Illinois' Bad Dream

Immigration: An insolvent state hemorrhaging jobs enacts its version of the federal DREAM Act, holding out another carrot to illegal aliens by setting up a college scholarship fund for their children.

Illinois' Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday illustrated why liberals tend to run governments and economies into the ground by signing into law Monday the Illinois DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, a seemingly innocuous and compassionate piece of legislation that sets up scholarships for anyone with a Social Security number or taxpayer identification number.

At a time when the Land of Lincoln is driving away business and jobs through increasingly burdensome taxation, liberal ideology trumps practicality by seeking to attract illegal immigrants to a state struggling to meet the needs of its citizens.

It seeks to educate the children of illegal aliens to compete for jobs American citizens can't find. An estimated 95,000 children of illegal aliens will benefit.

Supporters say that since the scholarships are privately funded, and Quinn was quick to make his own $1,000 donation, no state money is involved.

Yet state money will go to support a nine-member commission to establish and dispense these scholarships. State money goes to fund another interesting part of the law, the requirement for high school teachers and counselors to get special sensitivity training on the needs of illegal immigrants.

Our health care and education systems, as well as other public services, are already overburdened by the demands of serving a growing illegal alien population, yet states such as Illinois as well as the Obama administration constantly seek new ways to ring the dinner bell.

Illinois, like other states, already offers in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants at public universities, making it easier for the child of an illegal alien from Guadalajara to attend an Illinois university than, say, the child of a Marine in Des Moines just back from Afghanistan.

Republican State Rep. David Harris of Arlington Heights voted against the measure. "Why are we setting up a state structure to handle private money? It doesn't make sense to me," he said.

State Sen. Kyle McCarter, also a Republican, told the Bellville News Democrat: "The state of Illinois holds a big carrot out to illegal immigrants in the way of Medicaid and many other benefits, and this is just one more way we're encouraging illegal immigration."

Encouraging illegal immigration is a cause celebre among liberals who see it as a way to placate and fatten up before 2012 a key political base. Amid budgetary chaos, Illinois Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois recently announced first-ever Senate hearings on his favorite cause, the federal DREAM Act, saying his proposal would "make our country stronger."

Cutting spending and taxes, and creating jobs might also help, senator.

Opposed by a majority of the American people and twice defeated in Congress, the federal DREAM Act essentially grants amnesty to any illegal alien residing in the U.S. if he or she agrees to enlist in the U.S. military or to attend a U.S. college.

It's called a "path to citizenship" — a path that leads right past the U.S. Border Patrol.

President Obama recently sought to impose it via executive order in the form of a memo to John Morton, director of I.C.E. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The memo directs agents to use "prosecutorial discretion" when enforcing U.S. immigration laws.

The list of suggested exemptions includes factors similar to those in the DREAM Act.

This isn't the first time President Obama has sidestepped the law, the will of the American people and the intent of Congress to pursue his progressive agenda through administrative fiat.

Meanwhile, our ship of state continues to list to port as the president and his home state of Illinois encourage more illegal aliens to come aboard.