Legal Immigrants Need College Aid

Moving through the U.S. Congress now is legislation that would stop financial assistance to legal immigrant college students (“Senate Bill Would Cut Immigrants’ College Aid,” June 14).

In Orange County, this would affect thousands of young Vietnamese students, most of whom would not be able to complete their college education without this financial aid. These young people will drop out of college, most taking lower-level jobs in order to fulfill their traditional responsibility to help ensure their family’s financial survival.

Most American sponsors of these young immigrants are churches and good-hearted people who simply do not have the money and loan potential to pay for their higher education.

It is remarkable that so many of these young legal immigrants have appreciated that pursuing higher education, in spite of cultural and English-language obstacles, is the real key to self-sufficiency for themselves and their families. I believe this is admirable, and bodes well for the future of our community.

Congress was farsighted in providing the financial aid that allows new legal immigrants to reach for higher education soon after coming to this country. It seems so short-sighted to consider eliminating this kind of help now. For humanitarian reasons and for selfish reasons (believing our communities can be better tomorrow than today if we take the right actions), Congress should continue to assist these students seeking higher education.

DR. L. FRANK KELLOGG

Garden Grove