Posted on 09/21/2003 9:18:31 AM PDT by baltodog
Sebelius vows to find ways to help illegals BY SARAH BAHARI The Wichita Eagle
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius promised Saturday in Wichita to work on allowing undocumented immigrants to receive driver's licenses and in-state tuition to state universities.
This would spur the economy, the Democratic governor said, adding that she would work with the mostly Republican Legislature to pass these and other initiatives.
Sebelius met with about 60 Wichita-area Hispanic leaders, business owners, doctors and educators during a roundtable discussion at the Hyatt Regency Wichita. The Wichita Hispanic Chamber of Commerce sponsored the meeting, which lasted about an hour and half.
Participants urged Sebelius to find ways to bring more Spanish-speaking adult education to the state, offer incentives to Spanish-speaking physicians who move here, and encourage more banks to allow undocumented immigrants to open checking accounts.
Citing the booming Hispanic population, Sebelius said their education and job training will directly affect the state's economic climate.
Providing higher education at an affordable price to undocumented immigrants is very important, Sebelius said.
Last year, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would have done so. However, the Senate did not.
"In the 21st century, our students need to go beyond the 12th grade," the governor said. "We need a trained, educated work force for the future."
The area's Hispanic population more than doubled in the past decade, from 19,793 in 1990 to 40,353 in 2000, according to the Census Bureau. That includes Sedgwick, Butler and Harvey counties.
By comparison, the total population for those three counties increased 12 percent.
For the past three years, Hispanic activists have lobbied the Legislature to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.
This bill, too, passed the House but not the Senate in 2003.
Jorge Della Costa, vice president of the Wichita Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said many people are uninformed about this issue.
"We need to explain why it's important for the community to legalize it," he said.
Without a license, illegal residents cannot buy car insurance, which means they are violating two state laws when they get behind the wheel.
Candi Spacil, a retired school principal, recommended that the state or local governments track places with the largest influx of Hispanic immigrants and provide additional resources.
Areas with large Hispanic populations, Spacil said, often have few resources to teach immigrants how to speak English or receive a high school education.
"What mechanisms do we have in place to ensure newly arrived immigrants learn how to speak English?" she asked.
Several physicians told Sebelius that the low number of Spanish-speaking doctors causes Hispanics to not receive adequate medical care.
Mercedes Perales, a psychiatrist, said Spanish-speakers feel more comfortable receiving advice and care in their first language.
Patsy Barker, a pediatrician, added: "It's not that we're against translators. But sometimes there's a cultural misunderstanding."
Sebelius thanked the doctors for bringing these issues to her attention.
"These are issues that, frankly, I haven't heard discussed much," she said.
Juan Yanez said Wichita Hispanics have limited resources when it comes to adult education and work training.
"If you don't have a GED or high school diploma, there's nothing for you," he said. "There really isn't."
When they do get jobs, undocumented immigrants may have trouble opening a checking account. In Wichita, only Bank of America allows immigrants who have a Mexican consulate ID to open an account.
Bank of America officials have said the program, which started last summer, has been successful.
Sebelius asked Jose Gutierrez, a personal banker at Bank of America, if other banks were starting similar programs.
"Your bank has been a leader in outreach," she said. "Are other banks following suit?"
No, Gutierrez answered.
"It hasn't changed," he said. "If they want to, they can sit back and watch us work with the community."
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Drivers licenses have traditionally been issued based on objective criteria that all revolved about the ability to drive and nothing more. Public and traffic safety was the reason. In recent years, politicians have found that they can convince people that driving is a privilege rather then a right and impose further conditions.
You can already be denied a license if you are behind in your child support. Tax collectors are drooling over the possibility of denying licenses to people who they say are behind in their taxes. Now you want any immigration issue to also be a stopper.
I say that no issue unrelated to driving should be a condition of that license or you invite people to ignore the license all together at a great risk to traffic safety, which was the reason for licenses in the first place.
The other reason that conservatives should resist any conditions on licenses other than driving is the due process requirement. Claims of arrears on child support, taxes or immigration status will be used ADMISTRATIVELY to deny licenses without regard to due process rights. What if you really do not owe back child support or taxes, what if the bureaucrats made a mistake (hard as it is to believe that governemnt clerks could make mistakes)? You could find yourself in a mightly big pickle without any realistic recourse. The solution is to re-read the constitution where is says that no one is to be deprived of life, liberty or propety without due process of law.
Am I the only one old enough to remember when banks opened accounts for anyone without "checking them out". All they cared about was that you brought them money and they paid it out at your direction.
It was the government, that wanted unpaid agents to help them collect their taxes that caused banks to start asking for identification, social security numbers and whatever. It is the government that made banks worry about who their customers really were when they shortened hold periods for incoming checks. Today's maximum hold periods are not long enough to really determine if a check is good and banks are at some risk. With the longer hold periods of the past, they could be sure a check was good before paying on it and did not need to know everything about their customer in case they had to go after him for money.
I want to hear a president of this country tell law-abiding citizens we will no longer enforce immigration law in this country. A revolution will immediately follow that pronouncement.
There isn't an ounce of courage left in Washington to enforce immigration law or to tell the vast majority who support those laws to stick it.
The government of this country is a massively corrupt, failed sytem on its way out. It can't pay for its leaders' promises and cannot enforce its mountain of laws.
It seems very likely indeed that this is a political move by the Democratic Govenor to gain favor with hispanic voters. The GOP is put in a bind of either helping illegals (and spending a lot of State money on subsidized college tuition for them) or being seen as opposing hispanic interests.
One way out of this dilemma might be to tie the in-state tuition for illegals to giving "in-state" tuition to out of state students. After all, if illegals are a boost for the economy then surely out of state legal folks should be at least as big a boost. Then, one can freely vote in favor of such an offer (of tuition break for everybody) with the caveat that a balanced budget needs to be maintained. This should place the Democrats in a bind; either they propose raising taxes (not a good electoral move) or they propose some corresponding cut (with associated electoral penalty).
Not more concerned-equally concerned. If the bureaucrats can withhold a drivers license for any non-driving reason, that is all the precedent they need to withhold it for all sorts of non-driving reasons, and that affects everyone, citizen or non-citizen.
What we need far more than border control is government control (i.e. control of the government) like it says in the constitution.
You are missing the point. The reason in-state tuition is cheaper is because the family is paying state taxes, including specific portions of real estate tax identified for state and community colleges. An illegal alien who actually lived in the state for more than a year should qualify on the same basis-they have been paying state taxes (sales tax, real estate tax on wherever they lived, etc). On the other hand a legal resident of another state was not paying taxes to Kansas. They get their in state rates from the state that they paid taxes to.
Wrong!
I don't disagree that in-state rates ought to be given to those that live in the state. I disagree with your assessment that they've paid taxes so hence they should receive in-state rates. They've paid sales tax. What about income tax? How many actual pay income tax?
If you use taxes as a qualifier, shouldn't we use the driver's license as an ID to establish whether they're working under the table? Also, given that colleges receive federal funds, should the tuition rate they get be dependent on whether their parents have or haven't paid federal income tax.
Then we come to property tax. Well, property tax is based on the assessed value of the property. This is accessed on occupancy such as number of bedrooms etc. How does this equation all work out when you stuff five people into a single occupancy dwelling and three of those happen be school children. Given that the tax revenue is used to finance the schools, it looks to me that you're getting the three for one deal. It also seems to me disengenuous to argue that: they're residents, they pay they fair share of taxes and therefore they should be provided in-state rates. When the only thing which applies is they are residents.
Of course, taxes should not pay for education. Those taxes should be repealed and everyone pays for their own education. That is the American (as least Libertarian) way.
But this article assumes the current bad state of affairs where education is subsidized by the state for its own residents. The only logical reason for that is that they are paying state taxes. Under that system, it doesn't matter how much you are paying. A rich person with a huge house will surely pay more real estate tax but get exactly the same subsidy for his kid. Likewise income tax. We are not debating the socialism inherent therein. Just that residents get the break and immigration status shouldn't affect that since they pay taxes the same as native born citizens that live where they live and earn what they earn.
It's obvious that you're a proponent of an "open border" policy. As long as the United States is a welfare state, an "open border" policy borders on the insane.
Once these folks have sucked up every bit of public assistance and aid, gotten their free medical care, moved to the front of the line because they qualify for special treatment under affirmative action guidelines as well as any government program providing them preference because they're minorities and given that large numbers work under the table and so pay no income taxes and live at occupancy levels in housing so the property taxes don't reflect or compensate for the cost of public services e.g. schooling, the United States will no longer be able to afford being a welfare state.
Damn, this rather clever on your part. The United States no longer be capable of supporting a welfare state. Why didn't I think of that!
Yes, you are correct. A welfare state and open immigration are not compatible. I just think that it is the welfare state that should go.
So, as long as there is a welfare state, then all taxpayers should be equally eligible for the welfare. That is pretty wasteful since the expenses of the government middle man are pretty high. But until people start voting for freedom and common sense (libertarian) we will have to settle for somewhat fair.
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