5 percent of all students enrolled. But the issue has become politically charged.

Both candidates for governor have come out against enrolling illegal immigrants – including Democratic Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue, a member of the community colleges’ board, who voted on Friday in favor of the study and the temporary ban. And multiple lawmakers on both the state and federal level have said they’d support legslation prohibiting illegal immigrants from attending community colleges.
http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/sto ... ily47.html

Closing doors to illegal immigrants


Leaders of the state's community colleges voted today to close their doors to illegal immigrants until they complete a study and come up with a permanent policy.

The decision today by the State Board of Community Colleges marks a reversal from Thursday, when officials indicated they were inclined to admit illegal immigrants pending the outcome of the study, reports Lynn Bonner.

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, the Democratic candidate for governor, made the motion to ban illegal immigrants from community colleges while the study is ongoing.

Leaders of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC were quick to praise the board's move.

"The vast majority of NC's legal citizenry do not want illegal aliens in the limited seats of our colleges," William Gheen of ALIPAC said in a statement. "We are happy the board upheld the ban so the campaigns for public office and eventually the state legislature can take up this issue."
http://projects.newsobserver.com:80/i_4 ... immigrants

This is good news and a sign that "We the People" are getting their country back.

We need to limit the resources we have to the honest people that are here. Why allow one of them to be pushed aside for an illegal invader?

N.C. keeps ban on illegal immigrants at state colleges
By Lynn Bonner · The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer
Updated 08/16/08 - 1:42 AM |

RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina's community colleges will keep their doors closed to illegal immigrants, a decision steeped in a divisive election-year political debate.

The State Board of Community Colleges voted Friday to back a motion by Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, the Democratic candidate for governor, to keep its ban on admitting illegal immigrants in place while a study is conducted on how other states deal with the issue.

Perdue wants a permanent ban, and pushed to keep illegal immigrants from enrolling while "the long-term policy is being examined." Of the more than 300,000 students enrolled in community colleges in 2006-2007, 112 were illegal immigrants.

The vote, with 11 of the 16 board members participating in favor of keeping the ban, appeared to reverse the direction that the board was heading just a day before.

During a Thursday meeting, most board members appeared to be interested in lifting the ban the system imposed in May on illegal immigrants in degree programs. The state attorney general's office had advised the system that admitting illegal immigrants might violate federal law. But a recent letter from the federal government said it is up to each state to decide whether illegal immigrants can attend colleges.

A lawyer for the community college system said Thursday that the basis for the attorney general's memo to the colleges directing them not to admit undocumented students "no longer held water." Stuart Fountain, a board member from Asheboro, N.C., told the board this week that temporarily allowing legal immigrants "is the legal position we have to take."

But that was not the direction board members, who said they had been under pressure from both sides of the debate, took when they voted on Friday.

"I've never encountered such a divisive issue as this one," Fountain said Friday.

Illegal immigration has become a contentious political issue in North Carolina. The state Senate's Republican leader, Phil Berger of Eden, N.C., asked the community college board to keep the ban in place, and U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Charlotte Republican, plans to introduce a bill to withhold federal funding from colleges and universities that knowingly admit illegal immigrants.

Myrick applauded the board's decision Friday, saying in a statement that "common sense and rule of law have prevailed."

N.C. Policy Watch, a Raleigh-based public policy group, denounced the decision on its blog- "Score another victory of the know-nothings and nativists."

Illegal immigration - and Perdue's position on community college enrollment - has already been an issue in the governor's race.

Pat McCrory, Perdue's Republican opponent, tried in May to connect Perdue to a position she did not hold, saying that she supported allowing illegal immigrants to attend community college.

Perdue participated in Friday's board meeting by telephone long enough to make the motion barring illegal immigrants. She could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

But board members who voted to keep the ban while they waited for study results said they didn't do it for political reasons. The community college system has changed its policy four times since 2001, and board members said keeping the ban will maintain some stability.

"We just don't want to flip flop again," said Linwood Powell of Fayetteville, the board's vice chairman.

Tom Houlihan, board member from Oxford, said many members weren't sure what to do. But he said political considerations were "never a factor."

"It was really trying to figure out, trying to solve this problem once and for all," he said.

Houlihan said a July 31 letter from the Latin American Coalition in Charlotte that asked system President R. Scott Ralls to reinstate policies to admit all students regardless of immigration status swayed him and other board members to support keeping the ban.

In her letter, coalition chief executive officer Angeles Ortega-Moore said a decision Friday would come too late for students to enroll in fall classes.

Since it was already too late for this semester, Houlihan said, the board has time to seek help in developing a permanent policy.

Jess George, the coalition's associate director, said she was dismayed that board members used Ortega-Moore's letter as justification to continue to deny people an education.

"It stinks," she said. "Immigration is such a polarizing and divisive issue for people. We have allowed this issue to overtake the fundamental belief in education for everybody."

Ralls on Thursday had suggested that the board could craft a policy in keeping with the system's "open door" philosophy that addressed concerns about admitting illegal immigrants.

In taking its action, though, board members seemed to disregard Ralls suggestions.

"Ultimately," Ralls said Friday, "what I think doesn't matter."
http://www.heraldonline.com:80/109/story/752969.html

Dr. Stuart B. Fountain, chairman of the North Carolina Community College System's Policy Committee, said during a meeting of the Board of Community Colleges he has never encountered such a divisive issue as the admission of illegal immigrants into community colleges.
VIDEO: http://www.wral.com/news/local/politics/video/3388155/

Illegal immigrants still banned
Community colleges will block their enrollment while studying the issue.
By Lynn Bonner
lynn.bonner@newsobserver.com
Posted: Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008

The state's community colleges will keep their doors closed to illegal immigrants, a decision steeped in a divisive election-year debate.

The State Board of Community Colleges voted Friday to back a motion by Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, the Democratic candidate for governor, to keep its ban on admitting illegal immigrants in place while a study is conducted on how other states deal with the issue.

Perdue wants a permanent ban and pushed to keep illegal immigrants from enrolling while “the long-term policy is being examined.â€

Student ban to remain for now Enrollment of illegal immigrants to be studied
August 16, 2008 - Winston-Salem Journal

Aug. 16, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- RALEIGH

North Carolina's community colleges will be off-limits to illegal immigrants while a state board continues to study the issue.

The State Board of Community Colleges voted yesterday to continue a directive issued in May that bars illegal immigrants from being admitted to any of the state's 58 community colleges. The directive will remain in effect while the board hires a consultant -- a step that board members said is necessary to study what other states do and to develop a permanent policy regarding illegal immigrants.

The issue of how to handle prospective students who are not legal U.S. residents has caused controversy and become highly politicized over the last few years, and state policy on the matter has changed four times since 2000.

The most recent policy, before the May directive, allowed illegal immigrants to attend community college but required them to pay out-of-state tuition, which is more than five times the cost of in-state tuition.

"Our board feels rather strongly about the open-door policy," said Stuart Fountain, the chairman of the board's policy committee. "But we also recognize that the community colleges are supported by the taxpayers. So we have to listen to both sides.

"We have people who say to us, 'What part of illegal do you not understand?'"

Many politicians and advocacy groups on both sides of the issue have weighed in. The two major candidates running for governor, Republican Pat McCrory and Democrat Bev Perdue, are both opposed to enrolling illegal immigrants. Perdue, who is an ex-officio member of the board because of her position as the state's lieutenant governor, made the motion yesterday to extend the directive barring illegal immigrants.

Under the old, open-admissions policy, a small number of illegal immigrants were admitted. The community-college system said that during the 2006-07 school year, officials identified 112 illegal immigrants enrolled in college-credit courses -- a tiny percentage of the more than 200,000 total students in college-credit courses.

In May, reacting to concerns that federal law may prohibit illegal immigrants from attending community college, the state board issued its directive banning them from enrolling. But federal officials recently informed North Carolina that no federal law applies and that it is a state decision. That information caused the state board to revisit the issue yesterday and decide that further study is necessary.

The consultant that will be hired to do the study will be paid for with public money from a reserve fund. Board members said they do not know how much it will cost, and they said that existing staff members with the community-college system are unable to perform the study themselves.

Yesterday's decision, and the May directive, do not affect illegal immigrants who are already enrolled in community colleges.

The UNC system, which is separate from the community-college system, allows illegal immigrants if they graduated from an American high school, pay out-of-state tuition and do not get federal financial aid.

In Forsyth County, community-college officials have generally preferred opening admissions to illegal immigrants. Starting in 2005 and continuing until May, Forsyth Technical Community College opened its admissions to illegal immigrants who graduated from North Carolina high schools.

"We should be serving those young people who have grown up in our community, who have graduated from our high schools ... and are likely to remain in our communities," said Gary Green, the president of Forsyth Tech.

Green said that he knows of four students who are illegal immigrants and are currently enrolled in college-credit courses at Forsyth Tech. The college asks students for their Social Security numbers and residency information.

"While I cannot absolutely say that there are not more, I think it's very unlikely that there are many more than that," he said.

Officials with the community-college system said that it would be nearly impossible for colleges to do exhaustive checks on every student to be certain of their immigration status.

Although the issue is in the hands of the state board right now, it could ultimately be decided by the General Assembly, if state legislators decide to get involved. Some Republicans support a state law banning illegal immigrants from attending community colleges.

And U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Republican from Charlotte, said this week that she plans to introduce a bill in the House that would withhold federal money from colleges and universities that admit illegal immigrants.
http://tinyurl.com/6bte3n

Economy slows, NC unemployment rises
NCNN – North Carolina News Network

(RALEIGH)--North Carolina's unemployment rate jumped sharply last month to its highest level in nearly five years. Larry Parker with the N.C.Employment Security Commission says as the economy continues to lag, the jobless rate has increased to 6.6 percent.
http://www.ncnn.com/content/view/3156/26/

And yet we have libidiots, bleeding hearts, IA advocates and moronic administrators, bureaucrats and politicians wanting to put illegal aliens into our colleges to better educate them to join the LEGAL workforce!

Illegal immigration is not a single-issue topic. It pervades every portion of society from the state of the economy to gas prices to infrastructure costs to crime and taxes spent on social services including education and health care. There is not one segment of society that is not touched negatively by illegal immigration.