Immigration, In-State tuition, and What We're Doing

I was driving into work Tuesday barely listening to morning talk radio like usual when I heard a story that really got my attention.  Last year a young man graduated from Texas A&M with a degree in bio-chemical engineering at the top of his class.  Instead of being recruited to a large engineering firm or oil company, he was waiting tables at a restaurant in Houston.  He's been unable to get a job because he's an illegal alien from Mexico brought to the U.S. when he was a child by his parents.  I then heard out of my speakers something I thought was even more astonishing.  He had received scholarships and paid in-state tuition while in school. I started thinking about this and at first I thought how crazy it was that this guy went to a superior college as an illegal, paid what I pay, and got some scholarship money on top of it.  I was hot to say the least.

By the end of the story I'd hit traffic going into downtown Austin and I stopped, mad at the traffic and mad about what I had just heard.  I looked over and saw three Hispanic guys in the back of truck obviously headed to work somewhere.  One of them looked over at me, and with a cheerful smile on his face, he waved, shot me a right eyewink, and then took a sip of coffee.  I laughed out loud as realization smashed into me like a train.  This guy in the truck came here to do better.  He may have brought his family from across the border through untold hell, all the time hoping his son could get a college education and maybe become an engineer.  It also made me think about what our founding principals as a country are.  As lady liberty says "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free."

All of this got me thinking about immigration and the way our government approaches the issue.  President Obama said recently that our borders are as safe as ever and the current administration is committing millions and millions of dollars to stop the flow of illegals into this country. We hear tons about the wild, wild border.  Murder, drug dealers, border war; you name it, if it's bad we hear about it on the border.  But this doesn't represent the millions of people who are already in this country illegally working and living among us.  

Texas Governor Rick Perry was lambasted a couple of weeks ago after he supported in-state tuition for illegals.  It didn't fly well with the right and they let him know it.  I don't think this is a bad idea though.  It promotes education and gives opportunity to people who otherwise wouldn't have it.  They can get an education and start chasing that American Dream.  It shouldn't be without work or sacrifice though.  If someone here illegally wants to go college and be a part of our society then they need to attain citizenship.  That’s a tall order while carrying a full college schedule, but it should be work.  Why not create a program in which illegal aliens can attend college and make it a requirement that they complete citizenship courses as part of the curriculum.  If they choose not to attend the courses then they pay full out of state tuition and have to attend citizenship courses on their own if they want to stay.  We could also stipulate that if they don’t finish the courses they don’t graduate.  My point is that there are options.

Sources indicate that there are between 11 million and 20 million illegal immigrants in this country today.  A lot of them have no desire to return to their countries of origin for whatever reason.  They’re already here.  Lets make it easier on them to obtain citizenship, join the workforce, and start paying taxes.  This would bring millions of tax dollars in that we’re missing out on now and it would keep us true to our basic fundamentals.    

A friend of mine who graduated from Texas A&M and I were talking about all this when he told me another story.  He had recently run into a girl that we mutually went to high school with when she showed up to clean his house.  He knew who she was and he inquired about her life after high school.  She had gone to Stephen F. Austin State University and gotten a degree in finance.  After college she started cleaning houses because she couldn’t get a job.  She told him that she ran an entirely cash business and didn’t pay taxes.  It just seems to me to be a huge waste of an education to allow something like this to happen.  Stop the inward flow of illegals for sure, but lets not forget that people are here because this is the greatest country in the world and they want something better for their families.

The United States government has continually addressed this problem from an enforcement standpoint.  Find illegals, arrest them and send them back to whatever country they came from.  It’s obvious to me at this point that that plan of action hasn’t worked.  Most of these people are yearning to be free.  It’s on us to make sure they can be.