Don’t Bend on Education for Undocumented

Not surprisingly, it was Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California’s member on the conference committee, who was the first to come out of the 104th Congress in opposition to the Immigration Control and Financial Responsibility Act of 1996, the most important immigration reform bill to be introduced in Congress in more than ten years. Disturbingly, it was conservative Sens. Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott and Arlen Specter who agreed to a ludicrous compromise on Rep. Elton Gallegly’s amendment, which would have given the states the right to bar illegal immigrant children from tax-supported public education. The compromise would allow them to attend kindergarten through sixth grade, after which their illegal immigrant parents could pay tuition.

It is questionable why anybody who supposedly understands the immigration crises in the United States would join forces with the liberals to further weaken an already gutted bill. In fact, it probably will have the unintended effect of letting President Clinton off the hook of having to make a tough call on the immigration issue. He has already vowed to veto any immigration reform bill that included restrictions on public education for illegal aliens. For this, he is totally wrong and could pay a political price. However, if he follows through on his vow and vetoes a bill including this compromise, it is unlikely that it will be perceived as a big deal.

In essence, the compromise constitutes a six- to 12-year moratorium on deportation proceedings--in other words, another rolling amnesty. For it takes a very creative imagination to conjure up an optimistic scenario on just how many illegal alien parents would be able to foot the bill for six years of education costing $4,800 to $6,600 per child per year. This is especially of major concern when you realize that the majority of illegals come from countries that historically tend to have several children per family. So, it is safe to predict that the overwhelming majority of illegal alien children will not be attending public school beyond sixth grade. Being illegal, they could not be employed even if they somehow acquired job skills.

Twelve-year-olds who are not in school would be advertising their status as illegal and deportable. After facilitating their stay in the U.S. for at least another six to 12 years, deporting children and their families is not going to be easy to pull off. There will be years of legal wrangling, an uphill battle against a history of liberal court decisions.

Even those few illegal alien students fortunate enough to make it through high school will still be deportable and will be unable to legally drive or work here.

It defies logic to reward illegal aliens by providing them with an expensive public education, perhaps at a cost to the quality of education for our own children and those of legal immigrants, and then to deport them or put them on the streets.

There are an estimated 5 million illegal aliens residing in the U.S., a population growing at a rate of 350,000 to 500,000 a year. In 1982, an estimated 1 million people were living here illegally. Our society could not abide such a situation and approved an amnesty program as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Before the process was completed, about 3.2 million illegal aliens received amnesty. The trade-off, we were told, was that it was to be a once-in-a-lifetime cure-all, forever solving our illegal immigration problems.

The same conditions that existed in 1986 are with us again and one does not have to look very hard to discover that this time the base numbers are starting much higher and the potential numbers of illegals that could be eligible to receive an amnesty is frightening.

Virtually all responsible demographers, population growth and control organizations, labor market and resource management professionals, backed up by the recommendations from the Jordan commission, are convinced that another massive amnesty will put us on a timetable for disaster. The vast majority of concerned U.S. citizens and legal residents have had their concerns on the immigration issue referenced in the major public opinion polls, time after time, and believe that another amnesty will be the death of national sovereignty.

The returning legislators who survive the November elections, as well as the new legislators who will make up the 105th session of Congress, are being put on notice. The voters will not wait another 10 years for another meaningless piece of immigration reform legislation. What was left undone in the 104th Congress has to be immediately tackled by the 105th Congress. That is not a threat but a promise. Bank on it.