Comments for Stonecipher: Counting non-citizens threatens La. clout at http://www.theind.com , comment 1 to 6 out of 6 comments http://www.theind.com Mon, 20 May 2013 12:53:17 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.theind.com/home/4792#comment-2239 Which states became "haven" states? I know California is one. I know Houston and other parts of Texas give sanctuary to illegal aliens. I believe New York does also, and I think Florida harbors many illegals that it never tried to get rid of. Those states have known for years those illegals were sucking their states dry with "anchor babies" and other social services pariah. They deserve to go broke for letting it happen and for encouraging it. Now if you tell me Arizona or New Mexico needs help, I'm all for it because they at least have made an attempt to stop the flow. I'll gladly spend whatever it takes to keep illegals out, rather than give it to them in social services. This practice has kept Mexico from taking care of its own people. A lot of Americans enjoy the cheap vacations in Mexico and brag about them and don't even realize how it hurts their own economy. I'll gladly hire a legal Mexican and have, but no green card, no American dollars from me. - Myrick6 Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:39:00 +0100 http://www.theind.com/home/4792#comment-2234 Most instances of small towns that host universities of a major size, such as Oxford, MS, or College Station, TX, or Ruston, LA for that matter, year in year out maintain a "population" for which they do not receive enumeration. Those residents, while temporary, are steadily replaced every year as some graduate and move on and others replace them. Often, at least historically, the allocation of state and federal resources would not follow those student numbers to those small towns, who see themselves as being shortchanged by this residency requirement. With UL, and other reasonably larger cities hosting universities, there tends to be ample off-campus housing, and students are able to count themselves as local residents, whether they plan to stay for the long term or not, as voter registration rules at least, do not disallow local registration. Now, I may possibly be mistaken on this point, but essentially, dorm residents are not allowed to count the dorm as a residential address for census purposes. In short, temporary residents replaced annually, are a population baseload that some areas lack enumeration for. And yes, TAC, I agree with your assessment, that increasing electoral votes and shares in Congress is a ramification of such a change of counting. I'll go ahead and project that some compromise will be reached, where the numbers of illegal immigrants will be counted for fiscal purposes, but not for apportionment purposes. I know that brings on another discussion entirely, but I will simply say that the economics of undocumented workers/illegal immigrants is a murky matter, and not one to be only thought of a tax-using proposition. In fact I will say that to address the market forces of what is happening with immigration (and the benefits our society receives from the work these workers do, at the wages they perform them,) are concerns that one needs to take back, at least to the passage of NAFTA, and it's assorted localized economic dislocations on both sides of the southern border. - Constitutionalist Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:20:36 +0100 http://www.theind.com/home/4792#comment-2233 I understand that merely counting illegal aliens in the CB will not increase the voter rolls, but it increases the base for Democrats because like Stonecipher has argued, states such as Califoria will be given more Congressional representation, and in turn, more electoral votes. University towns should have out of town students counted as part of the town, not unless those students are voters of that town. Baton Rouge is already represented well enough in state government, being both the state capitol and home of the flagship university. Why should they get even more based on temporary residents? - Taxpaying American Citizen Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:29:34 +0100 http://www.theind.com/home/4792#comment-2231 Well, actually, the process of the Census Bureau counting undocumented workers and other illegally immigrated persons will not increase the voter base for any party to recruit from. What this will do is increase the flow of federal money for schools, health facilities, parks, roads, bridges and other public works and aid projects to those districts which represent higher population counts through this counting process. (If there is a law to grandfather in immigrants for legal residency and citizenship, then of course that would change the nature of this rebuttal.) The same has long been argued by many large University towns, whose steady student populations are never counted, as students are not considered permanent residents. Instead they are considered "temporary". On-campus students were and have long been required to count themselves at their family address. This is not so much an issue for Lafayette, as UL's dormitory population as a commuter campus is rather low. - Constitutionalist Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:36:37 +0100 http://www.theind.com/home/4792#comment-2230 Elliott Stonecipher is a very smart man. The Jindal Administration doesn't care for him because of his tendency to state publicly hypocricy of the administration in fighting against attempts to provide more transparency within the LA Executive branch. In this editorial he is dead-on. However, counting illegals to make up the U.S. districting is exactly what President Obama, Nancy Peloci, and the rest of the left-wingers want. They want that increased voter-base from illegal aliens. - Taxpaying American Citizen Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:46:04 +0100 http://www.theind.com/home/4792#comment-2229 Viva Obama...viva demócratas ..viva los socialistas ...viva el gobierno la asistencia sanitaria ....viva la unidad socialista de América .... Living in america as we knew it ..is over :( - PlumpyBoy Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:43:52 +0100