In-State Tuition to Illegal Aliens - Arkansas SB799 - It's Unconstitutional

Update 3/22 See update: Arkansas Hispanic Newspaper Wants 10,000 People to Sign Petition in Support of In-State Tuition for Illegal Aliens

Bill Smith, ARRA Editor: After reading the following two items, Contact your State Senator and those on the Arkansas Senate Education Committee and tell them to VOTE "NO" on giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens. This is a travesty! Why is this Senator allowed to waste time pushing a for a subject already determined to be unconstitutional? Recruiting out of state students and charging them higher tuition and then rewarding the illegal aliens with lower tuition rates is abhorrent.

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Tags: Arkansas, Arkansas Watch, ICE, illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, Joyce Elliot, Kenny Wallis, SB799, tuition, US Constitution To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!

Is Arkansas on a self destruct trajectory? We are one of the few states in the Union without a deficit and Senator Elliot and others would have us sacrifice this for the sake of illegal aliens who should return to their own country and apply for legal entry into the United States. It is bad enough that we have these "non-citizens - illegal aliens" living in Arkansas touting our laws, attempting to "take" college seats from Arkansans but they also seek to take the future higher paying jobs from Arkansans. It is down right arrogant to ask the Arkansas taxpayers to say "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Three bags full" - take our taxes and use our college facilities to subsidize and educate illegal aliens so they can become the competitors for the higher paying jobs sought for by legal Arkansans and legal residents from other states.

Kenneth Wallis, Open Letter to the Editor (3/21): State Senator Joyce Elliott has introduced Senate Bill 799, titled “TO INCREASE ACCESS TO POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION.” This bill will give in-state tuition to illegal aliens and will be voted on the Arkansas Senate Education Committee Monday March 23rd.

We have lost billions of dollars, many of our freedoms, and thousands of lives to illegal immigration. Immigrationcounters.com shows that the US has spent $13.9 billion on illegal aliens in K-12 education since 1996. We have also given billions to 3rd World Regimes in Foreign Aid, including an unconstitutional $20 billion bailout of the Mexican Peso in 1995.

Because little effort has been made to reform corrupt governments, the money spent on the citizens of other countries has been a waste. Mexico, which should be world superpower, is spiraling down into a warlord state, and taking the US down with it. I hope that Arkansas Senators, including my Senator, Mary Ann Salmon, will vote against SB799 and not take part in the bailout of corrupt foreign countries.
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Senator Joyce Elliott Again Files Bill Giving Instate Tuition to Illegal Aliens, Arkansas Watch (3/18) : The Arrogance of Senator Joyce Elliott in Defying Constitution on In-state Tuition for Illegal Aliens.

Senator Joyce Elliott has filed another bill to give instate tuition to illegal aliens (SB799). When Joyce Elliott was a representative in 2005, she slipped a bill passed the House that gave scholarships and instate tuition to illegals. Federal law was brought to her attention that giving instate tuition was forbidden in federal law. Upon request by a Senator, Governor Beebe (then attorney general) ruled then and says now that instate tuition for illegal aliens conflicts with federal law. She still tried to get it through the Senate in 05 after all this, but the Senate voted it down by about 2 votes.

Even in California, a three judge panel of the California Court of Appeals unanimously ruled . . . that a California law intended to permit illegal aliens to attend public colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates is unconstitutional because it conflicts with federal law, and violates both the equal protection clause and privileges and immunity clause of the constitution.

Pat Reilly, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, reported. . . . "[T]he only way foreign nationals can attend college in the United States legally is through the agency's International Student Exchange and Visitors Program. Illegal immigrants in the U.S. cannot qualify for that program, Reilly said." So it is illegal for illegal aliens to attend college at all - as anyone with common sense could surmise. Yet Joyce Elliott is persisting again on passing this bill [SB799] . . . .