Limbo for Undocumented Students
There has been a lot in the news lately about immigration legislation, which also extends to college students. There is a proposed act called the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or DREAM, that would help undocumented minors who have been living in the United States to continue their higher education in this country. However, until that act is voted on, these students are left with the uncertainty of knowing how to properly plan for their college futures.
According to the May 21, 2007 article by Elizabeth Redden, titled “Documentation for the Undocumented?” that appeared in Inside Higher Ed, “As Marie Nazareth Gonzales puts it, ‘Life in limbo is no way to live.’ A junior at Westminster College in Missouri and a Costa Rican who came to the United States at the age of 5, Gonzales is living here on borrowed time. Her parents were deported in 2005, and her own deportation has now been deferred three times, each deferral good for one year. ‘Last month, when they gave me until June of 2008, they told me it would be the last renewal. If the DREAM [Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors] Act doesn’t pass by then, I will have to leave,’ Gonzales told the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law during a hearing on undocumented student issues Friday morning.”
What is the DREAM Act?
The DREAM Act is a provision of the immigration reform package currently backed by President Bush and being debated in Congress. In theory it is to provide a way “to permanent residency for college students and military personal under 30 who came to the” United States “illegally as children,” the article said.
Redden reported:
“The Senate plan is deliberately broad in scope, offering avenues toward permanent legal status for an estimated 12 million undocumented workers; enhancing border security; stepping up the burden on employers to verify employee work eligibility; creating a temporary worker program with a 400,000-person cap; and establishing a point-based merit system in which would-be permanent residents earn preferential status based on such factors as English ability, level of schooling (with extra points for training in science, math and technology); a job offer in a high-demand field, work experience and family ties.
Under the plan, many undocumented college students would be immediately eligible for a probationary Z visa, and, after three years (less than the time period for other applicants), a green card. Currently, college students present in the country illegally — who, their advocates like to point out, often came here as very young children and played no role in the decision to come to the United States — have no clear path to citizenship. They face a host of barriers in obtaining their educations: ineligibility for federal financial aid; higher, out-of-state or even international student tuition rates at some public institutions; an inability to work part-time; and a lack of motivation associated with the knowledge that, without the opportunity to obtain legal status, they might not be able to find employment in their degree field.”
In-State Tuition Question
Several weeks ago, I wrote a blog on in-state tuition for students who have resided in a U.S. state over an extended period of time. Several states took it upon themselves to pass laws that either allowed these students to receive or to not receive in-state tuition. The DREAM Act will affect those laws.
Redden reported:
“The in-state tuition question came up repeatedly during Friday’s subcommittee hearing, with Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), the ranking member, pressing the student and young alumni witnesses to explain why they should get to pay in-state tuition while an out-of state U.S. citizen cannot. ‘I ask you to reconcile this from a moral perspective,’ King said to Gonzales (who answered that, though she attends a private institution, she considers herself to be a Missourian who has contributed to her community, as opposed to someone who ‘just moved in’).
“‘Often we legislate by anecdote,’ Representative King said. ‘My heart goes out to all those who aren’t in control of their destiny ... but by the same token, the United States needs to be in control of its own destiny.’ Without the ability to look people in the eye and send them home, King said, how can the country claim to have a border, or an immigration policy? ‘If we take too many passengers, the ship sinks. If we take too many down in steerage or up in the stateroom, for that matter, we won’t be able to navigate.’”
It is important to keep up to date on all the news regarding student loans and education.
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Be sure to tune in next Tuesday for my next blog about this week in student loans.
Student Loan Girl