Kristin Collins, News Observer (Raleigh), May 8, 2008
Public colleges in North Carolina should not admit illegal immigrants as students, the state Attorney General’s Office advised in a letter released Wednesday.
If followed, the advice would reverse policies at the state’s 58 community colleges and at the 16 four-year institutions in the University of North Carolina system, which allow illegal immigrants to attend. It also damages a movement to grant in-state tuition to illegal immigrant teenagers who have attended North Carolina high schools.
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The letter to the general counsel for the Community College System, which was dated Tuesday but released to The News & Observer on Wednesday, said that higher education is a public benefit that illegal immigrants are not entitled to under federal law.
The state could pass a law allowing students access regardless of their immigration status, the letter says. Otherwise, a policy prohibiting illegal immigrants “would more likely withstand judicial scrutiny,” wrote J.B. Kelly, general counsel in the office of Attorney General Roy Cooper.
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Gov. Mike Easley also supported Lancaster’s decision. Efforts to reach Easley on Wednesday were unsuccessful.
Leaders at the University of North Carolina System and the Community College System also declined to comment. Audrey Bailey, a spokeswoman for the community colleges, said President Scott Ralls was out of town at a funeral and had not yet reviewed the letter. “We’re taking it under advisement,” Bailey said.
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Currently, only a handful of illegal immigrants are students at North Carolina’s universities and community colleges. The UNC system says 27 of its more than 200,000 students are illegal immigrants. The community colleges have reported that 340 of their 271,000 degree-seeking students are here illegally.
All pay out-of-state tuition, which is greater than the cost of their instruction—meaning the schools make a profit from these students.
However, many say that North Carolina should not provide higher education to illegal immigrants, regardless of the cost. And some argue that the costs are higher than the schools’ calculations show, when taking overhead and infrastructure into account.
‘The key word is “illegal”’
Federal law requires that elementary and secondary education be provided to all children, regardless of their immigration status. State Sen. Richard Stevens, of Cary, said the state should provide only what is required.
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Advocates, including Bazán, called the advice “extreme.” Several states provide in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, and she said that in years of fighting for a similar policy in North Carolina, she has never heard this federal law invoked.
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Original article
Email
Kristin Collins
at kristen.collins@newsobserver.com.
(Posted on May 8, 2008)
Comments
Illegal aliens should not be permitted to attend colleges, OR primary and secondary schools,period. If they are attending schools and they are discovered, they should be allowed to stay ONLY if the country that they came from will pay the full cost of their education.One of the former presidents of Mexico, Salinas,who now is hiding in Ireland of all places to avoid prosecution, said that WE should give every illegal Mexican an education because Mexico will give an education to any Americans youngsters who go there to get one.How good is the education that they give, and how many illegal Americans are there to get one?
Posted by Peejay in Frisco at 6:32 PM on May 8
Good for the A.G. He should run for governor. Question: If they know exactly how many illegals are in college, why do they not deport them? Could it be an election year?
Posted by Frank at 6:44 PM on May 8
Illegal means they aren’t supposed to be here. Why would we be allowing them to attend ANY school here, including universities? I don’t get it. Maybe we should be escorting all these bleeding-hearts “advocates” for the illegals to the southern border and let them go to mexico with them. And why in Hell does the federal government mandate that we give them ANY education at all? It is taxpayer money, you know. For whom does our government really work for?
Posted by at 7:49 PM on May 8
This Roy Cooper is looking better and better. The last time he was in the news, he was clamping down on Mike Nifong. I don’t think he’s running for Governor in 2008.
Posted by Question Diversity at 8:13 PM on May 8
The government of the people, by the people, and for the people? NOT! Well, we do still have “of” don’t we? Such a wonderful benevelent government we have. Giving away our tax money to every suckling, manipulative, form of whiney, ungrateful freeloader, the world has to offer. The government taketh, and the government giveth away. The modern liberal tax code= What did you make? Send it in.
Posted by The Old Sage at 11:20 PM on May 8
What exactly is it with North Carolina?? I have noticed that the beurocrats that run that State are very, very, generous with North Carolinians taxes. Where do the politicians of that State get their inspiration from to waste all the taxpayers money anyway—California?
Posted by Bobby at 1:16 AM on May 9
Being forced to subsidize the education of invading alien criminals is an absolute violation of the civil rights of anyone who pays proerty taxes. The only taxpayer-funded institutions illegals should be allowed to attend are the nation’s jails and prisons to serve their sentences while their minor children are deported to the custody their foreign next of kin.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 6:01 PM on May 9
I think letting illegals go to college is a good idea. When the Autumn semester starts, the government should subpoena the schools student rosters. Nationwide campus ICE raids would bag hundreds of thousands of them.
Posted by at 6:06 PM on May 9
