Perry defends stance on college tuition for illegal immigrants in Texas

Texas governor and GOP White House hopeful Rick Perry is defending a program that allows some illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at colleges and universities in his home state, noting he wants to create taxpayers instead of “tax wasters.”

Perry has come under attack from rival Republican candidate Mitt Romney over the policy that allows the in-state tuition for children of illegal immigrants in some cases.

{mosads}But in a wide-ranging interview Friday with the New Hampshire’s Union Leader, Perry said that the policy is needed in light of the federal government’s failure to secure the border.

“We have to deal with these issues in real time in our state. We had two choices: We could kick these people to the curb and pick up their cost of being in our state through other sources, social programs up to and including incarceration because they are unskilled workers and what might occur with that scenario,” Perry told the paper.

Perry noted the policy, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Texas legislature, allows young people who have been brought into the country through “no fault of their own” to become  “tax-paying, contributing members of our society.”

“Do we want to create tax-wasters or do we want to create taxpayers?,” Perry said of the policy available to students who have completed high school and been in the state three years.

While he’s generally running to the right of Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, Perry has faced soft-on-immigration allegations from Romney and other rivals in the race.