Two members of the North Carolina House of Representatives from Gaston County have announced their opposition to the recent policy decision by the NC Board of Community Colleges to admit illegal aliens. Representatives Pearl Burris-Floyd and Wil Neumann, both Republicans, plan to introduce legislation when the General Assembly returns to Raleigh in May of 2010 to prohibit illegals from attending community college. (HT:Cory Friedman of Freedom Newspapers’ Gaston Gazette has a great story on the situation.)
Neumann gets it right on the funding angle:
“It will be a hot issue,” Neumann said, “but I think in these tough budget times, to ask the citizens of North Carolina who are out of work to continue paying for illegal students is unacceptable.”
Despite what the consultant’s report tried to lead us to believe (that admitting illegals was profitable for the colleges), Neumann knows that the taxpayer pays a considerable amount for the community colleges. Just 12% of their revenue comes from tuition.
Best line of the article:
“We must uphold the law of the land, and if we fail to do that, we are encouraging a lawless environment,” said Burris-Floyd. “In a lawless environment, no one is protected.”
The sad thing is that this bill was already filed during the long session this year and never received even a hearing despite Governor Perdue’s stated opposition to the policy of admitting illegals. Will the legislative leadership allow a vote on the bill this time? Not likely. The fix is in and the deck is stacked so don’t bet on it.
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