Hundreds join protest of migrant-tuition law

Police stop them before they reach BCS game stadium

Michael Kiefer
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 9, 2007 12:00 AM

Nearly 600 students and their supporters marched toward the site of the BCS National Championship Game in Glendale on Monday to protest a recently passed law denying in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.

They chanted, "We are students, not criminals," and hours before the game they were turned back by Glendale police a mile from University of Phoenix Stadium.

The protesters started to gather at 10 a.m. Monday at a church near 80th Avenue and Camelback Road to protest Proposition 300, a ballot initiative passed in November requiring that students who cannot prove their legal immigration status pay out-of-state tuition at state colleges and universities. Several protesters addressed the crowd.

Let me get this straight - they are protesting a law that would make law-breaking illegal students pay higher tuition to attend a university that they should not be allowed to attend in the first place because they have violated federal law and are here without permission. Is that it? Sorry, you may be students, but, by definition, when you break the law, you are a criminal and criminals forfeit certain rights! -mm