Thread: Bill would void N.C. policy on tuition

http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-652694.html

Bill would void N.C. policy on tuition



By LIZ HESTER : Herald-Sun Washington Bureau
Oct 2, 2005 : 7:21 pm ET

WASHINGTON -- Like illegal aliens in a number of other states, the nearly 300,000 undocumented immigrants in North Carolina who want to attend college must pay out-of-state tuition.

But a Texas congresswoman hopes to change that by giving them in-state student status.

Durham-area community and business leaders say there is an enormous need for bilingual professionals to serve the more than 17,000 Latino residents of Durham County. But they can't get the training they need, the leaders say, in part because of the high cost of attending college at out-of-state rates.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee's bill would require states to offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants -- a move that would void North Carolina's policy.

Only nine states now offer in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants: California, Illinois, Kansas, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington.

"There's a growing population of students that don't have the means for naturalization and getting the skills they're going to need in the future," said Melanie Chernoff, deputy director of El Pueblo Inc., a Raleigh-based Hispanic community organization. "We have a pool [of bilingual workers], but we can't use them."

Brian Letourneau, director of Durham's public health department, said bilingual workers enabled his staff to serve more customers faster.

"As a state, we're not doing a good job on letting the rest of the country know we have bilingual jobs available," Letourneau said. "Recruiting bilingual professionals would be the quickest and most efficient way to populate our health care workforce with bilingual workers."

Areas with established immigrant populations don't face the same challenges in recruiting bilingual workers as states with relatively new immigrant populations, such as North Carolina.

Durham-area agencies are using listserves, Internet job postings and e-mail databases to entice bilingual workers to the state.

Many have stepped up recruiting because organizations that receive federal dollars are required by law to provide services to people of all nationalities.

Chernoff said the congressional proposal to provide all residents access to educational opportunities -- regardless of legal status -- was a move in the right direction toward filling the dual need of employers and bilingual residents entering the workforce.

"The federal government has recognized there is a disconnect between our workforce needs as a nation and current immigration policy as it exists on the ground level," Chernoff said.

She said North Carolina agencies should be more proactive in hiring bilingual workers for all positions, not just those jobs designated to serve one particular community group. North Carolina is on par with other southern states facing the same issues, Chernoff said.

Jalil Isa, a spokesman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said hiring supervisors have the discretion to offer a 5 percent increase in base pay to bilingual applicants "when it's plainly obvious that the need for a bilingual employee exists."

Employing people with language skills for health services helps prevent miscommunication and erosion of trust in the system, Isa said.

But Noah Pickus, a Duke professor and author of the new book "True Faith and Allegiance: Immigration and American Civic Nationalism," said offering bilingual services could create problems because it doesn't address immigrants' long-term assimilation needs.

Many immigrants require basic services, but they are not given a framework for what is expected of them once they move to the United States, Pickus said. More English and civics classes and other social programs would help address many of North Carolina's immigrant issues, he said.

"Immigration is such a human phenomenon," Pickus said. "They break the law to come, but they stay and put down roots."

But more is at stake in tending to Spanish-speaking populations than customer service. The bottom line is also involved.

The buying power of Hispanics in the U.S. is around $700 billion and is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2009, surpassing Mexico's buying power, said Scott Silvestri, a spokesman for Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte.

Statewide, the company has 25 Hispanic banking centers, or branches that employ at least one bilingual worker. The closest branch to the Durham-area is in Raleigh.

"The Hispanic market really is important to us because it's the fastest growing part of the population," Silvestri said. "You have to serve that and meet their needs."

Pickus agreed, saying that corporations helped contribute to illegal immigration indirectly by extending services, such as home loans, and helping the immigrants integrate into society.

"Thinking about business is very important because immigrants, legal or illegal, are coming for economic reasons," Pickus said. "Illegal immigrants, like legal immigrants, like citizens, want to settle down and buy homes. Companies see that and want to cater to that."

In other words illegal aliens come for economic reasons so lets priorize on them and give them the best economic incentives our system can provide.

This is an extremely circular argument. The state has illegal aliens who speak Spanish here so we need to hire them so that we can have someone who can speak to them.

Am I wrong, or even with a college education, they would still be illegal after graduation and still legally unemployable??

John,

The Federal In-State Tuition Bill is an amnesty which would give a work permit to every one of the illegal immgrant students who applied for a green card.

That woman needs to be voted out by 2006. No Amnesty for illegls. We Americans DO NOT and WILL NOT tolerate it.