To the editor:

According to Rep. Lance Kinzer (Journal-World, Dec. 23), it is bad public policy to offer in-state fees to 170 illegal immigrant children with Kansas high school diplomas and on a path to citizenship.

Our entire lives we are told that education is the path to a better life, that people with post-high school education will earn more in their lifetime, contribute more in taxes and be less of a strain on public-assistance programs. These are children of parents lured to Kansas seeking better lives for themselves and their children doing the jobs “others won’t do.” It is bad public policy in my opinion not to offer these children a rung up on the path to the American Dream.

Illegal immigration is a problem because it drives down wages overall and allows workers to be exploited for fear of being deported. A bill in the Kansas Legislature last session would have increased employers’ responsibility to better regulate their employees through E-Verify, a national program to better identify illegal immigrants. Not surprisingly, business and agriculture, with the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, worked to defeat this measure. It is bad public policy in my opinion to prosecute the worker and not the exploiter who profits from their employ.

Alan “Ace” Hickey,
Lawrence