A state senator has changed his mind and has proposed a more tolerant bill for allowing in-state tuition for illegal immigrant children under certain circumstances. DP
A state Senate tuition bill sets aside stereotypes to assist a generation brought here illegally.
By Kristi Haunfelder, staff writer
The Roanoke Times: Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr., took his punitive immigrant tuition bill and wrung the meanness from it. He crafted legislation that won Senate support by treating with compassion immigrant children reared in Virginia. His conversion is laudable.
Hanger, an Augusta Republican, formerly subscribed to the school of thought that people who come to this country illegally shouldn't be rewarded with the benefits of a society supported by true Virginians. That kind of thinking led him to propose an immigrant tuition bill that would have required state colleges to charge out-of-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants, if the schools accepted them at all.
But Hanger had a change of heart. Perhaps it came with the realization that while his colleagues might support his bill, Gov. Tim Kaine would not.
Perhaps it was the reaffirmation of patriotism and recognition of the United States' great melting pot while presiding at naturalization ceremonies.
Or perhaps it was one face alone, belonging to the woman his son had chosen to make his bride, an immigrant from the Philippines who recently received her U.S. citizenship.
Perhaps a bit of each shaped Hanger's compassionate discovery that laws aren't created in a vacuum. Undocumented immigrants aren't simply an issue that can be generalized away with stereotypes. They are people.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
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