State Supreme Court to Take on Illegal Immigrants Case

This is about two weeks old, but the LA Times ran a story on the California Supreme Court taking up the case of the University of California providing in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. U.S. Sentate candidate and CMC alum Chuck DeVore has repeatedly introduced bills to repeal the original law, AB 540, that allows in-state tuition for these undocumented aliens.

The plaintiffs are out-of-state parents and students, who do not get the reduced tuition, who complain that a U.S. citizen in another state should get at least the same privileges as illegal immigrants. It is hard to disagree with their logic. Further, it seems unfair that they now get the added advantage of attending some of the most prestigious schools in the world for a discounted price while those still trying to wrangle through our admittedly complex immigration process cannot take advantage of it. Talk about an incentive to break the law!

More significantly, the issue of providing state services to illegal immigrants has been troubling California politics for some time; while studies don't agree on whether the cost of providing illegal immigrants services outweighs the economic benefits they provide the state, it seems clear that there is a significant cost -- and at a time when the state budget is facing a $40 billion shortfall.

[CJ's note: In fact, it costs almost $120 million per annum to educate California's illegal immigrant population at our colleges! Given that illegal immigrants don't have Social Security numbers and are therefore ineligible to work, one wonders how much of a net positive they could be for our state.]

Providing illegal immigrants services has created a backlash before: In 1994, Proposition 187, which denied schooling and other state services to illegal immigrants (and their U.S.-born children), passed in an election. It was later struck down by a federal court.

The issue of illegal immigration is crucial if Republicans are to win the Latino vote in future elections. First, all politicians must stop welcoming these immigrants in good economic times and then shunning them in bad economic times. We welcome them and then are outraged that they use our services. That is disingenuous in the extreme.

We must first close the borders to control immigration effectively -- borders first. Then, we should streamline the immigration process so that it is more efficient and speedy for legal immigrants. Finally, we must discuss realistic ways to naturalize those illegal immigrants already here, since they are an economic boon and, ultimately, we let them in.

But then, after all that, we do have to deny services to illegal immigrants. Once the borders are closed and the immigration process is made more open and efficient, we cannot excuse giving them incentives to break the law.

Mexico Should Reinstate the Death Penalty

Here's the quotation from Roderic Ai Camp, a CMC professor of international relations. 

Most Mexicans don't report kidnappings for fear of endangering the victims' lives or for fear that the police may be involved.

Those fears were confirmed in August with the kidnapping murder of Fernando Marti, the 14-year-old son of a sporting goods magnate. Marti's driver and body guard were also tortured and killed. Two Mexico City police officers, including the leader of the airport's anti-kidnapping squad, were later implicated in the murder and another 14 officers were placed under investigation.

Days later, one of the country's most prominent sports promoters, Nelson Vargas, revealed that his 17-year-old daughter, Silvia, had been kidnapped 11 months before and was still missing.

"No one is immune to this anymore," said Roderic Ai Camp, a Mexico expert at Claremont McKenna College in California." It has really brought home on a personal level that there's corruption and crime, and in extreme cases, violence that's touching everyone."

I, for one, hope that our Mexican brothers and sisters get their crime problem under control and hope that they use the death penalty, if it is deemed necessary.

We know from economists that crime, particularly kidnapping, takes a heavy toll on a country's economic growth. If Mexico fails to grow, its citizens will come to the United States.

We know from social scientists who have studied this issue throughly that there is a deterrent effect from executing muderers. 

We also know that Mexico outsources a lot of its violence to the United States where California and some of our other states have very feckless laws on executing what can only be described as narco-terrorist, kidnapping savages. 

I guess I just have one remaining question: to whom do I send my paltry political contribution check to get the death penalty in Mexico? If California won't kill its thugs, let's find a place that will.