Study says DREAM Act impact would be pricey

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Study says DREAM Act impact would be pricey
PHOENIX -- The controversial "DREAM Act" -- which would provide a path of legal residency to people brought into the United States illegally as children -- would carry a hefty price tag, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.
The center estimates that more than a million illegal immigrants would enroll in public education institutions if the "DREAM Act" is passed by Congress.
Steven Camarota, the center's director of research, said, "The costs turn out to be quite high. For one year of schooling, given the breakdown across states, it would be about $6 billion. Even for a state like Arizona, you're looking at somewhere around $350 million."
The DREAM Act would offer permanent legal status to illegal immigrants up to age 35 who arrives in the United States before age 16, provided they complete two years of college. They would receive in-state tuition.
|Camarota said the $6 billion "is what state and local taxpayers would have to absorb because the DREAM Act is explicity designed to giving state tuition to those receiving legal status."
Some U.S. citizens would be crowded out of college, Camarota said.
"If you add all these new people who are the amnestied illegal immigrants, there's going to be some American citizens who are going to get crowded out. It's just that simple, and advocates of the DREAM Act have spent no time thinking about that...
"You cannot take a system that's already busting at the seams and add a million people -- in a state like Arizona, we estimate about 44,000 it would add to the system -- and not have an adverse impact on American citizens and legal immigrants who want to attend those same institutions."
Camarota said, on average, each illegal immigrant would receive a tuition subsidy from taxpayers of nearly $6,000 a year and that does not include other forms of financial assistance.
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