Children of undocumented immigrants to pay lower tuition

CHICAGO -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Sunday signed into law a bill that allows children of undocumented immigrants to attend state universities and community colleges at the much cheaper in-state tuition rate.

"Every Illinois high school student should have the same opportunity to go to college regardless of their immigration status," Blagojevich said to loud applause from the mostly Hispanic crowd at the signing ceremony.

At the same event, Blagojevich also told reporters that he would veto any gambling legislation that legalizes video poker in bars and restaurants, calling it the "crack cocaine of gambling."

"I think, again, it's a dangerous, onerous form of gaming that would hurt families and undermine society," he said. "It's not a way in my judgment to dig ourselves out of this (state) budget crisis."

But talk of gambling was hardly the focus of Blagojevich's visit Sunday to Chicago's West Side.

Hundreds of people -- some waving flags and others carrying signs -- greeted the governor, who came to the Benito Juarez Community Academy to sign a bill passed overwhelmingly by the Illinois Senate.

It allows children of undocumented aliens to qualify for the lower in-state tuition rates if they graduated from an Illinois high school after attending for at least three years.

Supporters say the legislation removes a major obstacle to students who, because of their immigration status, have found themselves priced out of college.

"I have cousins who were completely devastated in their senior year because they couldn't afford to go to college," said Diana Mora, a 17-year-old Chicago high school student.

Mora said the bill means she will have to pay about $14,000 when she attends the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana next fall instead of the $24,000 she said she would have been forced to pay without the new law.

Blagojevich, the son of immigrants himself, said by signing the bill he is "helping to eliminate the artificial barriers" that have been placed in the way of children of undocumented immigrants.

"They do not receive any special rights, just equal rights," he said. "And they deserve nothing less."

The bill has been criticized. At the time it was passed by the Senate, Sen. Chris Lauzen, R-Aurora, argued that the measure could take seats in colleges from citizens and that it would encourage more illegal aliens to come here.

Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum, a conservative organization, told the (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald that such legislation "is an outrage."

"We're just loading the cost of illegal aliens onto the taxpayers," she said.

In his speech, Blagojevich said that the state board of education has estimated that the bill will cost $1 million a year at the most.

"This is a small price to pay to remove an obstacle in the way of giving every student, no matter where he or she may come from, a chance to go to college," he said.

Ray Bahamon, a Benito Juarez teacher, agreed.

"They (students) will be able to be the best they can be," he said. "We will all be the first to profit from that."