Boston Globe: let illegal aliens take college scholarships from citizens

Raphael Lewis offers a semi-tear jerker called "Aid they won not for them, undocumented students learn":
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey strode onto a Framingham High School stage Monday to give 148 seniors a special holiday gift: a letter from Governor Mitt Romney informing them that they have won four tuition-free years at the state's public colleges and universities.

There was only one problem: School officials say that at least four of those who received the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship were undocumented immigrants and thus do not qualify for the free tuition program. Federal law prohibits the distribution of government financial aid to those who are here illegally...
Let's say there wasn't such a law. In that case, four illegal aliens would have taken free scholarships from our own fellow citizens. If a country allows things like that, then perhaps they should just abandon the idea of "citizen" entirely and switch to "resident."

Obviously, taking things away from U.S. citizens in order to give them to illegal aliens strikes at the very heart of our political system and we need to keep a watchful eye for those like the Boston Globe who support such explicitly anti-American goals.

Also note this:
...the four undocumented students who received the Romney letter Monday are Brazilian nationals who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents three to six years ago...
In other words, they haven't been here since they were two. Does anyone think there's the possibility they were brought here intentionally so they could go to school on our dime? Have any of the dozens of newspapers that have printed similar stories ever - even just once - asked the parents of these children what they were thinking and whether they were trying to rip us off?

Write ombud *at* globe.com and ask them to try that next report.

Comments

Oh well when you live in a non nation you will see this kind of outrage all the time. for over 45 years I have had to work my ass off just to keep from becoming a homeless person. so we let third world people in the front door and that person will use the system to you have nothing left. so why didn't this ass go into the Army to get his schooling, i well tell you why, he or she wants it up front with no pay back to the nation or to the american people.

And there is the not so small problem of the fact that the overwhelming majority of immigrants - legal and illegal - to the US today fall under categories that make them eligible for "affirmative action".

I read extensively across the entire political spectrum and I have read a number of articles in various publications recently that bemoan the decline of boys and young men. They are doing less well in school, attending college in decreasing levels, failing to get that all-important first job, not forming families of their own, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that the massive immigration that we have seen in the last 20 years is at the heart of this problem.

Quite right, but recall that college enrollment can often be like welfare; the parents can put their burden off onto the net taxpayer. Rewarding crime and invasion is not an honest misjudgement, but has to be deliberate encouragement of conflict.

I don't think many such parents will be literally thinking 'Let's go to America and ripoff taxpayers to get a free education for our kids', or something like that. I accept the 'We just wanted a better life, especially for our kids' line -- most parents are decent in that way.

Nonetheless, this sort of media ploy is easily answered, and it goes like this:

We don't just have a small problem of a (relatively) few illegals for whom we easily could, and probably should, make such allowances. Instead we have a HUGE problem of millions of illegals, with more coming every year, so many that in a growing number of locales they are not only causing major social problems but actually bringing about demographic change. And so the last thing we want to do is anything that will make the lives of illegals already here easier, since there is good reason to believe this will only attract more.

And, if aliens come here illegally because they see it is an their own self-interest, then there can also be absolutely nothing wrong with Americans following what they see as their own self-interest, e.g. by seeking to hinder illegal immigration.