Immigration and the System

* As someone who filed state income taxes and a parent additionally supporting the Cal State University System with tuition payments, I am happy to hear of Vladimir Cerna’s election as student body president at CSUN (“CSUN Activist Elected Student Body President,” April 13).

Cerna, a Salvadoran national, worked to change his status to legal U.S. resident when Proposition 187 passed. This action and his successful student body election shows us that those that participate legally in the system are welcome to derive benefit from it.

What is now painfully clear since the Proposition 187 warning and subsequent fiscal collapse of the L.A. County health system is that administrators of state institutions must have the support of everyone they serve to survive financially. Latino groups could really help by organizing and publicizing legal entry pathways into the system. Instead, the easier approach by the majority gaining attention in the media has been to simply claim as “racism” California taxpayers’ increasing protectionism of the state’s overburdened public services.

We might allow access to anyone outside the system as long as some reasonable amount was collected up front. But very many without enough money could still not participate.

You don’t have to become a citizen to join the process. The more that join the system the more likely it is that institutions will become stronger and thus able to find creative ways to help others.

By changing to legal status and paying the fees like other foreign nationals or non-California U.S. residents attending Cal State, Cerna supports the educational system so it will be viable for new generations. This approach is good for everybody, diminishes the need for voter propositions like 187, and doesn’t reflect California taxpayer racism, but fiscal “realism.”

LARRY BARCLIFF

Santa Clarita