How is this even a question that needs debating: should the children of illegal immigrants be allowed access to college education? Martin Lancaster, state community college system president of North Carolina, was forced to issue a statement defending his state's policy of allowing children of illegal immigrants to enroll in community colleges.
People, are we thinking this through? So besides poor (the overwhelming odds are that children of illegal immigrants are living below the poverty level), we want to keep them uneducated? I believe people who repeat the mantra "they are illegal, they should go home," when confronted with this issue have no concept of the realities of life. Many of these children have either been born here or have lived for years and are assimilated into the culture, as evidenced by the fact that they are seeking out a higher education. So after an entire childhood and adolescence here we should say, "Sorry, time to go home."
This gem is worth reading just for the comments posted after the article.

The Rhetoric of Hate
Reasonable, good, honest people can disagree about our current policy on immigration, as well as on what to do about it. Too often, though, a "tough stance on immigration" is merely a flimsy mask for one of the last remaining prejudices: that against illegal immigrants (read: light brown, low-skilled, Spanish-speaking immigrants).
A perfect example of this is the rant of author Daniel Sheehy. The first quote from him in an article from The Standard Speaker reads simply, "America is being erased." The article is peppered with quotes about the non-whiteness of Los Angeles and, my personal favorite, "You think what types of people are crossing over, too. There are murderers, rapists, drug traffickers, and lots of other predators."
So there you have it, a bit more crassly put (but not much) than by the more polished national news pundits. The big fear is that America as we know it is being erased. Read between the lines: the lily-white, status-quo, apple pie America is being erased. Because America as a nation will not be erased any time soon. It is simply the Donna Reed/Father Knows Best America that is being erased.
And the truth is America is being erased all the time. When slaves were freed, the America that then existed was erased a bit. When women got the vote, that erased a part of America. When the Civil Rights Act passed, there went another part of America, erased. When the internet came and altered how we get our information, a bit of America was erased. Change happens all the time.
The question is: why is a changing America a bad thing? Isn't that what this great experiment all about? Rather than live in a homogenous society, our forefathers and mothers had the great vision to believe that the best of everyone could come here and build a great land. Could letting in hard-working, family-loving people be such a bad move?
When you read rants like this, make no mistake about it: you are hearing the plantation owner talking about the laziness of slaves, the segregationist talking about why blacks are too uneducated to run their own businesses, or early 20th century men talk about why women are too hysterical to get the vote. It's the same kind of bigotry, with the fancy new 21st century hook of security and terrorism to enthrall the masses.
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