HB208 was designed to help young people avoid committing felonies and to give proponents of in-state tuition time to find a way to help these students legally pay for their education.

Individuals who voted against this bill are saying in effect: “We are offering you in-state tuition but in order to pay for it you have to commit felonies. If you are arrested, we are sorry but you will be tried, convicted, incarcerated, deported and barred from returning to the U.S.”

True compassion would be for the proponents of in-state tuition for illegal aliens to step up and voluntarily fund these students’ education rather than enticing them to commit felonies.

For more information on HB208 go to: http://citizensfortaxfairness.org/x_doc_download.asp and open up the HB208 documents (Fact Sheet, FAQ and Arguments).

This may be a poorly written or poorly conceived bill, but by voting against it you’re telling the world: 1) ILLEGALS have more rights than green-card carrying LEGAL immigrants, and the state’s citizens, and 2)ILLEGALS are welcome (and even embraced)in our state’s high schools and our colleges.

Finally, your comment “I am a supporter of the in-state tuition program for undocumented students, and I am a supporter of the law”, is rather chilling. Do you want do-overs to re-word that, or is that REALLY how you feel?

Where is the compassion for the victims of identity theft committed by these students? Failure to recognize the victims is cruel. It is also cruel to ignore the US workers who are being laid off and having trouble finding work while illegal aliens continue to work. It seems that you find it more compassionate to not only provide a taxpayer-subsidized higher education for illegal aliens but also to make sure they can find work even if it means committing document fraud, committing perjury on an I-9 form, stealing another’ persons identity and, possibly, displacing a legal worker.

Here are a few of the victims of identity theft:
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=286951
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=160060
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=3524269
http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=729158

The Utah Attorney General has also found that work-related identity theft is a huge problem (see: http://dts.utah.gov/security/awareness/media/2008october/index.html and scroll down and select “Identity Theft Problems and Solutions”
from the “choose a presentation” box. In one case, it resulted in a prospective University student, who is legally in the United States, being denied financial aid. Where is the compassion for them?

If you really are so concerned about the illegal alien students in the in-state tuition program, will you establish and contribute (without taxpayer help) to a fund for those students so they do not have to work and commit felonies during college rather than cruelly and callously telling them to commit felonies to pay for their education? At least, then, no new identity theft victims will be created and the students who are unlawfully in the U.S. won’t be committing multiple felonies (document fraud, perjury on an I-9 form and possibly identity theft) that can ruin the rest of their lives.

I only hope the true costs are really reported.