by Desiree Jackson
On November 13, 2007, while campaigning in Sioux City, Iowa, Mitt Romney accused opponents Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee of supporting tuition breaks for children of illegal immigrants.
According to the Des Moines Register,
Romney also claimed that as governor he vetoed legislation to give a tuition break at state schools to children of illegal immigrants. Is Romney telling the whole truth in this matter?“Romney contended that Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, fought for tuition breaks for children of illegal immigrants in his state, while Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, provided tuition breaks at City University for illegal immigrants.”
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education,
“The City University of New York will raise tuition next semester for students who are illegal immigrants, ending a 12-year-old policy of allowing foreigners who have attended New York State high schools to pay lower in-state tuition. Until now, such students have been allowed to pay in-state tuition rates at CUNY as long as they could prove that they had attended high school in New York for at least a year before enrolling in college.”The article was published in 2001 and Rudy Giuliani was elected as Mayor of New York in 1993. The policy of allowing illegal immigrants was in place before Giuliani took office but it did continue under his leadership as well. Students who had graduated from a New York State high school at least one year before entering college were allowed to attend New York state colleges at the in-state tuition rate, rather than paying more for out-of-state tuition.
According The Deseret News,
“Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tried -- and failed -- this spring to extend state-funded scholarships to the children of illegal immigrants. His spokesman Rex Nelson said the proposal recognized that immigrants' children are likely to remain in the state and that Arkansas needs a well-educated work force.”As recently as November, Huckabee defended his position on illegal immigration. At the CNN-YouTube Debate held on November 28, 2007, Huckabee defended his support of providing state-funded scholarships to children of illegal immigrants.
“I supported the bill that would've allowed those children who had been in our schools their entire school life the opportunity to have the same scholarship that their peers had, who had also gone to high school with them and sat in the same classrooms. They couldn't just move in in their senior year and go to college. It wasn't about out of state tuition. It was an academic, meritorious scholarship called the Academic Challenge Scholarship. This bill would've said that if you came here, not because you made the choice but because your parents did, that we're not going to punish a child because the parent committed a crime. That’s not what we typically do in this country....It accomplished two things that we knew we wanted to do, and that is, number one, bring people from illegal status to legal status. And the second thing, we wanted people to be taxpayers, not tax- takers. And that's what that provision did.”Mitt Romney also claims that he vetoed similar legislation when he was serving as Massachusetts Governor. According to the Boston Globe,
“A bill currently being considered by the Legislature would provide in-state tuition at our public colleges and university to individuals who are in the United States illegally. Governor Romney vetoed a similar provision last June, and he is prepared to do so again.”Lesson: Giuliani supported illegal immigrants paying in-state tuition at state colleges for students who graduated from a New York State high school. Huckabee supported state-funded scholarships for children of illegal immigrants. Mitt Romney did not allow tuition breaks for illegal immigrants while he was governor of Massachusetts. Romney’s claims are correct.
