From 2015 to 2018, over 2,000 illegal alien students could pay in-state tuition at Arizona’s public colleges. Now the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously struck this law down in April, but let’s take a quick look at how much money this cost state taxpayers during these three years. The difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition at the University of Arizona is $23,430. At Arizona State University, it’s $16,580. And at Northern Arizona University, it’s $13,782. So let’s take an average of those: approximately $17,930 cost to taxpayers per illegal alien student per year. $17,930 times 2,000 illegal aliens times 3 years is a little under $107 million.
But don’t worry, illegals! Arizona has a policy that will charge 150% of in-state tuition, a figure still well below what out-of-state, legal students will have to fork up, that is, 250% at Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University, and, at UA, nearly 300% of in-state tuition.
Now, how are illegals able to get K-12 education? Well, there’s a little-known 1982 Supreme Court decision called Plyler v. Doe which mandates that public schools teach illegal alien children, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation. The federal government has spent over $1 billion and states have expended over $44 billion teaching around 12.5 million illegal aliens and over 4 million citizen children of those aliens. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that the federal government has spent over $1 billion and states have spent over $44 billion educating approximately 12.5 million illegal aliens and 4.2 citizen children of illegal aliens. Congress actually tried to mandate that public universities charge illegal aliens out-of-state tuition with a 1996 immigration act, but California, for example, got around this law by defining “in-state” as graduating from a state high school after three years there…nothing to do with immigration status.
Like Arizona, the UC system apparently knows that it teaches around 3,700 illegal aliens because the illegals use taxpayer ID numbers instead of social security numbers but hey, money is money, so who cares if they’re not actually supposed to be in the country?
New Jersey Democrat Governor Phil Murphy signed a 2018 law allowing the state to fund college education for illegal alien Dreamers who attended a New Jersey high school for three of more years and graduated.
More than 1,500 illegal aliens applied for the state funding and 513 of them received an average of $3,168 and enrolled in New Jersey schools. Essex County College awarded $36,049 to Dreamer students, Bergen Community College gave $40,031, and Rutgers University contributed a grand total of $623,109 to illegal aliens, reported Campus Reform.
Governor Murphy’s law also prevented a state higher education agency from collecting info on immigration or citizenship status from both prospective students, as well as their parents.
But not all states are going down this rabbit hole. I reported last year how, from 2015 to 2018, more than 2,000 illegal aliens in Arizona were allowed to pay in-state tuition for college. Now you might think this is a little odd: to attend the University of Arizona, Henry from Idaho has to pay $35,700. But Jose, who’s not even supposed to be in the country, can pay a slick $12,200.
All of this totaled essentially to a little over $107 million in revenue lost by the state. Fortunately, Arizona’s Supreme Court struck down the illegal alien in-state tuition law last April and now requires illegal alien students to pay 150% of in-state tuition. But that’s still kind of small fry. Out-of-state Americans attending the University of Arizona, for instance, still have to pay 300% of in-state tuition.
Deporting a 19-year-old illegal alien student? That’s a joke. But protesting when ICE detains that student…even after the illegal alien assaulted another student? Well, that’s downright woke and that’s exactly what students from Stephen F. Austin High School in Texas were doing Wednesday, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation.
ICE placed Dennis Rivera-Sarmiento on an order of supervision in 2013 and the guy was supposed to leave America during or before March 2015. I’m sure he just happened to forget…for three years. Some students and the immigrant youth group United We Dream — which has collected nearly 10,000 signatures for Rivera-Sarmiento’s release — allege that the guy’s assault charge stems from self-defense at the hands of bullies.
They say “19-year-old Dennis was detained after bullies made fun of him for being undocumented, going so far as to throw bottles at him.” Ok so throwing bottles is unacceptable, of course, but “for being undocumented” is a very odd phrase here. You’d typically expect “for being Hispanic” or “for being gay.” Call me crazy, but I don’t think we should normalize the notion that it’s bad to make fun of someone committing a crime.
