Considering the anti-immigrant fervor out there, it was inevitable that some legislators would try again to repeal the 2004 law that allows eligible children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state universities. Last year, a proposed repeal was like a horror-movie villain that refused to die, returning to the House floor half a dozen times before succumbing. Rep. Lance Kinzer (in photo), R-Olathe, hopes new House members will make 2007 a different story. “I personally believe our current posture is violative of federal statute and arguably violative of equal protection in the U.S. Constitution,” Kinzer told Harris News Service. “Beyond that, it’s just bad public policy to have a law in place where we provide a specific benefit to a noncitizen that we don’t provide to someone from Missouri.” What Kinzer and other rollback advocates ignore is that “someone from Missouri” hasn’t attended a Kansas high school for at least three years, as have those kids being helped by this commonsense and life-changing law.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- Agnatha on Whose ‘unchecked spending’?
- ANTI on Open thread 11/24
- SolDevVB on Open thread 11/24
- DavidB on Open thread 11/24
- DavidB on Open thread 11/24
- DavidB on Open thread 11/24
- Pleefer on Open thread 11/24
- BlueJay on Open thread 11/24
- DavidB on Open thread 11/24
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/24
12 Comments
This is just one more piece of legislation that makes others wonder what the heck is the matter with folks in Kansas.
Not the repeal – the bill, itself.
We live in America and yet we offer cuts in tuition to the children of criminals – before we offer those cuts to our own citizens living in the rest of the country.
As long as we continue to reward crime – crime will flourish.
I have NO problem giving the child of an illegal in-state cuts IF they were born here. I don’t approve of their parents breaking the law – but by virtue of the child’s birth (they are called Anchor babies) they deserve treatment as a citizen.
The parent’s, however, need to be deported.
But for those kids who are NOT citizens – no way.
I heard last year (during the illegals’ blowup) that KS estimated the loss of revenue due to non-tax paying illegals working here @ 235 million dollars. I think, but can’t prove, that was a 2005 estimate.
While it is admirable to try and educate those in our society that otherwise would not be educated – it is hypocritical to offer breaks to criminals.
It’s counterproductive.
“someone from Missouri” hasn’t attended a Kansas high school for at least three years,(???)
Uh, that “someone from Missouri” also did NOT… sneak across the US boarder, manufacturer or sell fraudulent documents, assume someone eles’s identity, work illegally in the US, not pay all of the taxes that US citizens pay, refuse to learn English, nor have they refused to assimilate with the laws, customs and traditions of the United States.
somebody check my temperature i actually agree w/ Sheridan!
Illegal is still illegal.What part of this does the preznut and his buddies not understand?Oh, I forgot. The preznut is the law-breaker in chief, why should he care?He’s the decider, and he decided that illegals in the country are good, along with the illegal wiretapping and other really good illegal things.
Julie – What ever you have must be contagious. This is really hard for me to admit since I am a social progressive.
I 100% agree with Sheridan but I further believe that the illegal parent and the “anchor baby” should be sent back across the border.
There should be no special treatment for your child under the theory that the child would not be a “citizen” without the parent commiting a crime.
Well, Locoman, to achieve your goal, either: the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution would need amending by another amendment; or SCOTUS would need to reverse its long-standing position that the Fourteenth Amendment means what it says with respect to any person born in the U.S. being a citizen. (All issues about the “civil war” amendments are know to me, but the words say what they say.)
As I recall, the law in question awards in-state tuition to non-citizen children of illegal aliens who attended a Kansas high school for at least three years through graduation. Thus, Mr. Kinzer’s 14th Amendment argument fails, IMHO, there being a rational relationship for the “disparate treatment”. Public policy? I don’t know if it’s good or bad; what I do know is that, whether any of us likes it or not, there will not be a mass deportation of the illegals and offspring; there’s not enough manpower to so do. Thus, the question: is it better for the offspring who are, more than likely, going to be here permanently for the most part, to be provided an education at the in-state cost, or to be offered the education at non-resident rates?
Are you guys twisted with what the topic is about?It is about TUITION COST and SPECIAL RIGHTS at state universities, not about anchor babies and not about poor illegal immigrants who have no money.Since when is a poor illegal immigrant is able to send their children to college, when poor American citizens are not able to.In other words there is nothing poor about illegal immigrants that is able to send their children to college, pure and simple, they are not poor people to begin with if they are able to do that.They like everybody else should be paying the same like everybody else is doing.They want to be in the United States, welcome to the high cost of the United States.‚”And to think that the state universities wanted money from the state to fix up their buildings!”
Wiseman, the thread is indeed about offering in-state tuition to the affected students. The same in-state tuition payable by poor residents, middle class residents, wealthy residents. It is not about any special scholarship programs or financial aid otherwise not available to incoming Freshmen.
Those that oppose this do so on the basis of “since the students in question are not legal citizens of the U.S., they are not legal residents of the State of Kansas, so they should have to pay the higher, non-resident tuition charged at the state public universities”, or perhaps the even higher tuition and fee rates paid by foreign nationals here on a visa to study.
Wiseman-
I understand what the thread was about. I just took the liberty of expanding some of my other views that were closely related to the original.
Topic?We don’t need no stinking topic!
In the 1996 Immigration act it simply states it is against Federal Law to give illegals INSTATE tuition…UNLESS you give ALL other out of state students the same rate. So in other words if you give it to the illegals you have to give it to EVERYONE. You cant pick and choose.
The anchor baby thing is going to be looked at Im hearing. There will NOT be a guest worker provision for 10 million “guest” here having 20 million anchor babies, then NEVER leaving. The “guest workers” will be here at the “Behest” of the Mexican government then they can be handled just like an ambassadors wife. If the Mexican ambassadors wife has a baby here it is NOT given citizenship since they are here at the Behest of their government. Just as the 14th says. It says…..”under the jurisdiction of the United States” and they are not.
Locoman – strangly, this issue seems to bring the right and left together. We all seem to be pretty much on the same page here.
I only balk at sending American citizens back to a life in Old Mexico. I mean the babies. We need a solution for that.
After last year’s massive protests by illegals things quieted down – at least publicly, but according to my son – the gears are still turning to get them out of the country. I’ll explain what he told me – it could be TOTALLY untrue, as I have NO verification, but here it is:
My son, a PolySci PhD student was studying at CUNY (very liberal NY university) and was instructed that there is a ratio of protesters-to-street demographics that (if exceeded) will trigger what federal standards set as a ‘no return’ factor and that standard, once exceeded, is considered deadly for the community and for law enforcement. I think the number of protesters he mentioned was 10,000 but don’t hold me to that. If we have any govt disaster statisticians, maybe they can confirm or deny this.
So – according to the Professors at CUNY, our leaders, at that time, due to the size of the protests were instructed by disaster experts to take a less-visible way of ridding the country of the illegals so as not to spur further massive protests.
There HAVE been large raids and deportations, and the wall IS being built, but other than that – I can’t say if this story is true.
But it’s interesting. And some Professors are teaching it, so maybe it’s worth sharing.
I’d love to hear anyone who actually deals with this line of work.