CO state senator wants instate tuition for Illegals

[OutHouse]

ok so i heard about this measure being disgussed at colorados capital. so i wrote the head of the bill Senator Chris Romer expressing my opinion that illegals should NOT get instate tuition much less be allwed to enroll in college because they are illegal....

anyway here is the response i got back. i have not edited it, its a straight copy/paste from my email.


Mr. Ctirix,

Thank you for taking the time to right me. Constituent communication is an important piece of all legislators' jobs and I appreciate you taking valuable time out of your day to write me.

Tuition equity is a simple concept ? it improves Colorado's economy and strengthens our education system by giving qualified students in Colorado the opportunity to pay in-state tuition regardless of their immigration status. This includes students who have lived in Colorado for 3 years who are documented. These students will not receive free tuition; they will pay for their schooling like all students in Colorado.

Let me clear up some myths surrounding tuition equity in Colorado. SB-170 will not take away money or college seats from deserving US citizens. It is not a free pass. Undocumented students will have to exhibit the same competencies as other students and then, tuition equity can actually have a positive impact on the budgets of our local colleges, as more students increase revenues and budgets for Colorado's schools.

The following are some excerpts from an article from The Colorado Springs Gazette from February 2nd, outlining some of the reasons why I'm in favor of tuition equity.

"The common-sense bill would qualify an illegal immigrant for in-state tuition if he or she has earned a GED or high school diploma within the past five years.

Illegal immigrants residing in Colorado pay taxes - lots of taxes. Every time they purchase goods they pay sales taxes. Those who own their homes pay property taxes; those who lease property pay them as part of their monthly rent. They pay user fees and fuel taxes.

Unlike out-of-state applicants to our state's universities, illegal immigrants living in Colorado have helped fund Colorado's state and local governments.

Most live with the title "illegal" simply because of scandalous, unrealistic, unworkable federal immigration laws that need to be changed.

Anti-immigration activists seem to forget those recent days near the turn of the 21st century when employers were begging for workers and wages were soaring. They forget those days when it seemed no one could run a cash register, because job prospects were so abundant that few employees stayed at one job for more than a week, job jumping up and down the street. They don't seem to understand that wealth is created by working human beings, and this is a country in which a massive generation of baby boomers declined to produce a sufficient labor pool.

When the economy was red hot, signs hung on every small business, each begging for help. Immigrants filled the void, and they were paid in excess of minimum wage.

Today's economy has less use for them, and they're leaving our country in droves. But some are here to stay. The more educated and skilled they become, the more wealth they will produce.

That's why business leaders around the state support the bill, including Colorado Rockies owner Dick Monfort, who doubles as chairman of the University of Northern Colorado's board of trustees.

Bad federal immigration law, which has no nexus with economic reality, should not cause Colorado to live with bad policies that only stand to hold us back. The federal government shouldn't determine our state's tuition policies.

That's your job.

Nothing good can come from ensuring that one class of individuals - people living, working and paying taxes in our state - has no reasonable access to higher education."

This is why I am sponsoring legislation for tuition equity in Colorado. Your thoughts are important so thanks again for taking the time to write me.



Respectably,


Senator Chris Romer
Chris Romer
State Senate, District 32
Capitol: 303-866-4852



UPDATE: Chris Romer was at the head of this one too to kill the bill. and notice it was a Veterans & Military affairs committee that killed it? hummm now why would that be?

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_11664960

DENVER?A Colorado state Senate committee has killed a bill that would have required all non-governmental employers to verify the immigration status of job applicants.

The measure died on a party-line vote in the Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee Monday.

The bill would have required companies to check a federal registry and reject applicants who could not verify their immigration status.

Republican state Sen. Dave Schultheis of Colorado Springs says the tight economy makes it imperative to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Opponents say the federal registry is incomplete and the state shouldn't require employers to use it until the federal government certifies that it works.

 

[James Bond]

Thank you for taking the time to right me.

 

[OutHouse]

yip, this tool is on the education board....

 

[spidey07]

LOL! I love the euphemism - "tuition equity"

 

[maluckey]

The good news is that the LAW says that if you offer tuition benefits for illegals regarding in-state, then you HAVE to offer the same for everyone.

 

[MotF Bane]

He's retarded.

 

[Farang]

I don't mind letting them go to school if there is room, that doesn't hurt anyone, but they should pay out-of-state tuition. I understand they pay a lot of taxes but fact is nobody can document their residency so there is nothing to say if they are really long time inhabitants of the state. That ambiguity is completely the fault of their illegal status, thus tuition should be set at out-of-state rates.

As far as blaming the federal system, that is irrelevant. If that is his complaint then step one for him is to participate in the democratic process and work to change the federal system. He does not have the right to subvert it.

 

[BoomerD]

Kahleeforneeya has this same fucked up law.

Any of you coming from a "foreign state" will pay out-of-state tuition, but the illegals pay resident rates. :roll:

 

[Cheesetogo]

I don't understand the in-state tuition thing at all - it should be out of state tuition IMO.

 

[GenHoth]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
Kahleeforneeya has this same fucked up law.

Any of you coming from a "foreign state" will pay out-of-state tuition, but the illegals pay resident rates. :roll:

BWahahahahah :laugh:

 

[Double Trouble]

Man, what a sad sad state of affairs in this country.... the government is run by either left-wing or right-wing logic impaired fools.

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
Kahleeforneeya has this same fucked up law.

Any of you coming from a "foreign state" will pay out-of-state tuition, but the illegals pay resident rates. :roll:

And this is supposed to be the liberal model state, so for the rest of you or us, standby! For this might even extend you paying for illegal immigrants "personal dog training"

 

[palehorse]

Originally posted by: BoomerD
Kahleeforneeya has this same fucked up law.

Any of you coming from a "foreign state" will pay out-of-state tuition, but the illegals pay resident rates. :roll:

OK, if that's true, that's completely fucked up in the worst way.

wow...

 

[Moonbeam]

Why, can't you read.

"Nothing good can come from ensuring that one class of individuals - people living, working and paying taxes in our state - has no reasonable access to higher education."

This is one smart politician. His policy is right on.

The problem of illegal immigration is a federal problem that the federal government hasn't fixed but shoved on the states to deal with. This is the way to do it properly, given the fact that the problem isn't ever fixed.

 

[Xcobra]

make them pay out of state tuition and have no problem with this...

 

[jagec]

1)State schools are not hurting for students, they are hurting for funding. Classes are crammed. (I suppose I don't know that this is the case for Colorado specifically, but I bet that it is).

2)Out-of-state students pay much more in tuition than they saved on state taxes. They are not freeloaders, as is implied; if anything they subsidize the other students.

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why, can't you read.

"Nothing good can come from ensuring that one class of individuals - people living, working and paying taxes in our state - has no reasonable access to higher education."

Out-of-state tuition is "reasonable access". No one is saying that they should be barred from attending college.

I grew up overseas as an American citizen. Guess who had to pay out-of-state tuition when they came back to the US of A for college? Should I have sued? Is this unreasonable?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

It's just another outrage. The illegals should be invited to enroll at the college where they'll then be met by INS agents who will deport them.

 

[L00PY]

I admit that I haven't heard of this proposal or studied either sides' position. That said, if I'm right on what I think this is pushing, I'd have to say I'm for it.

I don't have a problem with illegal immigrants paying in-state tuition rates provided they would have met the residency requirements if they were legal immigrants or US citizens. There are at least a couple of reasons for lower tuition for in-state residents. First is that in-state residents have helped filled tax coffers while they've lived here. This is true for illegal immigrants that meet the residency requirements. Another is that college graduates make more money and pay more taxes, so if you give an in-state resident a college degree, and they stay in-state, they'll pay more taxes. This would likely be true for illegal immigrants that meet the residency requirements too.

That those arguments apply for illegal immigrants meeting residency requirements and not for out-of-staters makes me lend my support for this law. Naturally this means that illegal immigrants not meeting in-state tuition requirements should pay out-of-state tuition.

Also, replace "right" with "correct" in that first sentence and it makes a little more sense. I'm willing to give him (or the intern that wrote it) the benefit of the doubt here since they spelled "write" correctly in the next sentence. It could also have been lazy use of spell check, but they still get half a point for using that.

 

[StageLeft]

What a joke. I like how it's called "common-sense" as if to question it is just stupid. And illegals don't pay lots of taxes because a) no income tax and b) their incomes are generally so low anyway that they receive far more from the state than they pay in.

 

[Moonbeam]

From redblueamerica:

Do illegal immigrants receive more government benefits than they pay in taxes?
Posted April 3rd, 2008 by Joel

The Associated PressDay laborers, who identified themselves as illegal immigrants looking for work, gather around a potential employer that stopped to hire workers at a street corner where illegal immigrants gather in Dallas.
One of the most common criticisms of illegal immigration is that immigrants pay little or no taxes, yet still receive government services paid for by tax-paying U.S. citizens. This criticism was repeated again recently by Missouri Treasurer Sarah Steelman as she opened her campaign for governor of that state:

The Republican presented a report to a Senate committee, expounding on the burden that illegal workers place on the state and federal government. Such workers and their employers avoided paying between $242 million and $449 million a year in income and payroll taxes for Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance, she said.

?So the problem is quite evident,? Steelman said. ?It also creates an unfair advantage for employers who are not paying those taxes over companies that do pay the required taxes.?

Steelman, it turned out, misread a study on the topic and overestimated the amount of unpaid taxes. But she asserted that her general claim -- that the hiring of illegal immigrants robs government of taxes. Is it true?

It may depend on whether you take a long-term or short-term view of the topic. In the short term, experts seem to agree, illegal immigrants tend to receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. The disparity has given rise to a Web site created by the conservative Heritage Foundation: No Free Mustang.

Why is it called that? Robert Rector explains:

"The average illegal immigrant family receives an average of $30,000 in governmental benefits! Yet they pay only about $9,000 in taxes per year. That creates a $21,000 shortfall that the American taxpayer has to make up. That's like buying each of the illegal immigrant families a brand new Mustang convertible -- each and every year!"


The Center for Immigration Studies, a vocal opponent of illegal immigration, looked at "The High Cost of Cheap Labor"

in 2004 and found that illegal immigrant families tended to receive fewer welfare and Medicaid benefits than other households -- but even then, didn't pay enough in taxes to cover the cost.

Based on Census Bureau data, this study finds that, when all taxes paid (direct and indirect) and all costs are considered, illegal households created a net fiscal deficit at the federal level of more than $10 billion in 2002. We also estimate that, if there was an amnesty for illegal aliens, the net fiscal deficit would grow to nearly $29 billion.

In terms of welfare use, receipt of cash assistance programs tends to be very low, while Medicaid use, though significant, is still less than for other households. Only use of food assistance programs is significantly higher than that of the rest of the population. Also, contrary to the perceptions that illegal aliens don't pay payroll taxes, we estimate that more than half of illegals work "on the books." On average, illegal households pay more than $4,200 a year in all forms of federal taxes. Unfortunately, they impose costs of $6,950 per household.


The disparity might be higher, but the Reason Foundation's Shikha Dalmia noted in 2006

that the federal government had long since cracked down on benefits to illegal immigrants.

The 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified illegal immigrants from nearly all means-tested government programs including food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization. The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education.



According to a study by the Urban Institute, the 1996 welfare reform effort dramatically reduced the use of welfare by undocumented immigrant households, exactly as intended.

The exception for K-12 education, though, is a pretty big one -- and it's borne, generally, by state and local governments. Wisconsin is an example, as shown in this report

on a study in March by that state's Policy Research Institute:

The data show Brown County loses an average of about $9 million a year on immigrants. In other words, immigrants consume more in state and local services than they pay into the system through state and local taxes. The biggest cost burden is education for children, which is the most expensive public service.

On the other hand, the presence of illegal immigrants in the United States has apparently bolstered the finances of Social Security. Many undocumented workers pay into the system, but never retire or receive a dime from the program, as the New York Times reported in 2005:

As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.

While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus.

That continues to be true, according to an April 2 editorial in the Times:

In the fine print of the 2008 annual report on Social Security, released last week, the program?s trustees noted that growing numbers of ?other than legal? workers are expected to bolster the program over the coming decades.

We?re not talking chump change. According to the report, the taxes paid by other-than-legal immigrants will close 15 percent of the system?s projected long-term deficit. That?s equivalent to raising the payroll tax by 0.3 percentage points, starting today.

And in a 2007 report, the White House Council of Economic Advisers asserted that, over the long haul, immigrants end up paying off:

The long-run impact of immigration on public budgets is likely to be positive. Projections of future taxes and government spending are subject to uncertainty, but a careful study published by the National Research Council estimated that immigrants and their descendants would contribute about $80,000 more in taxes (in 1996 dollars) than they would receive in public services.


The overall effect, the council said, is a bit of a wash -- and a minor one at that:

The long-term fiscal approach imparts four main lessons: 1) although subject to uncertainty, it appears that immigration has a slightly positive long-run fiscal impact; 2) skilled immigrants have a more positive impact than others; 3) the positive fiscal impact tends to accrue at the federal level, but net costs tend to be concentrated at the state and local level; and 4) the overall fiscal effect of immigration is not large relative to the volume of total tax revenues ? immigration is unlikely to cure or cause significant fiscal imbalances.


As Congress in 2007 debated a bill that would create a "pathway to citizenship" for immigrants already in the United States, the Congressional Budget Office weighed in with a mixed fiscal review of the proposal:

The immigration bill before Congress would cost the federal government roughly $18 billion over the next decade, largely because of the huge costs of additional border control and law enforcement measures, according to an analysis released yesterday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The analysis found that over the next decade, newly legalized immigrants and guest workers would generate $48 billion in additional tax and Social Security revenues, while using about $23 billion worth of tax credits and social services. Thus, the newly legal immigrant population would contribute a net of about $26 billion over the decade, the report said.

Over the long haul, the bill would be a virtual fiscal wash, costing after 20 years a few billion dollars a year more in enforcement and government assistance than the Treasury would get back in tax revenues from the foreign-born workers, the study said.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: jagec
1)State schools are not hurting for students, they are hurting for funding. Classes are crammed. (I suppose I don't know that this is the case for Colorado specifically, but I bet that it is).

2)Out-of-state students pay much more in tuition than they saved on state taxes. They are not freeloaders, as is implied; if anything they subsidize the other students.

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
Why, can't you read.

"Nothing good can come from ensuring that one class of individuals - people living, working and paying taxes in our state - has no reasonable access to higher education."

Out-of-state tuition is "reasonable access". No one is saying that they should be barred from attending college.

I grew up overseas as an American citizen. Guess who had to pay out-of-state tuition when they came back to the US of A for college? Should I have sued? Is this unreasonable?

Yes, neither you nore your family paid state income or sales taxes. Did you have to pay after you became a state resident?

 

[rudder]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
From redblueamerica:
blah blah crap crap blah....

The analysis found that over the next decade, newly legalized immigrants and guest workers would generate $48 billion in additional tax and Social Security revenues, while using about $23 billion worth of tax credits and social services. Thus, the newly legal immigrant population would contribute a net of about $26 billion over the decade, the report said.


blah blah blah blah

Okay say the average illegal makes $8/hour and lets say they work more than 50 hours a week. Then we have to assume all of these illegals are paying taxes. I mean they are employed with fake credentials.. how can we assume their employer properly pays their taxes when they aren't paid in cash? So lets say 30% of that goes to taxes (which is probably a very high estimate for the income range).

If that illegal has one child in a public school that is $6000 worth of tax payer money at least. A trip to the emergency room is another several thousand. Food stamps use up quite a bit of taxpayer money.

Truth is a big chunk of that yearly salary goes back to Mexico or some where else and states do not collect any sales tax on that portion.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

The article Moonbeam referenced seemed to fail to cite the costs of public school education and hospital emergency room visits (forcing some hospitals to close) in addition to increased criminal justice costs and the costs of crime in general.

 

[L00PY]

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

The article Moonbeam referenced seemed to fail to cite the costs of public school education and hospital emergency room visits (forcing some hospitals to close) in addition to increased criminal justice costs and the costs of crime in general.

Really? I thought the mention of "K-12 education" would have covered public school education and "emergency medical care" would have covered hospital emergency room visits.

I doubt illegal immigrants increase the criminal justice costs much. Feel free to provide a study to support your claim.

 

[nobodyknows]

Originally posted by: L00PY

Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper

The article Moonbeam referenced seemed to fail to cite the costs of public school education and hospital emergency room visits (forcing some hospitals to close) in addition to increased criminal justice costs and the costs of crime in general.

Really? I thought the mention of "K-12 education" would have covered public school education and "emergency medical care" would have covered hospital emergency room visits.

I doubt illegal immigrants increase the criminal justice costs much. Feel free to provide a study to support your claim.

I for one don't think illegals are paying more in taxes then they receive in welfare, food stamps, and unpaid medical care.

The only proof I need is to look at how much money they are sending out of the country.