Moving backward on immigration

The legislature’s passage this month of in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants who arrived in Colorado as children is a step backward that makes true immigration reform more difficult to achieve.

The tuition bill’s Colorado sponsors think they are advancing a Colorado version of the national “DREAM Act,” but in fact, the adoption of this law will hinder, not help, the search for a national solution to a difficult problem.

This is because the action will be interpreted as endorsing – because it implicitly relies on — President Obama’s illegal administrative…