Posted on 10/15/2002 6:07:19 PM PDT by USA21
House OKs Visa For Border Students
House Approves New Visa Status for Border Students in Mexico and Canada
W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 15 — Mexicans and Canadians who commute across the border to attend American colleges would gain a new student visa status under legislation approved Tuesday by the House.
The legislation, said its sponsor, Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., would correct a flaw in U.S. immigration law and "end years of frustration for colleges and universities" that enroll students living on the other side of the border.
Current law does not grant student visas to part-time commuter students. The Immigration and Naturalization Service in the past has allowed such part-time students to attend classes with general visitor visas, but has indicated it will end this practice due to heightened security concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The new non-immigrant visas would apply to both full-time and part-time students. These students would also be included in the INS' student tracking system.
The legislation, passed by voice vote, still must be considered in the Senate.
The House also debated a measure, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., that would authorize INS border inspectors to detain drivers crossing the border while drunk or under the influence of drugs. Currently, INS officials must notify law enforcement officials that a drunken driver is entering the country.
The measure would also allow INS officials to perform chemical or drug tests when they have reasonable grounds to believe that a driver is impaired, and to impound the vehicles of those who refuse to take the tests.
"Lives are being lost on the border in my state and others" because INS officials don't have the authority to stop drunken drivers, Flake said.
But two members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, said that while they supported the idea, they would seek the defeat of the bill because it did not include a provision for annual reports on whether racial profiling is used to stop drivers suspected of drinking.
Jackson Lee said the bill "raises the potential for abuse of authority to stop and detain people at the border." A vote is scheduled for Wednesday.
The student visa bill is H.R. 4967.
The sober borders act is H.R. 2155.
By Tim Steller ARIZONA DAILY STAR
NOGALES, Ariz. - School districts on the Arizona-Mexico line are trying to break a borderland tradition by keeping students who live in Mexico from attending Arizona public schools.
District officials in towns such as Nogales say their crackdown on this long-standing practice is motivated by a desire to reduce class sizes and protect taxpayer money. Educating Mexico's youth is an extravagance they say they can't afford.
"They're taking up seats that should belong to the people of Arizona," said Nogales Superintendent Kelt Cooper.
For decades, some families in Mexico have either sent their children across the border every day to attend school or have had their children stay with Arizona relatives on weekdays and come home for weekends. District officials have sporadically tried to stem the flow by investigating whether students actually live on the American side of the border.
Nogales began its most recent crackdown in the 1999-2000 school year, said Analizabeth Doan, who is now the Douglas superintendent but at the time was a Nogales district official.
"We dropped almost 200 kids (from Mexico) in one blow," Doan said.
Since then the Nogales and Douglas districts have refined their techniques. In Nogales, they routinely scour their databases to find suspicious student addresses, such as one fictitious home that 30 students listed as their residence, Cooper said. They also occasionally station people at ports of entry to check the names of students who cross the border on the way to or from school.
Last year, the Nogales district identified 255 students who crossed from Mexico to attend its schools. Of those, most were able to prove residency in the district, but 76 were unable and were removed.
So far this year, 12 students from Mexico have been dropped because they do not live in the district, a low number that indicates the district's strategy is working, Cooper said.
"I don't think we would get 200 today. But I think there's probably 50 or 60 we haven't caught yet," Cooper said.
The Nogales district has slightly more than 6,000 students.
Border school officials noted that the Mexican side of the border has a much higher population than the American side. In Nogales, Sonora, for example, the population is estimated at 350,000, while Nogales, Ariz., has 20,878 residents, according to the 2000 census.
The problem is not just overcrowding, but also tax fairness and truthfulness, Doan said.
Almost everyone who lives in the district pays property taxes that fund the district, either directly or through rent payments, Doan said.
"When people come in dishonestly, they're not paying property tax, so they become a burden on the property taxpayers," Doan said.
If there were space for a high school student from Mexico to pay tuition to attend Douglas High School, it would cost $4,200 per student, Doan said.
But beyond space and money, there's the problem of the example that cheating the system sets for students, Doan said. If students must lie to get into school, they learn to lie in other situations, she said.
Doan, Cooper and others noted that the issue is not students' nationality or immigration status, legal or illegal. By law, schools are not allowed to consider those factors when enrolling students.
The issue is simply where the student lives, they said. That, however, is not always a simple issue.
Take the case of Lizeth Lopez Amado. The 15-year-old was raised in Nogales, Sonora, but in August she began living on weekdays with her aunt and uncle in Nogales, Ariz. She enrolled at Nogales High School.
The reason, she said: "It would have benefited me to know some English."
Lopez Amado took a full slate of classes for a ninth-grader and found the classes easy but well taught.
Since she was not living with her parents or a legal guardian, her residency raised questions at the Nogales district. In recent years, the district has begun insisting on adherence to rules that require a student to live with a parent or legal guardian.
Lopez Amado's aunt and uncle filed for guardianship, but Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge James Soto denied the request. He cited the fact that Lopez Amado had only a border crossing card, not a proper visa to live in the United States.
After spending a month in classes at Nogales High, school officials told her one Thursday last month not to come back. She returned home to Nogales, Sonora, but was too late to enroll in high school there. Now she is spending her days at the flower shop her mother runs in Nogales, Sonora.
"Now I want to look for a computing or English school," said her mother, Lizeth Amado Verdugo.
In their effort to crack down on Mexico-resident students, Nogales district officials also discovered hundreds of students from Rio Rico with questionable Nogales residency, Cooper said. Some of them were able to take advantage of the state's open-enrollment system, which allows students to cross district lines to go to schools if residents of a district don't fill its schools.
Their efforts to enforce residency rules uncovered a variety of tricks for trying to document residency in the district, Doan and Cooper said. Some Nogales, Ariz., residents sold false rental agreements; others sold the right to put Arizona utility service under a Mexico resident's name.
Accusations of circumventing residency requirements became a hot political issue in the primary election for the mayor of Nogales, Ariz., last month. Opponents of Mayor Marco A. Lopez Jr. accused Juan Pablo Guzman, the mayor's spokesman, of manipulating the system to get an education in Tucson.
Guzman was born in Nogales, Sonora, in 1979 with a disease that caused him to quickly become blind, said his father, Ramon Guzman. His older sister was also born blind.
Ramon Guzman said he took the children to Tucson for a visit with a specialist. That doctor told him not to look for a cure.
"Dedicate yourselves to educating them," the doctor said, according to Ramon Guzman.
There was no good way to educate the children in Sonora, but a solution presented itself north of the border. A woman who lives in Nogales, Ariz., adopted the children.
Guzman said the woman, Suzette Moreno, did so because she sympathized with the children's plight, not out of any effort to circumvent rules. Moreno did not respond to a message seeking comment.
In the early 1990s, Juan Pablo Guzman enrolled at the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind on West Speedway, where he graduated in four years, his father said. During the run-up to the Sept. 10 primary, opponents of the Lopez administration accused Guzman's family of manipulating the system to get him a taxpayer-funded education.
Ramon Guzman, the father, is now an important man in Nogales, Sonora - a co-owner of the popular radio station XENY, 760-AM, and the president of the local branch of the Institutional Revolutionary Party. But at the time his children were attending the Deaf and Blind school, Guzman said, he did not have the money to pay for their education.
Doris Senor Woltman, the compliance officer for the Deaf and Blind school, said she could not pinpoint the cost of a year at the school, but the school receives a voucher from the state of $16,100 per year per blind student.
The Tucson and Sunnyside school districts have not noted a problem with students crossing the border daily from Mexico, district officials said. The hour-long commute from Nogales, Sonora, seems prohibitive, said Barbara Benton, director of school-community relations for the Tucson district, and Sunnyside Superintendent Raul Bejarano.
There are students from Mexico who live with people who aren't their parents, said Bejarano, who was the Nogales superintendent until 2000. But they must simply prove guardianship.
"In some cases, people go around seeking guardianships, which they can do as long as they don't do it to circumvent the law," Bejarano said.
I can see allowing students from Mexico to study here and it can be a very good idea if they were to take their education and skills back to Mexico and improve that country. Too often they don't though, they study here to get US jobs, not to benefit their own country.
Cowards.
I'd like them to stand up and show themselves. Who voted for this?
What Republicans voted to keep these borders open?
Is this how mass-casualty terrorism will kill thousands of Americans - ask yourself!
As for the ones attending public schools (below college level) on our tax dollars, I have a BIG problem with it!
That's because we have been bored from within; It's clear the majority of those in Wasahington have either been paid off by foreign influences (Torricelli, Klinton); are anti-American (the entire Black Caucus); or are just plain cowardly (too many to mention).
Is there something wrong with the water supply in Arizona?
In all seriousness. We are LITERALLY in a fight for our lives, and these f*cking a$$holes purposefully weaken a "new" interpretation of our (already woefully inadequate) immigration laws that was made to improve border security???
The money talks. We all walk -- at our peril. The message from Cngress couldn't be more clear. Piss on us.
I sincerely hope that the next terrorist attack on US soil takes these scumbags out first.
Yes, and they can carry identification and be quickly checked before they come over and it doesn't take much to tell a Mexican from a Middle Easterner, they don't sound the same even if some could look the same ---some of the people living in Mexico are more assimilated to our ways than those living in the US ---education isn't a bad thing. Paying college students isn't the same as those living over there but using our public schools for free either. They're also learning English.
The paying college students don't bother me but those freeloaders using our public schools so they can keep their own property tax in Mexico low because they don't need to build schools if they can use ours and let us pay need to be booted out. These same people also expect "free" health care and a lot else.
You're kinder that I am. It's just that "our" legislators know that a huge majority of US citizens want the border to be secure, but still have their own agenda. Everything that passes, my cynical attitude about it is to think "how is this a loophole". For starters, the voice vote is not encouraging...the votes should be on record.
"Part-time students"? Does that mean a "student" can sign up for a free or nearly free course, and have permission to be here? How do we know there won't be forged student visas? If they can afford the education, why can't professors give extension courses in Mexico? Is this at state colleges and universities, subsidized by the voter and/or costing US citizens enrollment?
I'd rather be able to trust this, but it just seems that the angrier we get the craftier those in charge become.
Our agents actually aren't too bad in figuring out who is a Mexican and who comes from another place ---there are some very obvious differences -- and we weren't attacked on 9-11 by Mexicans. I think we should want Mexicans learning in our universities --again as long as they pay their own way ---they do have a chance to learn some of our system that way and that's a good thing.
I can see eliminating part time students ---but then again some of those are people with jobs (even some who actually work in Mexico) who go to night school or part time to add to their skills and it happens that the best continuing ed programs are in the US. An accountant or other professional in Mexico who wishes to enhance their skills will come to classes in the US, they always have --- that isn't our big problem with Mexico or immigration ---or terror.
Fitz the day you pony up your own money to pay for this practice will be the day your opinion is counted on this forum.
The border isn't even close to being sealed. It doesn't need to be completely sealed, Americans also like to walk over the bridge and shop in Mexico but they can check all traffic coming over to the US ---they never have though. Even immediately after 9-11-1 only about 1 in 6 trucks was checked at all. Few cars were. If I leave the US and come back, I think my car should be more thoroughly checked than the US citizen passengers on domestic flights are but that isn't the case.
Revalation 9:11-15
Sounds sensible but ...
First, In the California UC and CalState systems "out of state" and "foreign" student tutitions don't even come close to covering the per student costs at these publically supported institutions.
Second, the issue of domestic student displacement isn't even discussed in this article and is a great concern to many absolutely qualified, US citizens who are not accepted at some of these publically supported institutions to allow "out of state" and "foreign" students to attend.
Within the UC system as many as 15% of the qualified applicants are rejected to allow for "diversity", "out of state" or "foreign" student considerations yet the parents of these relected applicants must still pay for these institutions.
Only if they are screened, are not taking spaces needed for American students, pay their way (all the way), and go home after the education.
There was an article recently in the Dallas Morning News about Mexican opposition to all the American retails stores opening in Mexico. It told how many Wal-Marts there were and it seems considerable to me. Costco was putting in a store that would employee a lot of people, but the Mexicans were demonstrating because it would put the little people out of business.
They said they did not want Mexico to begin to look like America!!!!!! This is true.
These aren't universities with expensive graduate programs either, they're just your basic state and community colleges that aren't all that expensive to run. Some of the foreign students commuting from Mexico are irritating because many tend to be the socialites flashing their designer clothes and they're usually less serious academically but just like for Americans, studying in a foreign school can be a good experience. I don't like that financial aid is often given though ---that is a different issue and I have strong opinions on that.
I know ---Mexicans are weird that way. They want to keep Mexico looking a certain way but then they will sit in 3 hour lines at the border just to shop at a Walmart and eat at McDonalds. They come up from all over Mexico to shop in the US, I think they need more stores down there ---they might complain at first just like we do but they'll get to liking them. Deep down they all want to be in the US so they should just bring it all down there.
P.S. Do we screen American students, or can any gang-banging, drug-dealing native son and daughter get in because they're American by chance of birth?
What does that have to do with anything? Now the article didn't say they were only going to attend private colleges. They can admit anyone they want, but they will still be living in this country. That still has nothing to do with it. How many colleges in this country are there that get absolutely no taxpayer monies in the forms of grant, research,e tc.? I truly don't know -
These people are from another country and are asking to come to this country to attend a school on American soil, maintained and protected by Americans, and will be living in America. Are you saying we should have no control over these people. I just said I have no problem with them,
P.S. Do we screen American students, or can any gang-banging, drug-dealing native son and daughter get in because they're American by chance of birth]
I am not sure how you mean screen, but if you mean are they are given the presumption of not being terrorists - yes that is part of OUR constitution, written to govern Americans.
I realize the fact we are Americans is an accident of birth. The fact we have an America and it is as great as it is, is no accident. It took many generations of work and sacrifice to make it so. Yes, if anyone benefits first from this, it should be the children of those people.
As for the gang-bangers, I don't know any personally and I resent people thinking Americans are all thugs, their children are all gang-bangers and too lazy to work. Just not true. I am not sure where that comes from, but it is not the truth. From what I read (not from actual experience), most of the gang-bangers come from the groups of our own people, whom the government has deemed should be cared for by us, and are not exactly college material. I don't think they are causing any overcrowding problem.
Now I am not sure how you can find anything to disagree with me on my first statement. If you believe everyone and anyone should be allowed to come into the US, partake of our benefits (paid for by our citizens), possibly be terrorists (mustn't question), and stay here to take jobs of citizens - then there is no need to discuss anything else. We are poles apart.
Now you can disagree with me on the fact I am totally and completely against illegal immigration and think they should all be sent home. I am totally and completely against an anmesty. I totally believe we should halt all 'legal' immigration, except in cases of family and emergency until we can get our country back on its feet.
Jackson Lee said the bill "raises the potential for abuse of authority to stop and detain people at the border." A vote is scheduled for Wednesday.
The combined IQ of these two has a tough time reaching double digits......
Sorry, I couldn't tell if you were being sarcastic or not.
But I remember a time when US citizens like to visit Mexico because it was different - now many want the US to look just like Mexico - and not just on the border.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.