Opening up education

Last week, Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel issued an advisory opinion saying the state’s colleges and universities aren’t required to verify whether or not the students they admit are in the country legally. Undoubtedly, two questions about this decision have arisen in your mind, and in answer to the first, yes, there are colleges in Arkansas, and some of them are actually very good. Now quit being an elitist Midwesterner and read the rest of the editorial.

Addressing the second question is a bit more complex. Will this decision open the floodgates for illegal immigrants to free ride off of our tax dollars and trump the rights of legal US citizens? In a word, no. From a social justice and long-term economic perspective, letting illegal immigrants into our educational system is probably one of the best ways of avoiding an undue burden on taxpayers.

Given the limited opportunities for gaining technical knowledge outside a college setting, immigrants without a college education might be less capable of competing in the market, whether formally or informally, and will likely encounter fewer opportunities for personal and financial advancement. They will be unprepared, and unable, to contribute toward expansion and development of Arkansas’ economy.

Also, caught in a cycle of poverty, those who are denied education are far more likely to resort to crime, degrade their ambient environment and live in a state of ill health. These costs are passed on to taxpayers. Legal residents will, for example, shoulder the costs of illegal immigrants’ emergency room bills. The indirect effects of refusing illegal immigrants access to higher education is ultimately a losing situation.

Most illegal immigrants are in Arkansas because of extenuating circumstances, and for the duration of their stay, they might as well be contributing to society, rather than constituting a burden to it in the form of external costs that ultimately get passed onto residents anyway. Logically refusing illegal immigrants admission to institutions of higher education is simply not in the public interest.

Dissent:

This case in Arkansas continues to prove the massive problem the United States faces with illegal immigration. The law has to actually be enforced or a new one made. We cannot continue to willingly compromise the law just because the law is not enforced.

By allowing illegal immigrants the opportunity and privilege to higher education, we are compromising our laws on legal immigration. Higher education is in no way a right: It is an absolute privilege that should not be taken lightly. To ask Arkansas residents to foot the bill for those who are not also footing the bill is dead wrong. For the government to take money from someone without them benefiting from the money spent is stealing.

If you really want to see someone fired up about the issue of illegal immigration, ask a non-U.S. citizen who went through the naturalization process to become a legal citizen what he or she thinks. You won’t find them supporting this measure.

-Justin P. Hill, guest columnist and political director of the IU College Republicans