California residents; Please call the governor! Veto the Calif. Dream Act!

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Dream Act’s deadline near
Student groups showed support for the bill through facilitation of letters and calls to governor on Bruin Walk
Helen Yim, Bruin contributor (Contact)
Published: Friday, October 12, 2007

Approaching students with letters and prepaid cell phones on Bruin Walk, students made a final push this week to pass the California Dream Act, a bill that would make financial aid available to undocumented students.

The students tabling were members of Ideas UCLA, a group that helps undocumented students pursue higher education on campus.

Fabiola Inzunza, a fourth-year international development studies student and Ideas co-chair, said that under the current policy, many undocumented students are deterred from seeking higher education by the prospect of leaving college with the burden of heavy student debt since they are currently ineligible for federal financial aid.

“A lot of (undocumented) students who are accepted don’t come because they can’t afford it,“ Inzunza said.

The California Dream Act seeks to change this by making eligible for financial aid those undocumented students who have a high school diploma and attended a California high school for more than three years.

The federal DREAM Act proposes to grant conditional legal status for six years to attend college to those undocumented students with a high school diploma who have lived in the United States for at least five years.

Under Assembly Bill 540 in 2002, California began to grant in-state tuition to non-residents that graduated from a California high school.

Lizeth Flores, a second-year international development studies student, said the current bill was revised to address the governor’s concerns and passed in the Assembly and Senate.

Gov. Schwarzenegger has until Oct. 14 to sign the bill, let it pass, or veto it.

“I hope he will sign it because his concerns have been addressed,“ Inzunza said.

The California Dream Act was introduced in 2005 and reintroduced in January 2007 after Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a previous version in September 2006.

Kyle Kleckner, a fourth-year political science student and president of Bruin Democrats, said he supports the bill because he believes all qualified students should be able to afford a college education.

“I think it’s important that the act pass because we want everyone in California to have a quality education,â€