Proposition 300 punishes children, most of which are US citizens, denies access to education, eliminates the ability for non-English speakers to learn English, and impedes hard working students the ability to better their lives and increase their education by restricting their access to higher education.
About Proposition 300
Guest Opinion: Prop. 300 Will Hurt AZ More than Help Border Problem
10/26/06 | Tucson Citizen
Proposition 300, if passed, will prohibit people in Arizona who do not have legal residency or citizenship from receiving in-state tuition at Arizona's public universities and community colleges.
It will also prevent them from attending adult education classes funded by the Arizona Department of Education and receiving child-care subsidies from the Department of Economic Security.
Successfully addressing the immigration issue requires us to behave reasonably on both sides of the border.
On this side, we must squarely face the fact that there are at least 12 million people in the country illegally who are not going home.
No matter how one feels about immigration, it is clearly in the interest of the nation that those people have the means to lead productive lives.
Yes, they have broken the law, but U.S. employment practices and needs have invited and enabled them to do so for many years.
Immigration laws can be changed, however, as President Bush, Sens. John McCain and Edward Kennedy and others have suggested.
On the southern side of the border, Mexico must forge a means and an economy that allows its own people to thrive. Regarding Prop. 300, voters should ask: "How will it help Arizona?"
There are 160,000 children in Arizona's K-12 system who do not speak English. Many of their parents are the very same people who will be turned away, for all intents and purposes, from the opportunity to learn English.
They did not leave home to attend an adult education English class two nights a week, nor will they go back because the opportunity has been rescinded. How does that help Arizona?
Prop. 300 requires that every person attempting to enroll at one of Arizona's community colleges or universities demonstrate his or her citizenship or legal residency.
Perhaps that seems reasonable at first glance - but the administrative infrastructure required to enforce this provision could cost millions, easily outpacing the modest savings that Prop. 300 might make possible.
There are at least 100,000 children in Arizona's K-12 system who do not have legal residency in the United States. They are here because their parents brought them here.
Prop. 300 will effectively bar most of them from going on to college.
The social and opportunity costs of this aspect alone of Prop. 300 will be staggering. Proposition 300 ensures that Arizona will face higher costs for corrections and law enforcement.
Arizona, already struggling to provide an educated and skills-ready work force, will be further damaged as corporations continue to locate and relocate to better-prepared states.
Prop 300 is bad for business. How does that help Arizona?
We must be reasonable and clear-thinking as we decide what helps and what hurts efforts to both control immigration and to ensure that whatever we do serves the best interests of the state and the nation.
We have to be careful, as some of our immigrant ancestors might have put it, not to cut off our nose to spite our face.
About the authors
Katie Dusenberry is a former member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors and a local businesswoman; Dorothy Finley and Esther Tang are businesswomen; Connie Howard is an arts activist; Anita Lohr is a former Pima County schools superintendent; and George Miller is a former mayor of Tucson.