The Pinocchio Factor: Huckabee and the Arkansas DREAMERS

Huckabee is denying that he endorsed scholarships for DREAMERS as governor of Arkansas. He had been looking like a more humane human being than most of his rivals, but unfortunately, he has decided to join the pack. His nose is growing by the minute.

Even so, at the moment, there is no way he can beat Giuliani or Romney, whose noses are so long they could be used as bridges from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

The GOP in general must think that the American voter is either blind or totally stupid. This type of attitude will bring drastic consequences at the end of the campaign season.

-----

A Tuition Deal For Immigrants?
Tuesday, December 18, 2007; A04
Washington Post

Now that he has become a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, Mike Huckabee is feeling the heat from other Republican candidates, who are scrutinizing his record as governor of Arkansas for evidence of "liberal" or "Democratic" inclinations. One leading rival, Fred D. Thompson, has accused Huckabee of having "championed" an effort to permit illegal immigrants to benefit from in-state tuition rates at state universities. Huckabee has denied the charge, saying that his support was limited to a much more restrictive scholarship program.

Huckabee's denials fly in the face of the record.

THE FACTS
During his annual State of the State address to the Arkansas legislature in January 2005, Huckabee proposed making "any student graduating from a high school in Arkansas" eligible for state financial aid. He said it was "terribly unjust" to deny such aid solely on the basis of a student's immigration status, "a status that he had no decision in and no control over."

"Huckabee plan would aid illegal aliens," the state's leading newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, reported the following day.

The wording of the governor's proposal was a little vague. A Democratic state legislator, Joyce Elliott, had already proposed legislation granting in-state tuition status to undocumented immigrants. During talks with the governor's staff, Elliott agreed to include a scholarship provision in her bill, which became known as House Bill 1525. She says both parts of the bill were fully supported by Huckabee. "I never had the slightest indication that he wanted any changes," Elliott, who no longer serves in the legislature, said. "He clearly supported the entire bill, and I never heard anything different from them."

Huckabee defended the bill in conversations with reporters and expressed disappointment when the measure failed to pass the Arkansas Senate by two votes. "I don't understand the opposition to it, I just honestly don't," he said, according to an April 14, 2005, Associated Press report. "It hurts me on a personal as well as a policy level to think that we are still debating issues that I kind of hoped we had put aside in the 1960s."

Asked about the measure during the Nov. 28 CNN-YouTube debate, Huckabee said his proposal applied to students who had been in Arkansas schools from the time they were "5 or 6 years old" and were "A-plus" students, "drug and alcohol free," and in the process of "applying for citizenship." He implied that his support was limited to these students, a point reiterated by his spokeswoman Kirsten Fedewa.

"He did not support in-state tuition," Fedewa said in an e-mail. "He supported scholarships for students who qualified."

THE PINOCCHIO TEST
The distinction that Huckabee is attempting to draw is an artificial one. His original State of the State address talked about making all Arkansas high school graduates eligible for state financial aid, not just A-plus students applying for citizenship. Huckabee was particularly interested in the scholarship part of the bill. But it is untrue to claim that he did not support in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Three Pinocchios.

ONE PINOCCHIO: Some shading of the facts.
TWO PINOCCHIOS: Significant omissions or exaggerations.
THREE PINOCCHIOS: Significant factual errors.
FOUR PINOCCHIOS: Real whoppers.
THE GEPPETTO CHECK MARK: Statements and claims contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

article and small pinocchios: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/17/AR2007121702098.html

photo of large pinocchio: http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/3517105/2/istockphoto_3517105_pinocchio_superliar.jpg

DREAMERS are Eligible for the Bay Area Gardener's Foundation Scholarship

Photo by Richard Gonzalez, NPR. Catalino Tapia, founder of the Bay Area Gardener's Foundation.


What would happen if there were many more Catalino Tapias? What could be possible with some organization and some of Tapia's vision of the future? How many scholarships could be established? Not just by Latinos but friends and neighbors of Latinos.

Not all non-Latinos are like the people of Prince William County in Virginia. Not everyone is afraid that the U.S. will be ruined by so many Mexicans everywhere. Not everyone has so much hate inside that the well-being of children is not important. If only those who are like Catalino Tapia wouldn't stay so silent.




_____

Morning Edition, November 19, 2007 ·
National Public Radio

Catalino Tapia crossed the border from Mexico into the United States 40 years ago with a sixth-grade education and only $6 in his pocket. He became a legal resident and raised a family by working in a donut shop, a machine shop and then plant nurseries, before starting his own gardening business.

But Tapia, 63, always had his eyes on the future, especially for his children's education. Even before his first child was born, he says he was saving money for them to go to school.

Tapia's youngest son attended UCLA and then went onto to the University of California - Berkeley Law School. He's now a lawyer in Los Angeles.

But Tapia wanted to do something to help the less-fortunate children in his community in Redwood City, south of San Francisco. His son suggested Tapia start a foundation that would give scholarships to students.

It took a year and a half to prepare the legal documents, but then the Bay Area Gardeners Foundation was born.

Tapia sent letters to his clients asking for donations. To his surprise, he raised $10,000 in two weeks. And the donations kept coming in, with $75,000 raised so far.

But the foundation also needed startup money, so Tapia approached the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Program Officer Manuel Santamaria says his foundation was impressed with Tapia's approach.

"We live in a region where everybody is so busy, everybody's got two jobs, child care, school," Santamaria says. "You're so stressed that to actually pause and think about, hey, how do I fit within the neighborhood that I'm working in and build community."

So with seed money from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and donations from his clients, the Bay Area Gardeners Foundation began giving scholarships in 2006, starting with five students. The scholarships themselves are like seed money, $1,500 each.

"But for these kind of kids," Tapia says, "it means the whole world, because it pays for the books, transportation — and they don't have to worry about that extra work that they have to do for those things. To me, that's a blessing because you've got to see the faces of these kids when they receive the money."

The Gardeners Foundation also does not ask if a student is documented. Four out of its nine scholarship recipients are undocumented. The foundation nearly doubled the number of scholarships this year.

The board, made up of other immigrant gardeners and community members, discussed this strategy at a recent meeting. Tammie Pereira, an insurance agent and board member, says everyone was in agreement that "no matter what, they're going to have their education. So even though they don't have their papers and even though they might not be able to get a job with their Social Security number, no one will be able to take away their education."

Noel Chavez, a student at Canada College, was one of the foundation's first recipients.

Chavez was struggling in his third semester at the Redwood City community college trying to secure transportation to and from college.

"When I heard about the Bay Area Gardeners Foundation was when I needed it the most," Chavez says. "I was more amazed of who was giving it and their purpose than even thinking about if I was going to get it. Isn't that amazing that someone who's working and struggling out there, someone who has no education and having to give something back to their community. It's amazing."

Chavez, who is in the process of becoming a permanent resident, talks to high school students in the Bay area about their college options.

Margie Carrington, the financial aid director at Canada College, says she doesn't see a lot of outside scholarships rolling in to support students.

The Gardeners Foundation is "an option that helps students that don't really have access to other resources to pay for school," she says. "... More people in our community [should] take that same kind of initiative and give back."

Tapia, the man who started it all, knows that not everyone believes undocumented students deserve an education, but he has plenty of supporters. After a recent news article about his efforts, the foundation was flooded with e-mails, donations and inquiries from students.

Meanwhile Tapia says he is hoping to pursue his own dreams.

"When I retire, I'm going to go to school and get a high school diploma," he says. But that's not all. "I'm also taking guitar lessons. And I told my wife, when I learn how to play the guitar, I'm going to sing you a serenata."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16365269
Thanks to Sylvia Morin for telling dreamacttexas about this article.

Arizona State University Ahead of the Rest of U.S. - Publically Supports Undocumented Students

ASU helps migrants find tuition
Yvonne Wingett and Richard Ruelas
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 8, 2007 12:00 AM

As many as 200 undocumented immigrants who graduated from Arizona high schools have received private scholarship money through Arizona State University to help pay for out-of-state tuition this semester.

University President Michael Crow said at a Friday luncheon that aid has gone to 150 to 200 students, and based on his estimate, the total amount disbursed is about $1.8 million.

The program uses private money already in the university's coffers to help bridge the gap for Arizona high-school graduates ineligible for in-state tuition because of Proposition 300, a new voter-approved law that requires undocumented residents to pay the higher out-of-state tab, Crow said.
These are students showing up with Arizona high-school diplomas," Crow said. "Some of these students don't have immigration status. We say, 'OK, you went to an Arizona high school,' so . . . we work it out in the financial-aid calculator."

The gap between in-state and out-of-state tuition for full-time students at ASU's Tempe campus is about $12,000.

James Rund, vice president of university undergraduate initiatives, said the undocumented students from Arizona will not take priority over out-of-state students with documentation. He said private aid is given on the basis of financial need. He said most of the students who receive the private aid are full-time students.

Proposition 300 was one of four immigration-related measures approved at the polls last year.

The measure requires undocumented immigrants to pay the out-of-state tuition rate at the state's public universities and colleges.Proposition 300 also prohibits students from receiving any type of financial assistance that is funded with state money, and it requires schools to determine and report twice a year to the state Legislature how many undocumented immigrants are attending their schools.

Nearly 5,000 people in Arizona have been denied in-state college tuition, financial aid and adult-education classes this year under Proposition 300, according to a recent Joint Legislative Budget Committee report.

According to the report, 1,500 students from ASU and the University of Arizona were denied financial aid or in-state financial status because they couldn't prove legal status. An additional 1,790 community-college students were also affected.

Crow mentioned ASU's private-scholarship program during a speech at a leadership-awards luncheon put on by the non-profit Valle del Sol, Inc., attended by 1,700 people in downtown Phoenix.

His statement was met with applause from the mostly Latino crowd. In an interview after his short speech, which emphasized access to ASU, Crow said that helping undocumented students does not circumvent Proposition 300's intent.

"The voters have spoken," he said. "They don't want their money being used for these students."

He said he has targeted some donors to help with this financial-aid program but said he has not yet received significant contributions. He declined to say whom he has approached.

UA and Northern Arizona University don't have formal initiatives to provide money for undocumented students; however, any student is eligible to apply for private financial aid.

At UA, six students are getting some assistance from privately funded aid, although university officials didn't know if it was enough to make up the gap.

State Treasurer Dean Martin, a Republican and former state senator who championed Proposition 300, said Crow's program proves the law is working. He was aware of other private efforts to raise money for undocumented students, he said, but not Crow's.

"Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for them, and this is exactly what we were looking for," Martin said. "I don't have a problem with them going after private money, just don't use taxpayer money. That's all I care about."

A student who gave her name only as Evelyn, an undocumented daughter of Mexican immigrants, had not heard about the scholarship program but said she could use the money. The 21-year-old was accepted at ASU for the fall.

But when she signed up for a history class, the tuition was $2,156, unaffordable on her salary as an assistant to a real-estate agent.

"I freaked out and said, 'Maybe I'll wait and just think about this,' " she said.

"I looked for private scholarships but couldn't find any for me. If I could get this ASU scholarship, even to pay for half, it would help a lot."


http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0908studentmoney0908.html

previously posted on Immigration Prof Blog