ges to check the identification of all potential students to make sure they're legal, prohibiting thousands of undocumented from learning English. The Arizona State Senate will vote March 29 on Senate Concurrent Resolution 1031, which flies directly in the face of new federal legislation going through the US Senate.

The original US House measure passed in December of 2005 called for the criminalization of the undocumented, an absolutely ridiculous idea. Jailing undocumented aliens just makes them the taxpayer's problem, and an expensive one at that. It costs approximately $50,000 per year to house a prisoner in this country, as opposed to the menial health, education and welfare subsidies they were once allowed to apply for. With uncommon wisdom, the Senate Judiciary committee voted down the criminal penalties and decided instead to legalize them and ultimately grant citizenship- provided they hold jobs, pass criminal checks, learn English and pay fines and back taxes.

So what we have is a Mexican standoff- you need to learn English to become a US citizen, but Arizona wants to prevent you from learning English unless you can prove you're already a citizen. Should the Arizona law take effect, similar measures will be passed in other Western states with large undocumented populations, effectively muting the effect of the new federal legislation.

Currently the US Senate Bill doesn't carry penalties for states that don't comply with the law. This will be a necessary component of the final draft; otherwise states have no incentive to follow the new law. I doubt the sponsors will find much opposition from the corporate community on these state compliance regulations because corporations want wider access to an employment pool of people who will take jobs most Americans don't apply for.

Oddly enough, President Bush actually has a fairly good guest worker program which is similar to the current US Senate proposal. Bush doesn't want to lose the support the millions of young Latino's who joined the republican ranks in 2000 and 2004. In a rare showing of political savvy, Bush realizes how easily this minority could shift back to the left if they perceive an anti-Latin sentiment within the party. The White House may have to intercede and broker a deal between the undocumented worker proponents and the more virulent anti-immigrant forces. And Bush could be instrumental in holding up federal funds to those states that don't comply with the guest worker program he's been supporting the last few years. How ironic would it be if he found himself pitted against the staunchly anti-immigrant conservative firebrands in the Texas legislature?

Whatever it happens, these two bills are going to create considerable explosions within the Republican Party. Normally the party is able to see past some of their internal fissures and work together towards some very odious laws. However, the divisions caused by the issue of undocumented aliens runs very deep with the far right wing of the party. Their paranoid fear of anyone who isn't white coupled with their abhorrence of federal subsidies that benefit anyone other than their campaign contributors will make reconciliation between the two sides very difficult. It may well be just the wedge needed to throw the republicans back into disarray. Hopefully, someone (anyone) from the democrats will pick up on the scent of dissention among the republicans and use it against them. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

I've included a short list of talking points on Arizona SCR 1031 for your perusal. Let me know if you have any questions.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 1031, would, among other things, prohibit thousands of parents in Arizona from learning English. It would also compel enormous administrative expenditures by Arizona's universities and colleges and adult education programs to verify each student's citizenship status. Below are some talking points regarding Senate Concurrent Resolution 1031:

. Under the conditions of Senate Concurrent Resolution 1031, even a citizen who is interested in receiving a college education, may fear retaliation or action against their family members who are not citizens. This would be a catastrophic disincentive towards higher education for thousands of Arizona's families, and is precisely contrary to the economic and social needs of Arizona.

. SCR 1031 impact the adult basic education programs in this state. Adult Education Programs throughout the state serve 35,000 people a year and are currently maintaining waiting lists of over 7,000. Most students in adult education programs are employed, are paying taxes, and are parents (in many cases of American citizens) or soon-to-be parents. SCR 1031 will prohibit many of them from learning English, which is precisely contrary to the notion that English should be the "official" language of Arizona. By restricting access of parents to English language learning opportunities, SCR 1031 dramatically undermines Arizona's substantial financial commitment to help Arizona's 160,000 non-English speaking children in k-12 learn English.

. There is no way for a college to determine citizenship status without asking each and every one of its students for citizenship documentation similar to the I-9 for employment. This would greatly affect access to many who do not have a birth certificate, passport, etc. and would be a major barrier to citizens in Arizona trying to go to college. Since the colleges are moving away from the use of social security numbers we would have no way to verify a student's status except to require documentation from every student wishing to attend.

. The necessity of this bill is negligible as a vast majority of financial aid is federal and already requires a student to give their social security or eligible non-citizen identification numbers to the federal government for consideration.

. This is an unfunded mandate that would increase administrative burdens and costs at the colleges in the form of staffing, storage and cumbersome and impossible reporting requirements. This fiscal impact on the community colleges will ultimately harm all students.

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Larry Sakin is a former music executive and medical non-profit administrator. He has published a number of articles in both fields and is currently writing a book about coping with loss. More of his work can be found on www.blogcritics.org, www.changeforamerica.com, and Charlotte's Other Web.