<p>We have had dozens of threads on the subject of illegal immigrants or aliens or undocumented. Do a search. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t assume that a worker at a hotel is legal, anymore than I would assume a worker pulling up to do lawn work is legal. As an employer, all you can do is make sure you have the proper documentation. I guess you can go to the manager of a restaurant and ask about the immigration status of their employees, but I doubt if you would get the best service. We can all urge all employers to use EVerify, but that still doesn’t deal with the problem of those using bogus papers, now does it? </p>
<p>There are plenty of employees that are using counterfeit papers, and we have discussed this issue before.</p>
<p>A guest worker program or a fast pass to citizenship for military or national service are excellent ideas (and have been discussed before, ad nauseum).</p>
<p>The DREAM Act has failed and will likely be reintroduced again. </p>
<p>We can have empathy for the situation, for the countless students who desparately want an education, but once they graduate can’t get a job because of their lack of citizenship. It’s a problem. </p>
<p>K-12 students in the USA have a right to a public education, no matter their immigration status.</p>
<p>Actually, in CA apparently only Latino immigrants have a practical right to a public education in a language they understand. Legal residents, in CA, are second-class citizens educationally if they are poor and English-speakers. They may have a legal right on the books, but their rights on not being delivered, as sure as minority (black) populations were previously afforded unequal educations in K-12 schools in many states because of inequitable distributions of funding, based on ranges in property taxes. Ironic that despite having made strides, black families are again in the position in CA of being shut out of their constitutional right to an education if there isn’t a nearby academic immersion charter school for them. Shameful.</p>
<p>Samurai, CA, because of its lame PC politics, and its corrupt government-business alliance (as is true nationally), has chosen not to use e-verify. Again, Business 10, legal residents 0.</p>
<p>They don’t need $25K per year to go to CA colleges and universities. Even the best ones (Cal and UCLA) are about half that if you live at home; the CSU colleges are about $4K per year, and the community colleges are only $26 per unit. Tuition at all of those colleges is heavily subsidized by the CA taxpayers.</p>
<p>According to the OP’s article, thousands of illegal immigrants are attending CA’s public colleges, so they must be getting the money from somewhere:</p>
<p>Some employers in the state do use it, even though not mandated in CA to do so. Then have gotten hell when they let go of workers after their docs didn’t check out.</p>
<p>Its tough to balance the demands of having sanctuary cities with rules like making sure every employee has proper papers, don’t you think? </p>
<p>I’ve never supported sanctuary cities either, Samurai. I’m not sure why you keep posing questions to me as if challenging me to fix a problem, the elements of which I have never supported. Not sanctuary, not K-12 education in Spanish, and not the lack of mandate for e-verify. It’s the state legislators and the local officials & their supervisory councils and boards who have adopted such whacky ideas, together with the State Dept of Education, one of the most dysfunctional bureaucracies in the First World. I have opposed all of it. Glad to see, though, that there was a recent ('09) crackdown in SD. I’m actually all for gestures, as incomplete as they are.</p>
<p>Not challenging you at all, epiphany! I think we are pretty much on the same page. Just having a conversation in which there could be dozens of people lurking, thinking and not posting a comment. </p>
<p>I don’t think either of us can fix this problem. Gestures are a start. We can keep talking about it though. :)</p>
<p>I agree about the Department of Education. What. A. Mess.</p>
<p>I have learned at CC to post responses that aren’t always meant for the previous poster, but for the wider, general audience. Sometimes we just bounce ideas off each other and nobody is listening - but often, they are and just aren’t brave enough to post or don’t want to be controversial or haven’t thought of a compelling response, yet.</p>
<p>Sometimes I have trouble following threads, since people cross post. What seems like a response to one comment may end up with several posters ideas and comments in the middle. </p>
<p>When I address someone by name, it is usually because I am responding to ideas from a specific post, whether or not I agree with them!</p>
<p>In California, residency for higher education purposes is determined by where a student lives in the 366 days prior to establishing residency along a commitment to remain in the state. That means our state emphasizes where a student lives rather than other legal definitions (e.g. citizenship or national permanent residency). I know that all people in California do not agree with the law (now upheld by a court) that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition, but I think there is significant public support. This law was passed by the state legislature and signed into law in 2001, and it has not been repealed. </p>
<p>All over this country public university tuition and fees are a state concern. Not all states have the same tuition or policies for admission. The rationale for in-state tuition vs. oos tuition is that a state wants to make affordable higher education available to its own population first. The California law is in the spirit of that principle – offer in-state tuition to people who live here first.</p>
<p>So you are saying that because European settlers slaughtered the Native Americans, we should let a foreign mob invade and doing anything they want, up to and including slaughtering us? </p>
<p>I think most people in this thread understand, but just to make it clear: there is essentially no way a Mexican not related to an American can immigrate legally. You can’t just take undocumented immigrant children (or adults) and start to make them legal. They can’t just “wait in line” because there is no line that would get a Mexican legal status in his or her lifetime. They can’t follow the process, because for them there is no process.</p>
<p>“The rationale for in-state tuition vs. oos tuition is that a state wants to make affordable higher education available to its own population first. The California law is in the spirit of that principle – offer in-state tuition to people who live here first.”</p>
<p>On the news here in the Bay area last night they said that the University of California schools - including Berkeley - are aggressively pursuing out of state and foreign students because they pay oos tuition and the schools need that money. While I am very sympathetic to kids who grew up here but are undocumented, something is very wrong with this system.</p>
<p>I think Bay has it right. In principle I think we would like all capable students to be educated but the budget deficit is a problem that must be solved by CA. In the new guidelines for UC I they are raising tuition for most people but I believe everyone under 80k or so will pay no tuition. So if they live at home it’s almost free while people who pay the state taxes have to pay higher tuition. Now in reality this means that almost all the illegal students will go for free. </p>
<p>Does anyone know whether or how CA universities check the citizenship status of applicants? My D applied to the UC system, but I don’t remember what the application asked in that regard. Is it simply a box that must be checked, and is there any verification done?</p>
<p>You have to prove residency, not citizenship. It’s possible to be a citizen of California, vote in its elections, etc., but not be a resident when it comes to in-state tuition. For example, if you moved to California in order to attend college there, you can vote, but you generally can’t get in-state tuition.</p>
<p>Are those 25,000 illegal immigrants supposed to bankrupt California? Is there a better alternative to deal with this small number of students who are pursuing the dream of higher education? </p>
<p>Illegal immigration IS a problem, but should the focus be on the education part of the puzzle? There is no denying that educating illegal immigrants represents a burden. However, the numbers are often skewed by biased statisticians. For instance, when numbers such as California spending 10 to 12 billion on the education of “illegals” are advanced, they are often based on the about 13 to 15 percent of children of illegal immigrants without segregating the (very large) percentage of children born in the United States.</p>
<p>That’s right. I was trying to figure out how the 25,000 number was arrived at. The article does say “estimated,” so maybe it is just a guess. But I wonder, a guess based on what evidence?</p>
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<p>I guess “small” is in the eye of the beholder. The 25,000 number is equal to the entire undergraduate student body at UC Berkeley, and is more than the total populations of some well-known cities in CA. I assume the number is also constant, so year after year, there are 25,000 illegal immigrants receiving in-state subsidies. In 10 years or so then, that would be a quarter million students (? I’m bad at math :))</p>