Decisions Have Consequences

In an editorial on Tuesday, September 18^th, the Kokomo (IN) Tribune took the position that requiring the children of illegal immigrants pay out-of-state tuition at state-supported colleges and universities is “unfair to immigrants”. They forgot an adjective. The headline should have read, “Law is unfair to illegal immigrants”.
The opinion piece went on to criticize Indiana Representative Mike Karickhoff who is from Kokomo and a co-sponsor of the bill passed by the Indiana General Assembly establishing this requirement. For one, I applaud his efforts.
One allegation in opposition to the measure is that “many undocumented students have been living in Indiana much of their lives and their parents actually have been paying taxes to support the state’s public institutions of higher learning”. I don’t know how this is possible without additional falsification of such as a Social Security number since that is required to file a tax return. Illegal immigrants don’t qualify for a Social Security number. If they have one, it would be yet another violation of law. Further, it is common street knowledge that a substantial portion of income received by illegal immigrants is in cash and never reported by either the recipient or the company that illegally operates this way.
Decisions do have consequences. The illegal actions of parents do not exempt their children from the consequences of violation of law by the parents. It should not be up to the taxpayers to subsidize non- Indiana citizen students which is what the Tribune is proposing. This is not offered to out of state students who are United States citizens. It makes no sense to offer reduced fees to students who are not citizens of Indiana or the United States.