RALEIGH – I know that self-appointed advocates for immigrants in North Carolina think they are doing the right thing by demanding access and taxpayer subsidy for illegal aliens in state colleges and universities. However, what they are really doing is setting back their cause and alienating potential allies. I’m one of those.
I come from the free-market, limited-government division of the conservative corps. I don’t agree with government-imposed barriers to international trade in goods and services, including labor. I don’t like the idea of subjecting private citizens and employers to intrusive regulations. I think immigration is a sign of a country’s health, not a source of weakness. My basic sentiments on this issue are closer to those of The Wall Street Journal and the Cato Institute than to Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan.
But the more I hear Gov. Mike Easley, Community College President Martin Lancaster, UNC President Erskine Bowles, and others advocate government services and subsidies for people who flout the law, the more it turns me off.
I’m not alone. Many if not most North Carolinians have a mixture of views on immigration (as on other complex issues). They don’t bear any personal animus or prejudice towards immigrants, and envision a future policy that would allow more people to come to America legally to work and settle.
However, these voters also resent those who break the law and break in line. They favor enhanced border security and reasonable immigration policies that exclude those who have criminal records, chronic addictions, communicable diseases, terrorist ties, uncertain employment prospects, and a high likelihood of welfare dependency. They are also unlikely to support more legal immigration, or paths to citizenship for immigrants already here, if it looks like the result will cost rather than save them money. And they really, really resent having their legitimate concerns be caricatured as racism or ignorance.
To these North Carolinians, the current policy of allowing illegal immigrants to enroll in state community colleges and universities makes no sense. Adults who reside illegally in a state have no right whatsoever to access such state services. Yes, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that children in the country illegally through no fault of their own should be able to attend public schools, and that it is wrong to deny emergency services to illegals of any age. But these cases are clearly distinguishable from opening college enrollments to adults who are in persistent violation of the country’s immigration laws.
When policymakers then propose not only to enroll these illegal immigrants but to subsidize them heavily with taxpayer dollars, North Carolinians’ skepticism turns to anger. State lawmakers and worthies such as former Gov. Jim Hunt tried to give in-state UNC tuition to illegals in 2005. They succeeded only in embarrassing themselves and generating a firestorm of public protest.
The latest conflagration, about a handful of illegals enrolling as out-of-state students in community colleges, is said to be an entirely different matter, but that’s incorrect. These students may be currently paying enough tuition to offset the operating and capital costs off their education (emphasis on the word “may”) but it is glaringly obvious that the next step is to propose in-state tuition status for them. Bowles and other UNC leaders have just restated their goal of giving such status to UNC students, and nearly every advocate I know of community-college enrollment for illegals believes they should pay in-state tuition, too.
Few North Carolinians agree. Indeed, the position is absurd. If you are not a legal resident of North Carolina, you can’t logically be entitled to subsidy as an in-state student. Yes, most illegal residents pay North Carolina taxes, such as the retail sales tax and implicit property taxes in their rents, but not nearly as much as citizens and legal residents of the same income do.
Do I think more immigrants ought to be able to settle in North Carolina legally, pay an equivalent share of taxes, and be treated as everyone else in receiving public services? Yes. But I’ve come to believe that the only path to that destination has several stops along the way: 1) real and consistent enforcement of immigration laws, 2) rejuvenated public and private institutions for fostering assimilation, and 3) further reforms of public-assistance programs to ensure that new arrivals are not a net fiscal drain.
By blithely ignoring common sense and essentially accusing the majority of North Carolinians of bigotry, immigration-rights advocates are doing their charges no favors. They are making comprehensive reform of our immigration policies increasingly unlikely. Perhaps they would rather prance and preen in their moral self-congratulation, but no one should mistake such behavior for leadership.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.