The legislators knew it would be controversial. But it’s hard to believe they ever thought the bill would become this kind of political hot potato.
Since then, a group that wants tougher immigration laws, Americans for Legal Immigration, has let loose with a daily barrage of negative missives about the bill. Some co-sponsors have pulled their names from the legislation. E-mails in opposition have clogged legislators’ computers. And Gov. Mike Easley has pronounced that the bill violates federal law.
(Of course, his track record of interpreting federal law isn’t so good. Just go ask Raleigh tax attorney Gene Boyce, who until recently was undefeated against our former attorney general.)
It should come as no surprise that a majority of people in the state oppose the legislation.
The voting public is by and large law-abiding. Most of them don’t believe people who break the law should be rewarded with government benefits. And illegal immigrants are, by definition, lawbreakers.
The activists pushing tougher immigration laws also believe that illegal immigrants are taking far more in government benefits than they are contributing in taxes. (Given the large numbers of illegal immigrants believed to be paying withholding and Social Security taxes using bogus Social Security numbers, that may not be true.)
This is the essence of the surface debate. But delve below the surface, and the issues become a lot more complicated.
According to some estimates, roughly half of the immigrants living in North Carolina are here illegally. One recent survey put the number of illegal immigrants in the state at 300,000, most of them Hispanic.
Clearly, they didn’t come here to mooch off the welfare system. They came here for jobs.
The anti-immigration crowd will tell you they are taking jobs away from qualified Americans, keeping wages low. But in the farming, construction, hospitality and food processing industries, business owners say they can’t fill jobs without immigrant labor. And paying higher wages in these jobs will mean higher prices for consumers.
These conflicting sentiments drive a federal immigration policy that sounds tough but isn’t, creating a highly politicized system that tacitly encourages illegal immigration while discouraging legal immigration.
The supporters of the in-state tuition legislation say they are simply responding to broken federal immigration policy. After all, it’s federal rules, not the state, which require that public schools open their doors to the children of illegal immigrants.
The legislation recognizes that these immigrants are not going anywhere. They are becoming a part of the economic, social and cultural fabric of North Carolina. For the state to thrive, they need the best education possible and cannot be marginalized by society as blacks were for 100 years after emancipation.
But given the level of opposition, the bill isn’t likely to pass. And North Carolina, like Congress, can continue the schizophrenic approach to immigration.
Scott Mooneyham writes for Capitol Press Association.
