A public hearing is being held this morning on admitting illegal immigrants to N.C. community colleges.After two years of controversy, the community colleges board in September approved a policy to admit illegal immigrants – if they pay out-of-state tuition rates, have graduated from an American high school, and don’t displace students in the country legally. The public hearing is part of a required administrative review process before the policy is put in place.
Groups for and against the policy change have been organizing by phone, email, and the Internet to ensure they have a strong showing at the Raleigh hearing.
Those opposed to the move say the debate is not over. Consider:
“With 11% unemployment, shouldn’t our North Carolina Community College System focus our limited state resources on training/educating unemployed citizens for jobs? If we allow illegal immigrants to attend state Community Colleges at any of the over 50 campuses across NC, won’t we be helping illegal immigrants take jobs that should be reserved for only legal residents?” – NC Listen
Those in favor of admitting illegal immigrants say every student deserves an opportunity to further their education. They say:
“We have demanded access to higher education for all of our students, and we must now demonstrate that we support this step in the right direction that the State Board of Community Colleges has taken. We must have enough speakers lined up to speak in favor of an open door policy, especially because we know that our opposition will also be lined up to speak against this proposal.” - Adelante Education Coalition
Photo: DANA ROMANOFF, Observer Photographer
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North Carolina Community College System Board – Who Are They Actually Representing? PART 1
What are the unelected bureaucrats sitting on the NC CCS board who are actually public servants and are paid through our hard earned tax dollars thinking? Or, perhaps the better question would be…are they thinking of the welfare of the American citizen and the legal residents of North Carolina? Or, are they insulated elitists bending to the will of destructive special interests? We have 11% unemployment and climbing in North Carolina. WHY ARE THEY NOT FOCUSING WHAT STATE RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE FOR EDUCATING AND TRAINING UNEMPLOYED CITIZENS FOR JOBS INSTEAD OF FINDING WAYS TO FACILITATE PLACING ILLEGAL ALIENS INTO OUR COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM?
It is beyond the pale that citizen taxpayers are already forced by a miscreant Supreme Court decision to educate illegal alien children through high school (at a cost of $105,950 per student to taxpayers) and the Board wants to extend educational benefits to illegals in college! Don’t even begin the argument that they will pay their own way because that is absurd. Don’t forget, illegal aliens are called illegal because they are illegally present in the country. Providing educational benefits to illegals only begets more illegal immigration just as does providing free medical services, employment, and anchor baby citizenship that opens our entire welfare benefit system to the family.
As a citizen of North Carolina, I am appalled by the State Board allowing illegal aliens to attend our community colleges. It is violation of law that illegal aliens are allowed into colleges at all. I would argue that it is in violation of the 'aiding and abetting' statute in the 1986 IRCA (Immigration Reform and Control Act). Even if illegal aliens were to pay out of state tuition, it would not cover the entire cost of their education because of capital costs, often not figured fully into the total cost calculations per student. Therefore, taxpayer subsidization of illegal aliens would occur. Also, why would the Board allow an illegal alien to take a seat in college from a deserving American citizen or legal immigrant? Seats in all of our post-secondary facilities are a limited and highly coveted resource, so why would you put an illegal alien into one? Why should we be in the business of educating and training a group of people who are illegally here and cannot legally be employed? Could they unequivocally state and prove that not one single tax dollar would be used and not one single citizen or LEGAL immigrant would be affected by illegal aliens attending our community colleges? This decision flies in the face of the rule of law. Instead, we should demand that illegals are not entering the system by requiring the use of verification tools. I recommend mandating the use of the S.A.V.E (Systematic Alien Verification Entitlements) System to certify all applicants are legally present in the U.S.
North Carolina Community College System Board – Who Are They Actually Representing? PART 2
Furthermore, the people of NC are opposed to allowing illegals to attend our community colleges:
• Civitas Institute Decision Maker Poll Results of NC voters: 68% of N.C. voters oppose allowing illegal immigrants to enroll in community colleges (February 2008).
• A poll released in September 2009 by the American Council for Immigration Reform (ANCIR) indicates that 78% of Americans are against amnesty for illegal aliens with the same percentage stating that they believe illegals have had a substantial negative impact on the quality and cost of our health care system. Obviously, you can infer that Americans do not want illegals in our educational system beyond which we are already federally coerced to do so.
• In September 2009; 85% in a WSOCTV, Charlotte, NC poll stated they were against allowing illegal immigrants to enroll in community colleges.
• In September 2009 a News14Carolina poll found 86% opposed to allowing illegal immigrants into community colleges.
• In September 2009 a WRAL North Carolina news service poll found 83% wanted proof of citizenship of those enrolling in community colleges.
• A Rasmussen Poll conducted October 2009 found 85% of voters say government services should go only to those here legally.
• In November 2009, an 8 week long “Worst Bill of the Year” voter contest conducted by the Civitas Institute ended with the selection of over 10,000 voters bestowing the shame on State Senate bill S.848 that would have allowed (it did not pass), by statute, illegal immigrants to enroll in our North Carolina Community College System and our (sixteen) University of North Carolina campuses.
Despite the overwhelming opposition by the people to providing benefits to illegal aliens, including the admittance into our colleges, the NCCCS board does exactly the opposite. WHY?
North Carolina Community College System Board – Who Are They Actually Representing? PART 3
The statements you hear from advocates for illegal aliens in favor of them having access to our colleges generally flow around their claim that better educated illegals will be more productive and will assimilate better into our society. This is not only fuzzy thinking, it is faulty logic. It’s very precept is that the illegal gets additional benefits to what they have already enjoyed by illegally remaining and operating here and gives a segment of them what they want – unfettered access to our higher education system (in addition to our primary and secondary education system that they have already utilized). This, of course, will be costly to the American taxpayer whether the illegal pays out of state tuition or not. It also deprives a deserving citizen or legal immigrant of the seat that the illegal would occupy. Another marketing campaign is that a child should not be penalized because of the ‘sins’ of their parents. Allowing access to higher education, however, allows the child to benefit from the fact their parents broke the law and continue to remain here illegally.
I take exception to NCCCS reporting that ‘only’ a hundred or so illegal aliens are currently enrolled. This is a false and hollow number because it relies on self-reporting and not many illegal immigrants are going to truthfully report their immigration status. I do not believe the admissions office takes any action to investigate or determine status. The number is much larger than what they are officially reporting and likely numbers in the thousands.
Admitting illegal immigrants to our community colleges is a slap in the face and a hit in the pocketbook to citizens, legal immigrants and their children. It is apparent that the NC CCS board is willfully unwilling to abide by the wishes and concerns of the citizens and the LEGAL residents of North Carolina by standing up for the rule of law. They obviously have no concept of the definition of “illegal” when coupled with the term immigrant in rendering their egregiously infuriating decision.
Here is a suggestion: Would it be possible to allow these undocumented students to apply for students visas and attend college paying the Out-of-State tuition?
Perhaps I'm oversimplifying the matter but it seems to me that the main problem here is that those who are undocumented want access to a college education paying the In-State tuition. That is simply wrong.
It would also be wrong to ignore their presence or to pretend that the solution is to ship them all back "home" as if they were Fedex packages. As it usually happens, the solution is somewhere in the middle.
It seems to me, that solution or at least part of it would be to allow these individuals to apply for student visas here in the States, which would allow them to gain legal status. As with any other foreign student, they should pay the Out-of-State tuition.
That's a problem, Ricardo. The illegals and specifically their illegal alien parents put themselves in the situation they are in (illegally present within the United States) by circumventing the LEGAL immigration process and then continuing to break our laws by remaining and operating here. Now, they want us to "fix" the problem that they themselves created by according them special privileges and forgiving their lawbreaking, even criminal presence here. Sorry, my heart just doesn't bleed for them. They have citizenship of another country that they should embark to. Upon returning to their LEGAL home, if they so wish to partake of our generous LEGAL immigration process (we allow 1.1 million LEGAL immigrants into the U.S. each year, more than the rest of the entire world allows into their countries combined) then we would process their applications as received.
Allowing them to remain and operate here flies in the face of our laws and harms those LEGAL immigrants that have played by the rules. With a history of lawbreaking and evading being held accountable for their transgressions, are these types of "immigrants" that we really want allowed into our country. After all, the reason for immigration laws is for our sovereign right to pick and choose who we let in and who we don't.
Non-resident students pay more in tuition than the cost of their education. In fact, they subsidize in-state students. Any argument that is based on tax-payer expense, therefore, must be based not on the cost of education, but rather on the cost of enforcement.
The North Carolina Community College System is probably the most efficient opportunity generator the world has ever seen. It is not a terribly efficient enforcer of immigration law.
The NCCCS should focus on its core competency rather than chase after the phantoms that frighten a small vociferous group of single-issue complainers.
Antis claim an interest in having the NCCCS focusing on education, but insist instead that they focus on checking immigration status. Is this just illogical, or is it a racist, xenophobic, ethnocentric propaganda?
The NCCCS policy is so narrow as to effect a few hundred students out of 800,000. The issue is clearly not those few hundred.
The message we need to be concerned with is the message we are sending to the tens and scores of thousands of non-immigrant Hispanic youth in the NC public school system.
The Pew Hispanic Center recently released a study that pointed out that 2/3 of Latino youth were born in the United States. Of the other third, most are legal immigrants. Hispanics comprise nearly 20% of school-age children and 25% of newborns.
The blunt instrument of anti-immigrant hysteria sends a negative message about education to the youth who are the future of this country. This is exactly the wrong message.
The right message is the message sent by the NCCCS--"Creating success in North Carolina".
The anti-immigrant propagandists at FAIR and the CIS may not like the numbers, but we should not silently allow their fear to drag down the future of the United States.
Zeezil: I see your point and agree you do have a good one but how do we solve the problem? Is it feasable to return several million illegal aliens to their native countries?
Evidently, this is a complex issue and we cannot solve it just by writing a few sentences on a web site like this. Very tough situation...
The solution is simple, Ricardo. Illegal aliens made their way here, they didn't just suddenly appear. They can make their way back from where they came. Just enforce the law. It's that simple. If you came here in violation of U.S. law are are in the U.S. ILLEGALLY you must return back to your native country. Those that return of their own volition are not arrested and processed criminally. But, should you refuse to depart willingly, you will be arrested as you come into contact with law enforcement personnel and then will be processed criminally and deported thereby precluding ever being allowed to return to the U.S. in the future.
Illegal Aliens in NC Community Colleges Meeting – Part 1
The December 18, 2009, public input meeting required by law on the matter of the N.C. Community College Board giving illegal aliens access to our colleges was rigged.
It was rigged in several ways.
First, the meeting was placed on a workday morning the Friday before Christmas, when taxpayers that are working would be unable to attend.
Second, there were no N.C. Community College Board members even present at this meeting! It appears they could not even take time off to be there, and the crowd was assured that our comments would be delivered to the board members and they would receive and review all of our comments and letters. Pretty shabby that not one board member attended the meeting.
Third, the illegal aliens and their supporters had special insider knowledge and treatment. They arrived and were allowed to sign in to speak at 8 a.m., or two hours prior to the advertised start of the meeting.
When confronted with this information, the state employees running the meeting lied to citizens and the press. When I asked them what time sign-ups began, they claimed 9 a.m. I pointed out that was impossible since it was 9:03 a.m. and I was signing in as speaker #35! Their story then changed to the claim that sign ups started at 8:30 a.m.
The meeting organizer and the women running the sign up table continued to lie and claim that sign-ups began at 8:30 a.m., even when confronted by Ron Woodard of NC Listen, Randy Dye of Randy's Right blog, and James Johnson of NC Fire who signed in as speakers 28, 29, and 30 at 8:25 a.m.!
We have video evidence of an event organizer telling Randy Dye, who had signed in as speaker #29 earlier at 8:25 a.m., that sign ups began at 8:30 a.m. We gave the main event organizer on film making the same false claim and she is on record with WRAL making that 8:30 a.m. claim as well.
Another lie we were told was that nobody was allowed to sign up anyone else. I asked that question directly and was told "under no circumstances".
Later, we found out that one of our supporters, Mrs. Norton (Speaker number 47) had been signed up by her young friend that assisted her at the event. Her young friend, who had signed her in and was handed a slip by the ladies at the table without Mrs. Norton present, had the appearance of a young and liberal college student much like the young protesters that were all signed in to speak prior to 8:30 a.m.
We documented and can prove that middle-aged white males were told they could not sign anyone else, as the assigned speaking time was almost full, while a teenager, with a blue streak of hair similar in age demographic and social style to the pro-illegal alien protesters, was allowed to sign in another person.
The fact that illegal alien supporters were indeed signing up other people was evidenced when speaker #25 was confronted by the presiding officer for not being the person signed up in that position after he announced his name. When confronted he responded "Oh she had to leave" and then was allowed to proceed. The young students and their handlers were well aware of their abilities to exploit the meeting rules with full assistance and cover from those conducting this political charade.
Illegal alien supporters had special access to those planning this meeting and were aware that they could show up and sign in two hours in advance to fill up time and give a false impression of spontaneous support for illegals in our community colleges.
The results were that the first 26 speakers, comprising the first 78 of 150 minutes of testimony to the N.C. Community College Board and the N.C. media were all in favor of illegal aliens attending our community colleges, which are currently turning innocent Americans away because they are over capacity.
Six people, myself included, spoke out on behalf of the 70-81% of NC citizens who oppose illegal aliens being in our community colleges.
Illegal Aliens in NC Community Colleges Meeting – Part 2
Fifty-one people, mostly high school and college students, college professors, and college administrators, who are out on Christmas vacation, were present to support the illegal aliens.
Of course, we would have preferred that more people that are against taxpayer benefits for illegal aliens had come to this meeting to speak out. We did our best to notify people five days prior, but we were heavily engaged fighting against the new Amnesty bill in Washington D.C. American apathy is a huge reason illegal immigration is rampant, but what we faced at the Dec. 18 meeting had been in the planning by the pro-illegal alien faction for many months. The illegal alien supporting faction had an advantage over us in numbers attending, insider connections and information, preferential treatment, time to prepare, funding, and staff dedicated to their goals.
Many of the people who came to speak out against illegal aliens being granted access to our community colleges were not allowed to speak because the meeting ended at 12:30 p.m. and the event organizers made it clear they would not extend the time allowed.
Anyone who signed up to speak at the meeting after approximately 9:20 a.m., for a meeting that was barely advertised to the public as starting at 10 a.m., was not allowed to speak. Many left the meeting early, realizing their time had been wasted and their participation had been blocked by the illegal alien supporter exploitation of the process, insider information, and preferential treatment.
One such speaker deprived of a chance to present was a County Commissioner bearing a commission resolution opposing access for illegals to our colleges.
Instead of using my three minutes to make my points on this matter, I spent my three minutes warning the public and the press that the political theater they were witnessing in the room was rigged and not representative of the views of the public.
I had intended to use my time to point out to the N.C. Community College Board, media, and public that a decision to grant illegal aliens access to our community colleges was not a simple rule change to be approved by a board made up of appointees. A matter of this magnitude should require a debate and vote by the N.C. General Assembly to allow taxpayers the highest level of representation in this matter.
Those of us who are aware that 70-81% of our legal American citizens oppose illegal aliens going to our colleges are quite aware that the N.C. Board of Community Colleges is doing the political dirty work here to avoid Democratic lawmakers from taking the heat for this unpopular and harmful move.
I had also hoped to point out that millions of Americans are now aware that what behind-the-scenes powers are trying to do for illegal aliens here in N.C. is only a small part of a much larger plan that is in progress across the nation, and that the plans involving illegal aliens, taxpayer benefits for illegal aliens, and future voting rights for illegal aliens are all happening without public or Congressional approval and in violation of the existing laws of the United States.
The bureaucrats who are formulating college access for illegal aliens are working hard not to alarm the public and to soothe any and all concerns while manufacturing appearances of broad support for their plans.
Two consistent claims are that American students will not be treated unfairly and that illegal aliens will not be given any special or preferential treatment, and the illegals will have to pay out-of-state admission prices, which are very high.
Yet, state employees overtly lied to the media and public on Dec. 18, 2009, and illegal aliens and their supporters were given both special information, support, placement, and treatment that were not afforded to the general public at this meeting.
Illegal Aliens in NC Community Colleges Meeting – Part 3
A large volume of those speaking out for the illegals also demanded in-state tuition rates for illegal aliens which was soundly defeated in 2005 when HB 1183 collapsed under massive public pressure.
JWP Civitas polling later determined in 2006 that 81% of N.C. likely voters were less likely to vote for any state lawmaker who supported in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.
So we learned for a fact on Dec. 18, 2009, that the state employees and agencies promoting illegal alien access to community colleges are lying, are working in collusion with the illegal-alien supporters, and the eventual goal is to give illegal aliens taxpayer subsidized in-state tuition, as we have seen in ten other states!
The testimony and opinions of those that support in-state tuition and college access for illegal aliens has been sullied by the unethical tactics deployed by those conducting political theater with this meeting.
This report is being sent to N.C. lawmakers, media, and members of the public to raise awareness of the deceptive, unethical, improper, and possibly illegal actions taken by state employees, agents of the N.C. Community College Board, and illegal-alien supporters on Dec. 18, 2009.
On behalf of the vast majority of North Carolina citizens who do not want any non-emergency medical taxpayer benefits for illegal aliens, including no college access, licenses, or in-state tuition, that the N.C. Community College Board refer this matter to the N.C. Legislature immediately.
We call on our elected officials at the N.C. General Assembly to call for the matter to be resolved via legislation, instead of bureaucratic orders from non-elected state employees.
We would also like to see a full investigation into the public input meeting of Dec. 18, 2009, to determine which state employees gave special information, special treatment to the illegal-alien supporting faction and what power brokers behind the scenes secured this unfair advantage over the general public.
State government and all government should be transparent and fair with equal access to all American citizens. All American citizens deserve fair treatment, the truth, and adequate representation on important matters such as illegal immigration. On Friday, Dec. 18, 2009, fair treatment, the truth, transparency, equal access, and adequate representation were all usurped by illegal aliens and their supporters, which apparently have more influence over our government that the American public at this time.
It is heartbreaking to think of what our defenseless children are having to endure from this same kind of systematic abuse within our public schools. In this case, we have a clear example of state employees, teachers, and administrators encouraging their own students to lie and cheat for advantage with racist undertones.
William Gheen
President, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC
www.alipac.us
Very informative article including the comments!
Tracy, Velocity Fulfillment
the NCCCS Board of Advisor members need to be called out in their respective communities for passing this outrageous initiative. Identify those in YOUR area and make sure the citizens realize WHO voted for this!
Thanks to William Gheen and Americans for LEGAL Immigration
www.alipac.us
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