Undocumented

Maryland spends, on average, a total of nearly $200,000 each to educate its students from kindergarten through grade 12. Obviously, the state has a lot invested in every one of them — and just as obviously, it would be folly to throw any of it away. Yet that's precisely what the current rules regarding in-state college tuition rates for children of illegal immigrants seem designed to accomplish. While Maryland students who are U.S. citizens are automatically entitled to reduced rates at the state's public colleges and universities, those who aren't must pay out-of-state rates.

The owners of Kawasaki restaurants pleaded guilty in federal court in Baltimore yesterday, admitting they hired illegal immigrants as low-wage employees at their well-known Japanese eateries and funneled the profits from their labor into expensive real estate and luxury cars. The owners of the three Kawasaki restaurants in Mount Vernon and Fells Point, and at Johns Hopkins Hospital agreed to hand over to federal authorities more than $1.1 million in cash, property and vehicles, authorities said.

I read with dismay your front page stories "O'Malley signs tuition break" and "Seniors stunned by Md. scholarship cuts" (May 11). Of the scholarship cuts, Gov. Martin O'Malley's spokesperson was quoted as stating that "when we're dealing with the kind of recession we've been dealing with, every program can't be protected. " Yet the governor decided to support a tuition break for illegal immigrants? What kind of message does that send to the 350 law-abiding high school seniors who earned the merit scholarships?

Any plan that provides a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants will not be complete unless it includes a repayment plan for all the benefits provided to them by American taxpayers ("Migrant worker plan in works," Feb. 22). This includes food stamps, Medicaid and especially our public school systems. Maryland spends an average of $11,000 per pupil per school year, which is funded by taxpayers whether or not they have children. The only group in America that is exempt from contributing to school funding is illegal immigrants.

If you throw away documents with personal information on them, those papers could be stolen and eventually, so can your identity. That's why identity theft experts suggest that consumers shred papers with sensitive information, such as bank account numbers or Social Security numbers. But not everyone has a shredder. For those without one, the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Maryland and Delaware is holding a free “shred-it” event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 20th, at Towson University's No. 11 parking lot. That's above the University Union Parking Garage off Osler Drive.

SILVER SPRING -- Immigration agents arrested Julio Ramirez and 19 other undocumented workers recently as they looked for jobs at a parking lot here that has become an open-air hiring hall.He and 12 others were charged with being in the United States illegally, and the employers who had picked them up face fines.Two weeks later -- in the wake of the arrests of 13 other workers at the same place on the same charge -- Mr. Ramirez was out of jail on $1,000 bond and back on the lot at University Boulevard and Piney Branch Road, hoping a labor contractor would drive by and give him a day's work.

The new Maryland law allowing some undocumented aliens to pay in-state college tuition rates may reduce rather than increase, the number of undocumented aliens in Maryland colleges ("A chance for success," April 11). In order to gain support for the bill, a provision was added that for purposes of admission, undocumented aliens will be treated as nonresidents, even though they will pay in-state tuition rates. And that combination suggests that, in these tight economic times, undocumented aliens will be the least attractive students for college admissions officers.

In the photograph accompanying the article "History, drama at the close; College tuition breaks extended to illegals" (April 12), you show members of Casa de Maryland celebrating the passage of a bill allowing in-state college tuition fees for the children of illegal immigrants. Why, I wondered, isn't Casa de Maryland encouraging these young people to become citizens? Why aren't the people we elected interested in having them become citizens? Surely if any such interest existed, some stipulation could have been included in this bill requiring undocumented students to study for and become citizens as a condition of getting a tuition break.

I'm old enough to remember the 1986 amnesty for undocumented immigrants ("Citizen status is seen for millions," Jan. 28). I recall it was guaranteed never to happen again and the matter was settled. Now, nearly three decades later, we're back at square one. Millions apparently will be pardoned and soon wending their way to citizenship. I was surprised by Vice President Joe Biden's recent comment at this month's congressional swearing in ceremony. He stated that the Latinos "are the center of the future of this nation.

At a ceremony in the shadow of Camden Yards, 48 new Americans made it their first act as citizens to pledge allegiance to a flag flapping in a stiff afternoon breeze. The recently minted citizens, who just moments before had renounced and abjured all fidelity to any foreign princes and potentates, were reminded by Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown of their new responsibilities as Americans - to get out and vote and be active members of their community. "You worked hard for citizenship, and you deserve it," Brown told the group.