A Texas-Sized View of Immigration

The Oregonian (Editorial): Predictably, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is taking some hammering from his Republican presidential rivals for his stance on illegal immigration. He's a front-runner, after all, and perceived as vulnerable on this issue. Here's what Perry has going against him, and some might argue that it's a serious handicap: His position is reality-based. Perry grew up in Texas. As a lifelong resident of a border state, he knows illegal immigration is as tangled as a Texas tumbleweed. The lives of citizens, legal residents and illegal immigrants roll along for generations, intertwined. Like another Texan before him, former President George W. Bush (is it something in the Texas water or the air?), Perry doesn't think the United States can simply police its way into a solution. In the Republican debate last week, Perry didn't just parrot what many want to hear, some version of "Damn the nuances; full speed ahead on border crackdowns." First, the border has already been bolstered, a process that began even before President Obama took office. Second, the nuances include hundreds of thousands of children brought into this country when they were too young to understand the concept of "breaking the law." "If you say we should not educate children who come into our state by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart," Perry said, bluntly, Thursday. "We need to educate these children or they will be a drag on society." The Supreme Court ruled long ago that children of illegal immigrants cannot be denied a K-12 education. But should teenagers who were brought here as children, and who manage to graduate from high school, be eligible to pay in-state college tuition? Texas has decided the answer is yes. To say they can't is, effectively, to shut the door to a college education for many bright, motivated kids. Perry pointed out that none of his rivals has as much experience as he does with border smackdowns. The Texas border with Mexico runs 1,200 miles; he's all in favor of enforcement. To fence off a future, though, from children who grew up in the U.S.; who are hardworking enough to get through high school and ambitious enough to go to college? To short-circuit them is to shortchange our own country. OK, maybe a few other realities have also helped to solidify Perry's stance on illegal immigration, including the rising influence of Latino voters. In any case, Perry -- to his credit -- has thus far stuck to what he's learned on this from his own geography. Not only do we hope he keeps sticking, we hope his Texas-sized worldview helps to expand a few other minds -- and hearts.