For citizens only

STATE SEN. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), champion of state benefits for illegal immigrants, has once again sponsored legislation making undocumented students eligible for state financial aid at public colleges and universities. Once again, the proposition is flawed.

There is a finite amount of financial aid available to California students, and Cedillo’s Dream Act carves it up in unacceptable ways. To grant aid to illegal immigrants, the state would have to deny it to some high school graduates who are legal residents.

As it is, many eligible students who qualify for state financial aid don’t get it. Cal-Grant Competitive Awards -- the primary source of financial aid for community college students -- went to just 17% of eligible applicants last year. That left 112,000 students who went unaided.

Reserving state financial aid for legal residents doesn’t mean undocumented immigrants cannot go to college. There are private resources available that did not exist a generation ago. Banks offer loans, credit cards, mortgages and other products to illegal immigrants. And there are scholarships too. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund website lists dozens of sources of aid that do not require proof of citizenship.

There is a line between adapting legally and pragmatically to the presence of 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country and treating them as exact equals under the law. Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, another Cedillo campaign, makes sense because otherwise the pool of uninsured, unlicensed drivers increases. But handing out financial aid from the state amounts to saying there’s no reason to obtain legal residency in the first place.

That’s not a message government should send.