Illegal Immigration and Community College

This is one of those issues that may not make me particularly popular with some of you, but I've always stuck to my principles and said what I think. I always will.

We should allow illegal immigrants to attend our community colleges, but at the out-of-state rate. This would serve at least two purposes. First, it would make education available to more people. Regardless of whether someone is illegal or not, they should have the opportunity to get an education. Second, if we charge them the out-of-state rate, we, the taxpayers, will not be subsidizing them. They will be paying their own way, as they should.

If, for some reason, the current out-of-state rate isn't high enough to pay for all of a student's costs of attending community college, I would vote to raise the rate. Regardless of whether someone is an illegal immigrant, or from Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Virginia, we North Carolina taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing their education at our taxpayer-funded schools. But that's a separate issue, and shouldn't affect this issue. Illegal immigrants should be able to attend our community colleges.