Last month, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student at the University of Georgia (UGA), was fatally beaten by an illegal immigrant from Venezuela.
As expected, the left quickly came to defend the status of what they refer to as “undocumented migrants”—though “illegal” is the accurate term. Janet Frick, a professor at UGA, took to X to express her views: “Laken Riley isn’t dead because she ran into an undocumented immigrant; she’s dead because she ran into a violent man.”
X user Travis (@Travis_in_Flint), who shared a screenshot of Frick’s post, reacted by criticizing the professor’s immediate defense of illegal immigrants. “The first thing this woke professor does is make sure she defends illegal immigrants after one of her students is gone,” he wrote.
The New York Times reported that the arrest of a 26-year-old Venezuelaian turned Athens and Clarke County into the latest battleground over American immigration policy. Democratic mayor Kelly Girtz emphasized the need to focus on mourning Riley rather than attribute blame to a group, not-so-subtly critiquing conservative voices pointing to Joe Biden’s open border policies. “This murder was a violent, heinous act,” Girtz stated, “and it rests squarely on the shoulders of the perpetrator.”
Girtz has a point, but it’s not a sharp one: You can’t ignore that Riley would still be alive if Biden had not left the door open to individuals packing crime in their rucksacks. But Riley’s murder is just the latest knot tightening the gilded ribbon between illegals and higher education.
For years, politicians and education leaders have used the higher education system to embolden illegal immigration.
In May 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams designated dormitories on three SUNY campuses as housing sites for migrants. This move, reported by Spectrum News NY 1, involved 1,500 beds at the University at Buffalo, Stony Brook University, and the University at Albany.
That same month, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (NY-21), who gained national recognition earlier in the year for condemning Claudine Gay and two other college presidents for their anti-Semitic views, strongly criticized the plan to use taxpayer-funded SUNY campuses and facilities, including in her district, to house unvetted illegal immigrants arriving in New York City.
She condemned the proposal as “disgusting and shameful,” asserting that Upstate New York is not a sanctuary city, while addressing Joe Biden’s “catastrophic border crisis.” She further argued that housing illegals would only incentivize more to jump the line and head for the border.
To no surprise, Stefanik’s concerns came to fruition when SUNY Buffalo had to evict 44 migrants. These migrants were staying on campus as part of an agreement between the university and the local community group, Jericho Road Community Health Center. The eviction came in response to parental concerns about student safety following separate sex assault charges against migrants who were bused north from New York City.
According to reports, the school’s interim president, Bonita Durand, explained that the decision to discontinue housing the migrants was made to ensure the best learning environment for returning students—as though this shouldn’t have been the priority all along. Despite concerns over the sexual assault cases, however, Jericho Road Community Health Center sought to extend the migrants’ stay on campus. The majority of the migrants are from Africa—including Congo and Nigeria—as well as from Colombia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Iraq.
New York’s leftist policymakers, who seemingly don’t care about their own citizens—including college students in the state—are not outliers. Even states often perceived as conservative, such as Texas, are home to policymakers who have long opted to prioritize illegals over their own citizens.
In 2001, Governor Rick Perry signed Texas House Bill (H.B.) 1403, commonly known as the Texas DREAM Act, into law with bipartisan support from the Seventy-seventh Texas Legislature. This legislation, authored by Representative Rick Noriega (D–Houston) and sponsored by Leticia Van de Putte (D–San Antonio), provided eligible undocumented students, including DACA recipients, access to in-state tuition at Texas public colleges and universities. To qualify, students must meet specific criteria such as graduating from a Texas high school, residing in Texas for at least three years, registering for higher education, and submitting an affidavit declaring intent to apply for permanent residency.
At the time, Republican supporters of the bill saw it as an opportunity to promote economic development and investment in the state’s workforce.
In recent years, legislators have aimed to repeal this bill as millions of immigrants have illegally crossed the Texas border.
In 2015, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick campaigned against the law. Groups such as Texans for Immigration Reduction and Enforcement and Tea Party adherents have also pushed for a repeal. But opposition to the repeal, being led mostly by Democratic legislators, especially those affiliated with the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, has been strong.
Moderates would argue that the bill was a good idea at the time, as it was a better response than the federal government’s, which had been sitting on its hands since the 1980s. Its lack of enforcement measures at the border led to a growth in undocumented students who grew up in Texas.
Regardless of the political narrative, however, for more than two decades, this bill led to a scenario where undocumented students were charged in-state tuition rates, while U.S. citizens from out-of-state were charged higher out-of-state tuition rates. This discrepancy was the basis of a legal challenge in 2022 when a federal judge ruled that the University of North Texas (UNT) cannot charge out-of-state U.S. students higher tuition than undocumented students.
UNT fought back, however, filing an appeal, arguing that it could charge legal, out-of-state students the out-of-state tuition rates while giving illegal migrants the in-state rate—seemingly UNT is comfortable ripping off American citizens while cutting others a break.
Yet, discrepancies are not just codified into law, pushed by crazed politicians, or emboldened by universities. Indeed, illegal migrants pursuing higher education have a network of supporters to help them gain access to college with lower tuition than out-of-state Americans.
One such entity is College Board, a not-for-profit, “diverse team of talented professionals dedicated to making college dreams come true”—fancy. They help advise undocumented students—among other types of students, to be fair—saying on its advising page that “Undocumented students may incorrectly assume that they cannot legally attend college in the United States. However, there is no federal or state law that prohibits the admission of undocumented immigrants to U.S. colleges, public or private.”
It points illegal students to resources such as SAT fee waiver codes, legal defense, and immigration centers, as well as to states that provide state-sponsored grants, state aid, and private scholarships.
What would our country be like if the same olive branch extended to illegal immigrants was extended to our actual citizens?
In such a country, Laken Riley would still be with us, and American citizens would have greater access to higher education than those who are here illegally.
Moreover, the fact that traditionally conservative states like Texas have policies that favor illegal migrants over the citizens of other states shows that nowhere has been untouched by this insanity, and the assistance and support provided to illegal migrants in pursuing higher education through entities like the College Board shows that the left truly does not care about fairness or equity. If they cared about either, illegal immigrants wouldn’t be guided toward opportunities and resources, while American citizens face barriers to accessing the same benefits.
In this world of misplaced priorities and skewed values, we must ask ourselves: What kind of country do we want to be? Shouldn’t our first duty be to the citizens who rightfully belong here? Shouldn’t we educate our citizens first?
Photo by TheaDesign — Adobe Stock — Asset ID#: 138066276 & Edited by Jared Gould
It’s even worse in Massachusetts — because of geography, the Boston suburbs extend north/south as opposed to east/west, and it’s only 40 miles to New Hampshire. Hence a good chunk of the people who work in Boston actually life in New Hampshre but pay Massachusetts income taxes. (NH has no income tax.)
If they want to send their child to UMass, they pay the out of state rate — $27,365.00 versus the $16,397.00 in-state rate. But illegal aliens (whose parents work for cash and hence never pay state income tax, attend at the cheaper $16,397.00 rate. Except as neither they nor their parents have any declared income or assets, they actually attend for free when university scholarships are included.
I think you will find the same thing is true in other states — income not declared to the IRS doesn’t show up on the FAFSA.
But the bigger problem is the graduate and professional schools, where there are very few native-born Americans. Go into any of the Boston teaching hospitals — Tufts, Mass General, Mass Eye & Ear — and it’s like 5%-10% native born. Most of them are very good people who will make very good MDs — and they’re not going home, that MD license is going to get them a green card and everyone knows that. But where are all the Americans who used to want to go into medicine?
The same thing is true in the STEM graduate schools — engineering, computer science and biotech — the overwhelming majority of the students weren’t born here. Nothing against them personally, but where are all the Americans?!? Where are the young Bill Gates and Thomas Edisons?
And now there are increasingly few native-born Americans in the humanities and the vast wasteland known as the Education & Psychology fields. Where have they all gone?
Are they not being accepted into graduate school? Are they not being funded? Has the pathological hatred of all things White & male driven them out?
Or has our K-12 devolved to the point where American children literally don’t have the academic background to be in graduate school? Sputnik was a wakeup call for an earlier generation and maybe this needs to be one for ours because, as Neetu Arnold points out, a lot of people from other countries do not share our values.
Fifty years ago, there were White male medical students — where have they all gone???
Our children are our future and I don’t think it is xenophobic to ask why it is that other people’s children are now at the top levels of our institutions of higher learning? Is it because of the Common Corpse Curriculum? Is it because our youth are all addicted to Nintendo? Or is it something more sinister?
I think we need to find out…
Our North American universities are boycotting white males as students, professors, and administrators. This is quite explicit in adverts for posts. The male half of the majority of citizens are deemed evil and must be pre-cancelled. The result is that whites and males are highly underrepresented in our universities. On the other hand, illegal aliens, to use the official term, of whatever gender preference, are welcomed with open arms, funded, and coddled. How long will the majority be content to remain silent and passive?
What is the rate of violent crime e.g. homicide among illegal immigrants, compared to the general legal population?
Your question is a red herring. It cannot and will not ever be answered because of far left woke government officials who want open borders. There is no data to analyze thanks to them. (Nooo. There couldn’t possibly be an agenda there.)
Ask how many illegal aliens committed felonies in Washington state between Jan 2021 and December 2023. Nobody can tell you because in Washington state they do not record whether the convicted felon is a citizen, a legal resident, an illegal alien or from Mars.
Such policies give a new meaning to the phrase “don’t ask, don’t tell”. How convenient…