Holly Mullen of Salt Lake Tribune can't think things through

Posted Mon, Feb 6, 2006 at 3:44 am
The SLT columnist offers this:
I have a few questions surrounding HB7. This bill would take a meat ax to a 3-year-old law that allows undocumented immigrants who finish high school here to pay resident tuition for college.

Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, has sponsored this bill since 2004. He argues that permitting people who live in this country illegally to pay in-state tuition is at odds with federal law. He worries that the state risks being sued by nonresident students who, as legal U.S. citizens, believe they should get the same break.

Donnelson's might be the most mean-spirited bill to fly out of the hopper in years...

...a total of 169 [illegal aliens] attended state-funded institutions in 2004-05 [under the bill]
Mullen is apparently unable to do math, so let's help her out. Just using sample figures, let's say there are 1000 discounted tuitions available, and there are 1169 applicants for those tuitions: 1000 citizens and 169 illegal aliens.

And, let's say all those illegal aliens were selected for those discounts.

So, there are 1000 discounts, and out of those 169 went to illegal aliens and therefore 831 (1000-169) went to citizens.

That means that 169 U.S. citizens didn't receive a discounted education. In effect, illegal aliens took educations away from U.S. citizens.

In fact, for every discounted education that an illegal alien receives, there's one that a U.S. citizen doesn't get.

That's not only "mean-spirited", it's explicitly anti-American and devalues the worth of American citizenship.

Please contact the columnist at hmullen@sltrib.com or 801-257-8610 and help her with her math.

Comments

Enrique Phillips (not verified)

Mon, 07/24/2006 - 16:51

I live in Virginia and my neighborhood has gone to hell! It's unbelievable - it really is. 100's maybe 1000's of illegal immigrants have moved in. 20-30 at every 7-11. Trash everywhere - I'm not kidding. It wasn't this way 5 years ago. Lots of house have become slums - guess that's what happens when 3 illegal families live in one house.

People say there's not much costs with illegals. How about the $8K a year per child to educate in our schools. The illegals around here have 2-3 or more kids. 3 kids is $24K a year just in publick school costs. That's most of their total salary.

This is just out of control. This black market slave labor that's now standard operation procedure for many U.S. companies is just causing more and more problems.

I hope someone just slows the flow...Please. I don't like living in a slum.

Enrique Phillips (not verified)

Mon, 07/24/2006 - 16:50

I live in Virginia and my neighborhood has gone to hell! It's unbelievable - it really is. 100's maybe 1000's of illegal immigrants have moved in. 20-30 at every 7-11. Trash everywhere - I'm not kidding. It wasn't this way 5 years ago. Lots of house have become slums - guess that's what happens when 3 illegal families live in one house.

People say there's not much costs with illegals. How about the $8K a year per child to educate in our schools. The illegals around here have 2-3 or more kids. 3 kids is $24K a year just in publick school costs. That's most of their total salary.

This is just out of control. This black market slave labor that's now standard operation procedure for many U.S. companies is just causing more and more problems.

I hope someone just slows the flow...Please. I don't like living in a slum.

D Flinchum (not verified)

Mon, 02/06/2006 - 15:35

I repeat myself: It is illegal under federal law for a state to grant in-state tuition to illegal immigrants and NOT grant it to all other US citizens who may not live in that state. The math is even more financially severe. Let's say there are 40,000 slots in UT for college students: 30,000 in-state students, 10,000 out of state students, and 169 illegal immigrants. If UT gives the 169 illegal immigrants in-state tuition, then BY LAW up to 10,000 out of state students must also get in-state tuition, depending on where the 169 students cut slots, in or out of state students.

Dunno about UT but in VA we charge out of state students significantly more for tuition since in-state students (or more correctly their parents) pay taxes to support state colleges. Also maybe a lot more out of state students might find UT colleges more attractive if they didn't have to pay out of state tuition, and the 10,000 could go up, right?

Also what is this "mean-spirited" BS? We could solve the homeless situation overnight by simply assigning a homeless person or family to each prosperous citizen who has room for them in his home and the money to provide for their needs. The more prosperous the citizen, the larger the homeless family he gets. Do we do this? No. Is it mean-spirited? No. Surely being homeless is a far more serious problem than being charged out of state tuition. Get a grip, Holly!

LomaAlta (not verified)

Mon, 02/06/2006 - 08:06

You are right, she can't do logic or math.

A more serious question is the following. With millions of illegal aliens and millions of their employers breaking several laws every day, what is this doing to the fabric of our belief in the rule of law in America? From the President to Holly--"We can pick and choose which laws we will obey and which we won't." This is a powerful message seeping into the body politic.