Christopher Anderson/The Gazette
(From left) Raymond Hawkins, Brad Botwin of Help Save Maryland, Sam Epps of the Services Employees International Union Local 1199, McArthur Bishop of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Rev. Sinclair Grey and former Prince George's County State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey participate in a panel discussion Tuesday on illegal immigration. The discussion was sponsored by the Prince George's County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Suitland.
Over the course of the last year, McArthur Bishop said he saw the debate get more and more vitriolic over illegal immigration and whether illegal immigrants should have access to in-state college tuition.
“It seemed to be that the points being made are made just to further instigate, instead of to find a solution,” said Bishop, president of the Prince George’s County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil-rights organization founded by Martin Luther King Jr.
On Tuesday night at Ascension Baptist Church in Suitland, the SCLC hosted a dialogue among activists to sort out “this issue with some degree of harmony,” Bishop said of the event, held six months after the Maryland General Assembly passed a bill allowing illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition and three months after opponents managed to put it to a ballot referendum.
Panelists held a contentious, yet civil discussion, although Bishop had to reel in a raucous audience of around 30 people a number of times.
Brad Botwin, director of Help Save Maryland, a Rockville-based anti-illegal-immigration organization, highlighted what he said was the financial cost of illegal immigrants on state governmental services and suggested the cost to taxpayers would increase if they were allowed to make use of subsidized college education.
“[Why should we fund their college education] when upon graduating, they still cannot work legally in the U.S., they cannot vote, and they cannot get a driver’s license,” Botwin said.
Botwin added that his group has no problem with undocumented students paying out-of-state tuition to attend Maryland colleges and universities.
Sam Epps, an organizer for the Services Employees International Union Local 1199, which includes Maryland, said that initiatives like the in-state tuition bill are important steps to creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people who came to the U.S. as children, through no fault of their own, and toward immigration reform as a whole.
“The fact is that the immigration system in this country is broken,” Epps said.
Raymond Hawkins, a member of People for Change of Prince George’s County, a political watchdog group, argued that allowing illegal immigrants to attend college at in-state rates would reduce black students’ access to higher education.
“There’s a clear danger to the African-American community that the multitude of illegal aliens would start taking up seats,” Hawkins said. “It would start at the community college level [where there is open enrollment], but after two years they would be eligible to compete for spots [against black students] at four-year universities.”
Despite having to calm the audience at times, Bishop said he thought the debate was a success. Despite the volatile issue at hand, he said that he thought panel members did a good job of sticking to the issues and not personalizing their arguments at their opponents.
Glenn F. Ivey, former Prince George’s County state’s attorney, was on hand to explain the legal ramifications of the state’s in-state tuition bill, but also gave his opinion on illegal immigration policy in general.
He pointed out that a study was released earlier this year suggesting that the sagging economy has already led to a decline in illegal immigration, and that mass deportation would be expensive and messy.
But William Buchanan, a resident from Washington, D.C., argued that the government should reduce incentives to enter the country by cutting off jobs and services, including in-state tuition.
“This debate always seems to come down to only two options: let them all stay, or send them all back,” Buchanan said. “The fact is there is a third way: [cut off services and jobs to] make life miserable for them.”
ewagner@gazette.net
Copyright © 2012 Post-Newsweek Media, Inc./Gazette.Net