A first-generation scofflaw

What are we to make of Jessica Colotl, the 21-year-old junior at Kennesaw State University in Georgia? First of all, she is in the United States illegally, having been brought here by her parents (or just her mother; it’s not entirely clear) at the age of eleven. Second, she was stopped by a university policemen and found to be driving without a license. Third, she apparently lied to the cops about where she was living. And fourth, she’s attending the university on reduced tuition as a Georgia resident, though illegals aren’t permitted to claim that $5,000 financial benefit. (Some reports spell her surname Coloti.)

All this is very bad stuff, which the Good People of course want us to overlook: instead of dumping on the scofflaw, they are dumping (of course!) on the police. "Jessica's case is yet another outrageous example of the unaccountable local enforcement of immigration laws in Cobb County gone awry," says Azadeh Shahshahani of the American Civil Liberties Union. (It is one of the richer ironies of this dispute that Ms. Shahshahani was born and reared in that citadel of civil liberties, the Islamic Republic of Iran.)

OTOH, as the children say, my great objection to “Latino” immigrants—both legal and illegal—is that they bring their culture with them and insist that we accommodate it. Ms. Colotl, a member of Lambda Theta Alpha sorority, seems to have cleared this hurdle in fine style.

The U.S. government has made a compromise ruling that gives us the worst of all conclusions: Ms. Colotl can stay in Georgia for another year, while she completes her bachelor’s studies (while paying out-of-state tuition, or more likely having someone else pay it for her). Then she’ll be deported! Isn’t that peachy? We get to invest thousands of more dollars in her education, and Mexico gets the benefit of it. Blue skies! – Dan Ford