Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - End runs no substitute for immigration reform

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - End runs no substitute for immigration reform
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
May 15, 2007


No doubt about it, these kids are all right -- better than all right in the case of kids like Spry High School senior Ofelia Gonzalez, who ranks first in her class. They study hard, get good grades, embody solid values and hold out great promise for the future. Public money earmarked for student loans couldn't go to finer prospects, or be better spent in making a college education possible for those who couldn't otherwise afford it.

But there's a catch. The kids under discussion are illegal immigrants. For all their academic achievements and standout qualities, they haven't earned the right to reap all the privileges of living in the United States. With money as tight as it is in Illinois, how could the state justify greasing their path to college and not helping needy U.S. citizens in this or other areas?

For state Sen. Martin Sandoval (D-Chicago), it boils down to the simple principle that any Illinoisan, whatever their residency status, "should have a right to an education." Anyone, that is, with a 3.0 GPA who has lived in the state at least three years and has been graduated from an Illinois high school. Under a bill he sponsors -- one that was narrowly defeated but remains alive thanks to a parliamentary stroke -- whoever meets those criteria is eligible for $5,000 from a taxpayer-fed student loan fund. To qualify, illegal immigrants would have to sign an affidavit promising to apply for permanent residence when eligible to do so.

Sandoval's heart is in the right place. One of society's prime obligations is to ensure the future of its young. As it is, Gonzalez can't afford to go to the area colleges that have accepted her. A recent Spry graduate had to drop out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign because a private scholarship couldn't put enough of a dent in her tuition. The question is, however, whether illegal immigrants have a "right" to taxpayer money for a college education? As much as we sympathize with these students, the answer is no.

Issues like this need a national, not a state, solution. Until immigration reforms come out of Congress, where compromise measures will be debated yet again this week after too much time on the shelf, these kinds of problems will continue to surface. For example, the Illinois House has approved a measure to allow illegal immigrants to get special driver's certificates in order to drive legally. Given highway safety and insurance issues, that measure makes sense.

There are 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. Those who would send them all back to Mexico and other birth countries are as inhumane as they are impractical. But until Congress resolves this towering problem -- we hope by providing tougher security at the border and a reasonable path to citizenship -- state initiatives to get around it will fuel resentment and controversy, and, in the long run, make life more difficult for good kids like Ofelia Gonzalez, not less.