latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-tuition-20110516,0,198994.story
States make their own tuition rules for undocumented students
A new law in Maryland allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state rates at
public colleges. In neighboring Virginia, many are required to pay out-of-state
fees. The lack of a comprehensive federal plan allows such discrepancies.
By Julie Mianecki, Washington Bureau
6:45 PM PDT, May 15, 2011
Reporting from Washington
Anngie Gutierrez was a child when she arrived in the United States as an
illegal immigrant 10 years ago. There's still no path to legal status for her,
but in Maryland and a handful of other states, there is a more affordable road
to college.
Gutierrez, a high school junior in Hyattsville, Md., will
benefit from a new state law that allows illegal immigrants who reside there to
pay in-state tuition rates at Maryland's public colleges. If she lived in
Virginia, about 15 miles to the west, she would find that many public colleges
require undocumented students to pay out-of-state tuition.
Some Virginia
legislators want to go further: In February, the House of Delegates passed
legislation that would prohibit the state's public universities from admitting
illegal immigrants. The proposal has not passed the state Senate.
The
states' radically different approaches illustrate the polarization of Americans
over what to do about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the
U.S., and the heated nature of a debate that extends far from border states such
as Arizona and California.
The tuition battle has grown, in part, because
of a lack of action by Congress. The federal government holds jurisdiction over
immigration law, and a 1982 Supreme Court ruling mandated that states provide
illegal immigrants with access to K-12 education in public schools. But the
absence of a comprehensive federal immigration plan has given states relatively
free rein to impose their own rules on issues such as who can attend public
colleges, and at what rates.
"If you don't have a coherent immigration
policy, then you end up with 50 different rules about what kinds of authority
police have to stop people, what kinds of documents you have to carry around and
so on," said Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center
for American Progress, a think tank in Washington. "You can have two states
right next to each other, identical profiles of the foreign-born c and yet you
get this incredible difference in outcome and treatment toward
newcomers."
Gutierrez also would be eligible for in-state tuition if she
graduated from high school in one of 11 other states, including border states
such as California, New Mexico and Texas. On Thursday, Connecticut's House
passed a bill guaranteeing in-state tuition at its public colleges to illegal
immigrants who live there.
But Gutierrez would pay out-of-state rates if
she lived in Arizona, Georgia or Colorado. Georgia adds an extra barrier by
prohibiting public universities from enrolling undocumented students if the
school has rejected any academically qualified applicants for the last two years
because of enrollment limits.
South Carolina does not allow undocumented
students to attend its public universities. Alabama bars admittance to its
community colleges. Other states — including Virginia — avoid the issue by
leaving it up to individual schools to determine tuition rates for undocumented
students.
Immigration policy has long been a divisive issue, but since a
federal judge blocked controversial parts of an Arizona immigration law last
year, the topic has been dominated by heated rhetoric. The federal DREAM Act,
which would provide young people who were brought to the country illegally a
path to citizenship if they met certain criteria, failed in Congress last year.
It was reintroduced by Democrats on Wednesday, but faces long odds in the
Republican-controlled House.
Kelley believes a majority of U.S. lawmakers
see the need for immigration reform, but said Congress gets caught up in the
same politics driving the differences between states on the tuition
issue.
"If lawmakers could vote anonymously on immigration reform, then
you would have an overwhelming vote in support of comprehensive reform," she
said. "But it's very tied up in the politics. There's just a lot more shouting
than there is sober thinking."
The opposing political leanings of
Virginia and Maryland, two states that are relatively new destinations for
illegal immigrants, have sparked different reactions to the influx, according to
Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, a UCLA professor and immigration expert.
"Bottom
line, I think it comes down to the fact that, politically speaking, the
Republican Party can appeal to its older, white base that says, 'You don't want
to see this change,' " Hinojosa-Ojeda said, "while the Democratic Party has a
younger, more multicultural base that is more open to that change."
Yet
some conservatives also see the peril in states dictating policies on educating
illegal immigrants.
Jena McNeill, a homeland security policy analyst at
the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, agreed that
"the federal government hasn't done what they need to do, and because of that,
you see states taking it upon themselves to handle it. And every state has its
own political bent or certain partisan ways."
Andrew Flagel, dean of
admissions at George Mason University, a public university in Fairfax, Va., said
banning illegal immigrants from Virginia's public colleges would hurt the
state.
"If you bar illegal immigrants from enrolling as out-of-state
students, it doesn't create any new spaces," Flagel said. "In fact, it's revenue
lost to the Virginia institutions and would actually possibly lower the amount
of spaces available for Virginia students."
The Maryland law's primary
sponsor, Sen. Victor Ramirez, a Democrat, said a state wastes its investment
when it educates illegal immigrants through high school and then forces them to
pay higher prices to attend a public college. The cost difference is
significant: In-state tuition at the University of Maryland is $8,416 a year,
but rises to $24,831 for students coming from out of state.
Proponents of
more hard-line measures sell them as a way to drive illegal immigrants out of
their states, but Ramirez believes they will stay where they are, only without a
college education.
"These students, when they graduate, they're not going
to go back to their home country, because this is all they know," Ramirez said.
"They're going to end up being bus drivers or servers, cutting our grass, when
they potentially could be doctors, lawyers, helping make Maryland more
productive and have a stronger workforce."
Glynis Jordan, principal of
Bladensburg High School in Maryland, said she favored the new law because "as an
educator, this means that all of my students, both documented and undocumented,
now have the pathway to go to college and pursue their
dreams."
Gutierrez, who arrived from Guatemala and has lived in Maryland
since she was 8, said she could not afford college were it not for the new law.
"I feel really happy and grateful to everybody who worked so hard to do this. I
feel like I can actually do something with my life now," she
said.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, signed the bill into law
Tuesday, but it does not have universal support. Neil Parrott, a Republican
state delegate, has started a petition drive to put the issue before
voters.
julie.mianecki@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times