‘Tuition Equity’ Bill Fails in Senate
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Tim Hoover, Denver Post, April 6, 2009
The Colorado Senate today narrowly rejected a bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants in-state tuition after five Democrats joined with Republicans to vote against it.
A disappointed Sen. Chris Romer, the Denver Democrat who sponsored the bill, said it was hard for some lawmakers to support the bill in the current tough economic times.
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The bill would have allowed any student who had attended a Colorado high school for at least three years and graduated to attend public colleges and universities at the in-state tuition rate, regardless of their immigration status.
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Republicans argued that the bill would run afoul of a 1996 federal law that prohibits illegal immigrants from getting college benefits that are not available to all U.S. citizens. However, nine other states have passed laws allowing in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, and whether the federal law specifically prohibits that practice has not been squarely decided in court.
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Proponents of the Colorado bill said that children of illegal immigrants had no say in their coming to the United States and should not be punished by being required to pay out-of-state tuition, which is two to four times higher than the in-state rate.
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And in an at times angry speech, Senate President Peter Groff, a Denver Democrat and one of only two blacks in the legislature, hearkened to the civil-rights era and to the country’s “dark past.”
“I hope we can live with ourselves if we vote ‘no’ today,” Groff said, accusing those who opposed the bill of not having the “courage” to do the right thing.
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A Republican amendment to give all foreign students the in-state rate failed as did another that would have given the lower rate to all students in Colorado.
Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, said that granting students who are illegal immigrants in-state tuition was like saying “if their parents robbed a bank, their kids could keep the money.”
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In hopes of attracting more Democratic votes, proponents added an amendment that said the bill would only become effective upon passage of the federal DREAM Act. That measure being considered in Congress would provide a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants who serve in the military or attend college in the United States.
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Carroll, after the debate, referred reporters to a statement on her website that said she could not support the bill “in a climate where the state is cutting or eliminating over $1 billion of benefits to the people and is facing a $300 million cut to higher education, which virtually ends higher education as we know it in the state of Colorado.”
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(Posted on April 8, 2009)