On Tuesday, outspoken conservative radio personality Lars Larson of Portland invited the editorial board onto his show to set us straight about the issue of immigration, which we editorialized about in Tuesday’s paper.
However, he didn’t bring us on his show to reason with us or change our minds, he brought us on to publicly berate those who disagree with him.
Our stance was in support of a recent bill proposed in the Oregon legislature that would allow the children brought to Oregon by illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Oregon’s public universities. Even if the children illegally brought to the United States by their parents hold a job, pay taxes and graduate from an Oregon high school, they are unable to receive in-state tuition and are forced to pay out-of-state tuition, which is three times higher than in-state rates.
This price burden severely limits their ability to attend college and better themselves and the economy. House Bill 2705 would allow Oregon universities to charge in-state tuition rates for those who have attended an Oregon high school for at least three consecutive years, graduated from an Oregon high school or earned a GED, shown that they are beginning a process to residency and are accepted into an Oregon public university.
We realize that illegal immigration is a reality, and this bill creates an opportunity to deal with the situation in a way that allows for personal growth and an avenue for illegal immigrants to further contribute to society. The simplistic notion that we need to “send them all home,” which Larson proposes, is unrealistic.
When Oregon first proposed equity tuition legislation in 2003, Josh Bernstein from the National Immigration Law Center stated, “If you get an education, earn more money and pay more taxes, overall those numbers dwarf the cost of education.”
The numbers provided by the National Research Council and the Urban Institute affirm this: The average immigrant with a college degree pays about $105,000 into the system over his or her lifetime, whereas illegal immigrants with a high school education alone create a lifetime burden of $31,000.
But that doesn’t matter to Larson. During the discussion, we brought up the Immigration and Responsibility Act, passed in 1996, which allowed the IRS to issue identification numbers to illegal immigrants in place of social security numbers. Larson cut us off, claiming that the Act was passed in 1986. We think he meant the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which actually was passed in 1986. This was bewildering and we stammered, especially when he repeatedly insulted us and said that we should go back to school. Larson could have claimed that this Act was passed in 1926 and that President Coolidge personally signed the legislation in blood and his listeners would have believed him. We don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the immigration issue, so it was difficult to counter Larson’s boisterous claims while being interrupted.
Larson also claimed that an illegal immigrant could never makes strides toward citizenship. But according to the proposed Oregon legislation, taking steps toward citizenship would be a stipulation of receiving in-state tuition. Perhaps, realizing that immigration is an issue, Oregon should look toward taking impactful measures to put educated, intelligent and deserving young people on the path toward citizenship – especially if Oregon is the only “home” they’ve ever known.
Larson questioned our ability as journalists – our ability to be accurate. Larson’s question would have been better directed at himself, but as a radio personality he doesn’t need to be accurate. Rather than accuracy, his show’s purpose is to stir up the emotions of his listeners and garner ratings.
We certainly did not appreciate his condescending attitude, but that’s his meal ticket. His rhetoric relies heavily on being loud, being forceful, being in control; his rhetoric does not rely on being factually accurate.
Talk radio is generally a forum dedicated to lowest-common-denominator arguments. If Larson wants to attack the issue of immigration – and the issue is worthy of debate – he should look at the states that have passed similar legislation. He should debate the lawmakers who signed onto the proposed legislation, not college students who have compassion for those who want access to higher education.
Nonetheless, the immigration debate will continue, despite Larson’s heartfelt entreaties to kick all illegal immigrants out of America. The debate is more complicated than the way he frames it, but that doesn’t matter to him as long as he can continue to rail against it, and we imagine he will continue to do so.
Larson invited us back to the program, but we felt the need to decline his invitation. Politicized radio talk shows do not engender argumentative fairness. We feel that an editorial page provides more equity: A person can express his or her views without fear of being shot down midsentence.
Thanks for inviting us, Larson. In the spirit of a free press, we invite you and everyone else with an opinion to our forum. Here, whether the debate is over illegal immigration or the incidental fee, everyone can have his or her say.