Learning can only help

Lourdes Billagran knows a lot about stimulating eager minds.

During the week, Billagran works with vulnerable preschoolers in the Head Start program in Snow Hill, N.C.

On the weekends, she and her husband operate a soccer program for Hispanic boys ages 14 to 19.

The couple, who have four children, including two teenagers of their own, pays for the team's uniforms and they rent the playing fields.

They have two purposes: keeping the boys active on weekends with sports and making them promise to stay in school so they can play.

"We like to keep them busy so they stay in school and stay away from the gangs," she said.

She has seen what can happen otherwise. She knows she wouldn't be helping anyone if she, an immigrant from Mexico, hadn't earned her two-year community college degree. She'd be the one needing the help.

"I have these boys on the team. They tell me, 'I'm going to drop out of school,' " Billagran said. "I tell them 'No!' I ask them why. They say, 'I can't go to college anyway.' "

That is not necessarily true -- not yet. But the ability of all students to attend community colleges and universities in North Carolina is currently the subject of furious debate.

Last week, Attorney General Roy Cooper's office issued a nonbinding opinion that federal law bars illegal immigrants from attending community colleges. And now the community colleges have decided to follow that advice.

The federal government disputes Cooper's opinion, saying it is up to each state to determine who attends its schools.

Gov. Mike Easley wants college doors open, even to illegal immigrants. The basic idea: Education improves individuals -- and our state.

Billagran is a perfect example.

She received her associate's degree seven years ago in early childhood education from Lenoir Community College in Snow Hill.

At the time she enrolled, she was living in this country illegally.

"No one really asked me about it," she said. "At the time, it wasn't a big deal."

That, of course, has changed.

In the past year, the question about undocumented immigrants being allowed to attend community colleges has become a litmus test on the broader debate about illegal immigrants.

The fervor against illegal immigrants -- and in favor of keeping them uneducated -- seems to unite politicians on both sides of the political aisle these days.

With all the heat and emotion driving the debate, it's easy to forget that only 112 undocumented immigrants now attend the state's 58 community colleges.

There are some people who would be perfectly happy kicking the children of illegal immigrants out of our primary schools.

In the end, it will take Hispanics playing a more significant role in statewide elections to turn the tide on this issue.

Billagran, who now has resident alien status, is working toward a four-year college degree -- and U.S. citizenship.

Meantime, she believes that without her community college diploma, she would be cleaning offices or working for a poultry operation.

Instead, she is preparing young minds for kindergarten and trying to keep teenagers out of trouble and in school -- goals the rest of us might share.