Andrea Nill of ThinkProgress responds to the new Sharron Angle ad with a somewhat misleading post about the anti-American DREAM Act. The Angle ad is here; the Nill post is at [1].

Nill writes:

The ad appears to be vaguely referencing the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act which Reid attached to the defense reauthorization bill last month as an amendment. The DREAM Act wouldn’t give undocumented students special tuition rates, but it would eliminate a federal provision that penalizes states that provide in-state tuition without regard to immigration status. Angle’s ad doesn’t mention that it would also allow certain undocumented immigrant youth who were brought to the U.S. by their parents at a young age to eventually obtain legal permanent status by enlisting in the military or attending a university. A June 2010 national poll of 1,008 adults revealed that 70 percent of voters support the DREAM Act, across party lines.

1. As I stated at the Angle ad link, she should have run it by NumbersUSA or some other group first, because, unfortunately, Nill is correct in a technical sense: the DREAM Act itself wouldn't give "special tuition rates".

2. However, where Nill is misleading is with that same Orwellian sentence containing "special tuition rates". Federal law currently says that states can't give illegal aliens a rate that they don't give to citizens [2]. The DREAM Act would do away with that, letting states give illegal aliens a better rate than citizens. The bill itself wouldn't give illegal aliens a better rate, it would just allow states to do that with impunity. What she says above is like saying, "this bill wouldn't raise the speed limit, it would just eliminate the speed limit and let people go as fast as they want". Needless to say, giving illegal aliens a better rate than citizens is openly anti-American and shows how little loyalty those Americans who support the DREAM Act have to their fellow citizens.

3. Nill doesn't tell her readers that the "federal provision that penalizes states" has not ever as far as I know been enforced; see this, which references this. The reason for that is federal corruption: those running the Department of Homeland Security are too corrupt to enforce the laws they're required to enforce.

4. The "poll" she mentions (from First Focus) was more of an advocacy poll designed to obtain a skewed result, and the poll question misleads about the DREAM Act. No respectable polling organization would ever ask such a blatantly biased question; most would try to hide it better. Take a look at the incredibly biased question that was asked at [3]. That question includes, "To earn legal status, students must have come to the U.S. when they were very young." In fact, the DREAM Act that Harry Reid was pushing would be open to those who claimed they came here at 15 years or younger. Does anyone think 15 years of age is "very young"?

[1] wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/10/06/sharron-angle-immigration-ad

[2] Title 8, Chapter 14, Sec. 1623, link:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.

[3] firstfocus.net/library/polling-and-opinion-research/
public-support-for-the-dream-act