Immigrate This!

So let's talk Immigration. Huckabee has been hammered by Romney both in print, on TV, and on the stump as being soft on immigration. The primary evidence he presents is Huck's support for an amendment to an education bill in Arkansas. In cooperation with federal mandates to educate children of illegal immigrants in American schools, Huckabee proposed that those same children, having performed to exceptional standards and thus qualifying for a state college scholarship, should be able to receive those monies providing they maintained standards and became citizens of the United States.

In a recent debate, Romney expressed that those monies should only be available to citizens.

Why?

We have a significant immigration problem in this country to say the least. The primary issue is that some business owners employ illegals because it is a cheaper form of labor and our free market demands that these business owners operate in that manner unless otherwise required to act differently. All of the candidates have expressed grand immigration reform. The two major components are to stop immigrants from entering the country illegally and to figure out how to handle the millions of illegals already in our country.

So why would Huck's proposal be a bad one? Let's face it. No matter the conclusion on what to do with illegals in this country, it will cost a significant amount of money to fix the problem. It seems to me that for the small percentage of money that would be provided to the children of illegals who had exceptional educational history and desired to continue on in higher education as well as become citizens is a great use of our financial resources to actually help fix the issue even if it is scooping the cream off the top. These are the brightest of those here illegally. Why would we not want to make a way for them to be citizens, continue to go to school, get good jobs, and pay taxes?

Education is the great equalizer. I would expand Huck's program nationally. States should be encouraged to provide scholarships to their children who have excelled in the classroom (a la Georgia's Hope Scholarship). In partnership with the Federal Government that scholarship should be extended to illegals who meet those same standards AND begin the path to citizenship that would be completed by graduation from college. The economists among us could be more accurate, but I would expect that a lifetime of earnings and subsequent taxes paid back to the Federal Government and States would at a minimum pay for the initial scholarship monies provided.

How does an honest attempt to try and actually deal with an issue make Huck soft on immigration? He is for a fence, tougher immigration standards, et al like all the rest. And he actually has a good idea (that could ultimately pay for itself) for beginning to address part of the bigger issue as to what do we do with 3 millions illegals already here.

And to public knowledge, he has not on multiple occasions employed illegals to do yard work.