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Budget may cut immigrant tuition
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Illegal immigrants graduating from a Wisconsin high school could get in-state tuition under a provision in Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget proposal.
State Rep. Pedro Colon, D-Milwaukee, formally announced the provision at a press conference held at the Capitol Thursday.
“Allowing graduates of Wisconsin high schools to pay in-state tuition will benefit not only the student themselves, but the communities in which they reside as well,” Colon said at the conference.
Colon spokesperson Bethany Ordaz said the current system in which undocumented students must pay out-of-state tuition to attend the University of Wisconsin four-year colleges or technical colleges should be changed.
“Right now, even if [undocumented students] get good grades … they have to pay out-of-state tuition because they don’t have a social security number,” Ordaz said.
According to Ordaz, Colon proposed similar legislation last year but it never came up for a vote in the legislature. She said now that the governor has included the provision in his budget, it has a “good shot” of being passed by the Joint Finance Committee, especially because Colon is on the committee.
Colon was joined by several other state legislators as well as community supporters of Doyle’s new provision. But some legislators are already planning to convince the Joint Finance Committee to scrap the provision along with much of Doyle’s other budget proposals.
State Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, and state Sen. Glenn Grothman, R-West Bend, said they will attempt to stop Doyle’s provision from passing in the Joint Finance Committee. The legislators claim providing lowered tuition for undocumented residents is unfair to legal Wisconsin students working hard to seek a college degree.
“This will take away slots from Wisconsinites at the university and tech colleges and also take away opportunities, especially from rural Wisconsinites,” Suder said. “These spots are very competitive, and to give tuition breaks to [illegal immigrants] is rewarding bad behavior.”
Suder also added higher education is a privilege earned by Wisconsin citizens and rewarding people for a committed crime sends the wrong signal to individuals who want to come to this country legally.
A cost estimate of providing in-state tuition to undocumented students has not yet been completed and opponents disagree on the potential fiscal impact on the state.
Ordaz said there is no cost attached to it yet, primarily because there is no way to collect data on the number of undocumented students in the state.
“It wouldn’t be hundreds of students,” Ordaz said.
But Suder noted because there is no cap on the program, the costs could potentially be quite high.
“On first glance … this will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars over four to six years,” Suder said.
A group of citizens, students and community leaders of the Coalition for Educational Access will be holding public hearings across the state regarding the legislation in an effort to move the provision forward. If passed by the Joint Finance Committee, the state legislature will vote on the measure this spring.
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I want to get a jump on the racist shitstorm that’ll begin in a few hours on this message board: This is a great idea.
You leftist goosesteppers are losing all touch with reality. It is not a good idea for a number of reasons, none of which happen to be racist. Let me remind you what the definition of racist is NOT: It is not conservative, it is not someone who wants to limit immigration, and it is not someone who disagrees with your knee-jerk leftist reaction to every issue.
So wipe the druel from your face and try thinking every once in awhile.
Illegal is illegal, period. This is a terrible idea.
This idea is crap! I do NOT want my tax dollars going to pay for ILLEGAL immigrants to get a better deal on college tuition. This has NOTHING to do with being racist. This is very simple. This is rewarding people(no matter what color they are) for breaking the LAW. Thus the term ILLEGAL immigrant. WTF is so hard to understand about this?
Do you really want to see what would happen to this country if we just booted all the illegals? Our economy would suffer terribly because production would come to a standstill in many important industries, our deficiets would skyrocket because closing our borders is a very expensive prospect and our salads would be full of rotting vegatables left over from last year’s harvest. Seriously, we need to come to some reasonable middle ground on the issue of immigration. I don’t know what it is, but I think (and Bush seems to agree) that reality will win out over xenophobic rhetoric.
So we’re now to going to be encouraging ILLEGAL immigrants?
Some of you lefties ought to read Bush’s immigration plan, you might actually agree with it, except you wouldn’t publicly admit that because it has Bush’s name on it.
Wow, if this isn’t a huge handout from Doyle to his constituency, who of course is illegally voting for him. All this while freezing taxes, amazing!
Since Doyle has vetoed everything the Legislature has passed, he probably shouldn’t be too optimistic on this one getting through.
Can’t wait till Scott Walker is gov, then something might start to get done in this state.
How about instead we deport them so that they can immigrate legally?
Number one, they can’t immigrate legally because after 9/11 Ashcroft basically closed the gates to the kingdom and they haven’t been opened yet.
Number two, anything that you accuse Doyle of doing as a panty-waist liberal democrat lefty should apply double to Bush and his plan to open our borders so that he and his buddies can continue to employ illegals as servants (or as workers in industries that refuse to provide wages, benefits and safety that would make a citizen consider the job).
“Bush and his plan to open our borders so that he and his buddies can continue to employ illegals as servants (or as workers in industries that refuse to provide wages, benefits and safety that would make a citizen consider the job).”
Actually, their are plently of lazy Americans that would be willing to take those jobs, but they can do better living off the welfare state. Read an economics book. Understand why wages are what they are for certian jobs in certian countries. Then stop arguing like an emotional lunatic.
I came to Wisconsin legally. Why can’t I get the in-state rate too?
“druel”?
We need another incentive for illegal immigrants to come to Wisconsin? What other law breaking behavior is rewarded by the state?
Maybe some classes in how to immigrate legally should added by the schools - IN MEXICO?