Monday, May 17, 2010

The New Darling of Illegal Immigration Jessica Coloti

Below is a copy of a post I did over the weekend regarding the college student in Georgia who has become a darling of the immigration debate.  A title she in no way deserves.  I have done additional digging on this story and have found a few things:

1. She is paying in-state tuition. 
2. Kennesaw State University does limit the amount of students it accepts every year.  Which means that a LEGAL citizen was denied a place while she was given one. 
3. She would like to not only finish her undergraduate education, she would like to go to law school. 
4. The university will not answer the question if she received the hope scholarship.  The hope scholarship is the Georgia version of the Pell Grant.  Reporters in Georgia believe that since the university is refusing to answer the question. 
5. The university violated federal law by giving her in-state tuition rates. 
6. Ms. Coloti would have to had committed fraud when she filled out her admission forms for college.  State statue requires that all students give either a social security number or proof of legal status. 

I also have been checking out some of the local blogs in the Atlanta area.  The majority feel as I do, that she broke the law and as such will have to pay the price; return to Mexico and be barred from the US for 10 years (I actually believe it to be five, but I kept reading the number was 10). 

She has been allowed to stay to finish her under-graduate degree.  Will immigration authorities allow her to go to law school, even though with the list of crimes she has WILLFULLY committed how could she ever get a state bar to accept her?  Again I have sympathy for this girl, I honestly do.  But she has obviously has a reckless disregard for the laws of the United States, she must be deported. 

I have been a big consumer of news for many years now. One could easily say that I am a "junkie" when it comes to the news. I honestly can say that I didn't see too much of a left wing bias in the main stream media for a long time. I have since figured out that it does exist. I came upon an article on CNN.com in regards to illegal immigration.



Jessica Coloti came to this country when she was 11, obviously at that age she had no say in the matter. She is now 21 and a full time college student at Kennesaw State University outside of Atlanta, and living in the U.S. illegally. Several months back she was pulled over by the police for a minor traffic infraction. She doesn't have a drivers license. I don't know for sure about the laws in Georgia, but in Virginia you must prove legal status in order to receive one, that may be the case in Georgia as well. The only ID she had was an expired Mexican passport. Georgia has a law that is similar to that of what was just signed in Arizona, that they can turn over people who don't have legal status to immigration authorities. Jessica was placed in a detention center in Alabama for several months. She has since been released and is being allowed to finish her education. Getting her education is what she considers the American dream. Since her release, she was rearrested on charges from the original stop, saying that she gave a false address to the police when she was arrested the first time, which is a felony. Her lawyers deny that charge; saying that the registration is an old address.


This article is clearly written in a way to raise sympathy for Ms. Coloti. While I do feel sorry for her, there is one thing that you cannot get around, her family put her in this position. It basically just glosses over the fact that she is driving a car illegally. I have always had to give my licence information in order to obtain insurance for my car. Without that, she is not only driving the car illegally, she is also doing so without insurance. Which more than likely is another illegal activity. While it is not illegal in my state to drive without insurance, in most states it is.

My question is what is she planning on doing with that education? Without any ID how would she find a job in her field of study? Was the plan to fraudulently purchase documents that would allow her to work in this country? I have read over the years that there is a great deal of that going on in this country. There is a market for social security numbers that were originally given to children who died young and never worked. This just begs the question of why the government is not doing anything about it, could it be that they don't want to get rid of this slush fund? Because it would seem logical that the names don't match and it would be easy enough to figure that out in this age of computers.

While it is true that we should not put the sins of the parents onto the child the reality remains is that they knew the risk when they brought her here. The article also does not go into how they came into the country nor how they decided on settling in Georgia. Since she has a Mexican passport they could have easily gotten a visitor visa and just never returned.

The article also doesn't discuss how she is paying for college. Kennesaw is a state university, so they have two different rates. Is she paying in-state tuition? There is a difference of almost $6,000 between the two. If her family is in the country without documentation it isn't a stretch to assume that they have limited means to income. Which then begs the question of who is paying this tuition? Did she get a Pell Grant? Is she on some sort of scholarship? This is something that does happen in Universities in this country.

People want to characterize illegal immigration as a victimless crime. But is it really? What would happen had she been in accident while driving? Without insurance who would pay for the damage to the other person's car? Illegal immigrants could easily hit someone who has a limited income and an older car that doesn't have collision insurance on it. The person who is hit then has to pay the damage themselves. Even if they do have collision insurance, their rates increase through no fault of there own. At some point virtually everyone has some sort of accident while driving, the odds are against that not happening.


The media doesn't want to discuss the victims of illegal immigration. Legal citizens of this country are paying for illegal immigration in a myriad of ways. Our tax dollars are increased to educate these children in public schools, the emergency rooms are used for medical care; and in some cases those bills are never paid. Many states give in-state tuition to illegals, scholarships are also given. What about the legal citizen that then doesn't get the scholarships.


What is most dumbfounding to me is the statements that are coming from her attorney's and others:


"It is obvious from all the documents that I've seen that she has done nothing wrong and has given her proper address to Cobb County and immigration officials," said Chris Taylor, Colotl's criminal attorney. "There has been no crime committed."

No crime committed? She was driving without a license, that is a crime.


"If Jessica could obtain a license, she would have."



The people you need to talk to about that are the ones that brought her into this country. This is not the fault of the Sheriff's office. They have a job to do.


"Sheriff Warren has embarked on a witch hunt, wasting money and county resources for political gain,"

If we are to be a nation of laws, then as horrible and sad as it is for this young woman, she needs to be deported. We cannot base our laws on emotion. We either follow our laws or we don't. That should be the question that the lame stream media is asking. Are we going to follow the law, or are we going to be a nation that allows people to disregard our laws, then play on our emotions to get what they feel they deserve? I say lets follow the law.

7 comments:

Opus #6 said...

The left wants no rules. Especially when they can gain new voters.

Unknown said...

In CA, they offer instate tuition to illegals if they graduated from a CA high school. Remember, CA is the state that is almost bankrupt.

She did break many laws, the first of being here illegally. Since they know she and her parents are here illegally, then they all should be deported.

Yep, it sucks, but her parents made the decision to bring her here without thinking of the consequences of their actions.

Just a conservative girl said...

Keri:
It is illegal to offer in-state tuiton - it is against federal law. I did not know that until today, but it is very clearly a violation of the law.

It is not her fault that her parents brought her here, that she is not responsible for, but everything she has done to cover it up has been her own responsibility. I agree her parents have to go as well.

Soloman said...

What you describe here is all too common in the Southwest, like in CA, AZ, and I'm sure NM and TX too.

I'm sure this is happening all across the nation. Like you said, it's a tough thing to put the sins of the parents onto the child, but unfortunately there are too many getting a free ride as they break laws and do not contribute properly to the system they wish to take advantage of.

This issue has got to be resolved, but sadly nobody right now has the guts to stand up and deal with it without fearing for their political future. This one will take a real leader.

Anonymous said...

I've only got one thing to say, check the stats for yourself:
http://immigrationcounters.com/

Anonymous said...

I agree they all should be deported along with all the other undocumented and illegals feeding off the USA. If you want to live here legally fill out the paperwork and wait your turn. It's a tough pill to swallow, but if we keep turning our backs on the law breakers we might just as well throw away the law books and release all the inmates from the prisons. I'm sure we could find something to sympathize with.

Anonymous said...

Just read 45 minutes ago that Jessica Coliti has been indicted by the grand jury for lying to investigators about her address, phone # and everything else.

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