The Fallacy of In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrants

I heard Lieutenant Governor Tony Brown on WBAL radio today talking about how wonderful it is that Maryland has all of these illegal immigrants and that our state is embracing illegal immigration with some new laws that are being passed.

As you probably know, Maryland State Senator Victor Ramirez (Democrat - Prince George's County) has been sponsoring legislation helping illegal immigrants for years. If I am not mistaken, this is the 2nd year that a bill is being pushed that would allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition to attend Maryland colleges, thus making is less likely that legal Maryland residents can get into college

Didn't Martin O'Malley run on a platform to increase college education opportunities for Maryland residents? Wouldn't admitting illegal immigrants take up spots that would otherwise go to legal Maryland residents? You have a pie. You can only cut it up but so much. Someone is getting left out with this legislation. Is it your child?

Liberal Maryland legislators continue to call these people undocumented individuals. I will continue to call them illegal immigrants. The current state of the bill would allow these illegal immigrants who have graduated from a Maryland high school to attend 2 year community colleges in Maryland and pay in-state tuition. Arguments for the cause say that we should not be punishing the children of criminals because of the illegal choices these criminals have made. Fair enough, except that these people shouldn't be in this country to start. Now we are providing conflicted laws that reward illegal immigrants for being here illegally. Are you following me?

To top it off, Tony Brown said today that Maryland needs an educated workforce and it makes sense for us to provide the opportunities for these illegal immigrants to get a college education so that illegal immigrants can make a contribution to our economy and keep Maryland moving forward. However, as an employer in Maryland, you KNOW that it is ILLEGAL to hire ILLEGAL immigrants. How is this legislation going to help them? Educated or not, illegal immigrants are not legally allowed to work in this country. And if you are an employer and you are caught hiring illegal immigrants, you face big fines. Would Maryland employers intentionally put themselves in this situation?

There are also some stipulations that the parents have to file taxes. Let's think about this - if you are an illegal immigrant and you are living here illegally, are you going to file taxes with the government to let them know you're here? Duh! (Thank you, Charlie Sheen) If any Maryland legislator honestly thinks that illegal immigrants are filing taxes and paying them, they are idiots.

The constant flow of pro-illegal immigration legislation is enabling the people that are the illegal immigrants. We're not doing anything to address the problem. We're giving more illegal immigrants a reason to come here. Eventually, more and more of your tax dollars will be going to support illegal immigrants in Maryland to provide services, such as healthcare, education, and social security, rather than having this money go to deserving LEGAL citizens of Maryland. How do you feel knowing that your benefits are being decreased so that the money can be used to support illegal immigrants?

And I think it goes without saying that we will need massive tax increases as the current structure cannot support the massive influx of illegal immigrants. Martin O'Malley continues to spin the rhetoric with this one. The massive annual tax increases on the middle class are called, "making sacrifices" and "we are all working together" and "we must all share the responsibility" and "making tough choices". What a bunch of crap!

Living in Maryland, it seems like the easy choice for Maryland legislators is raising taxes. The tough choice would actually be to lower taxes and stop this wasteful spending. But that's never going to happen in this state.