They Took Our Slots!

Tim Craig's story on Virginia Republicans' efforts to bar illegal immigrants from state colleges is a gut-buster. Republicans (openly diverting attention from their cosmically unpopular transportation plans) are claiming that immigrants are stealing university places from hard-working sons of the Commonwealth—Dey took arr slots!

What's the evidence? They don't have any.

But most four-year colleges prohibit illegal immigrants, advocates and college officials said. "We don't enroll illegal aliens," said Jeff Hanna, a spokesman for the University of Virginia. "A student who applies and is accepted must produce documentation." In 2004, a federal judge in Alexandria upheld the right of U-Va. and six other Virginia colleges and universities to deny admission to illegal immigrants. The suit was brought by illegal immigrants upset that they were being denied entry.

O'Brien couldn't present any evidence Wednesday that illegal immigrants are gaining access to Virginia's colleges.

But GOP leaders offered statistics showing that 36 percent of applicants to a four-year public college in Virginia were rejected last year. They couldn't say how many of those denials occurred because the applicants weren't academically qualified.

Seriously? If you did that kind of work on a term paper, you'd flunk out of school.