Do the people of Arizona have a say in the future of their own state, or is their destiny controlled completely by illegal aliens working with unelected bureaucrats and courts to override state and federal law? Evidently, Doug Ducey, the alleged Republican governor of the Grand Canyon State, believes that illegal aliens should receive privileges as Arizonans. Arizonans will continue to pay for the rope to hang themselves and they will like it, according to Ducey. Who needs Democrats when Republicans have already turned the state blue?

Last week, the Arizona Board of Regents voted unanimously to offer illegal aliens a discounted tuition rate for attendance at state universities. They set the rate at $16,500, which is $5,500 more than the standard rate in-state residents pay of $11,000, but well under the $30,000 American citizens from other states have to pay. One would expect that the governor would immediately work with the legislature to fix this travesty passed by an unelected body of bureaucrats, especially at a time when illegal immigration needs to be deterred more than ever. Shockingly, as if he’s trying to pour lighter fluid on the immigration fire at Arizona’s border, Governor Ducey praised the decision earlier this week, according to the Arizona Republic.

In an interview with KJZZ host Mark Brodie, posted online Tuesday, the Republican leader said he believes that “somebody that graduates from an Arizona high school is an Arizona kid.”

“I congratulate the regents for a first step around this,” Ducey said. “I do believe that if you are here and graduate from an Arizona high school, you should have the same opportunities that anyone else that graduates from Arizona high schools has.”

So, according to Ducey, are the children among the 66 Central Americans who just marched into the Tucson sector on Wednesday deemed “Arizona kids” as well? Well, they haven’t attended high school yet, but once they step foot here, the unelected courts make them go to primary school on the taxpayer dime. Does that make them an Arizonan so they can get a subsidized college education as well? Evidently so.

Making Arizonans pay for the rope to hang themselves

At a time when Arizona is getting slammed with the hospital costs, the drug-running, the crime, gangs, cartel activities, sexual assaults, and health concerns stemming from illegal immigration, the governor’s focus is on the wants of the illegal aliens and not on the citizens suffering from the influx of illegal immigration. At a time when unelected judges in the Ninth Circuit are forcing Arizona to grant one benefit after another, he joins in with another unelected body to grant them discounted tuition.

Just consider the following:

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, as of 2013, there were 630,700 illegal aliens residing in Arizona (including American-born babies of illegal immigrants, erroneously deemed citizens). That is a population of foreign invaders larger than the total population of any single colony at the time of our Founding. And that was six years ago, before the newer influx of Central Americans.

Over 10 percent of the state’s public school population is composed of illegal alien children, according to Pew Research. When coupled with the fiscal strain of health care and incarceration, the total cost of illegal immigration is $2.4 billion a year.

A recent study by John Lott of 32 years of prison data in Arizona concluded that illegal immigrants in Arizona are at least 142 percent more likely to be convicted of crime than other Arizonans. They are more likely to be convicted of serious violent crimes: at least 163 percent more likely for first-degree murder; 168 percent more likely for second-degree murder; and 189.6 percent more likely for manslaughter. Also, Lott’s data confirms what some of us see anecdotally every day but is ignored by the national media – that illegal aliens in Arizona are more likely to commit sexual offenses against minors, sexual assault, drunk driving, kidnapping, and armed robbery.

Justice Scalia observed in his partial dissent in Arizona v. U.S. (2012) that “Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem” and that “its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy.” He concluded, “If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State.”

Yet Ducey thinks that now, of all times, illegal immigration needs to be further incentivized?

Mr. Ducey must understand that in a republic, the power must flow from the people through their elected representatives. That is doubly true in the case of adding a new member to the society. That decision must be made by the citizens, not invaders. If Ducey wants to start a charity to raise money for other countries’ citizens, that is his prerogative, but the resources of the American people and their governments are not his to give away.

If Republicans in Arizona continue nominating such weak representatives to the governorships and the Senate, the state will turn blue. Not just because of the self-fulfilling prophecy of blue immigration policies leading to more blue voters, but because when voters are faced with the same policies from both parties, they will always choose the more authentic version.

Tuition breaks for illegal aliens violate federal and state law

Whenever the people get a say in the matter, they vote the opposite way. Federal law is very clear. Nothing can be done to induce, encourage, harbor, or shield illegal aliens from detection (8 U.S.C. §1324). Furthermore, federal law, which passed unanimously by the Senate and was signed by Bill Clinton in 1996, very clearly bars this arrangement of charging illegal aliens a slightly higher rate than state residents because it is still much lower than out of state residents:

“An alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.” (Section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), codified as 8 U.S.C. § 1623.)

Those were laws passed by Arizona’s representatives. Why are they not being followed? The gulf between the citizens and the elites is enormous. Swing voters and even lean-Democrat voters are to the right of Republican elites on this issue.

Additionally, voters of the state went to the ballot box in 2006, which in general, was a terrible year for Republicans, and voted 71-29 percent to bar in-state tuition for illegal aliens. For a Republican governor to applaud this clever end run around the people’s will of discounting tuition for illegal aliens, but stopping short of offering full in-state rates, is a repugnant elitist rejection of his own voters.

Ducey scoffed at the threat of a lawsuit:

“We live in a litigious society, and … it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if someone brought suit,” Ducey said. “I think the regents did their best to design this so … that they follow the law.

“I think we need to continue to follow the law, but we also want to make certain that Arizona high school graduates don’t have to leave our state to pursue opportunity.”

Leave no illegal alien behind!

No state in the country has been jackbooted by the courts more than Arizona. Yet Ducey never mentions a word about the Ninth Circuit’s assault on the state’s sovereignty, forcing it to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens and preventing it from stopping non-citizens from voting, for example. And he then dismisses the notion of the sovereign citizens finally using the courts against illegal aliens to sue for what is rightfully theirs.

Just whose country is this, anyway? (For more from the author of “Republican Governor Applauds Illegal Discounted State College Tuition for Illegal Aliens” please click HERE)

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