Colleges vow to protect undocumented students

By BENJAMIN WERMUND
11/23/16 10:00 AM EST

With help from Caitlin Emma, Kimberly Hefling and Michael Stratford

COLLEGES VOW TO PROTECT UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS: The fate of undocumented college students has emerged as the first post-election rallying cry in academia, as university leaders brace for potential clashes with President-elect Donald Trump over issues that include diversity, “political correctness” and immigration policies.

— Leaders at more than 200 colleges and universities have signed a pledge urging Trump not to scrap Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a policy that allows some children of undocumented immigrants to receive two-year work permits and exemption from deportation.

Advocates estimate there could be as many as 1.4 million people in the U.S. who could be covered by the program, which applies to children of undocumented immigrants who arrived after 2007 at age 16 or younger.

As of June, the federal government had approved more than 840,000 DACA applications. Undocumented students attend some of the nation's top universities and in many states are allowed to pay cheaper in-state tuition.

— Trump repeatedly vowed to repeal DACA and other executive actions while on the campaign trail.
In a 2015 interview with Chuck Todd, host of NBC's "Meet the Press," Trump said he would deport undocumented immigrants — even if it meant splitting up families. "They have to go," Trump said. Trump has softened his stance since then, saying he will focus his deportation efforts on those with criminal backgrounds — at least initially. North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, who is a strong candidate to chair the House education committee in the next Congress, says any talk of deporting college students is premature. "Yeah, we eventually have to deal with them, but that ought not to be the first priority,” Foxx said.

— Immigration is expected to be only one of several potential culture clashes between the Trump administration and college leaders, who are vowing to “double down” on values such as inclusiveness. While Trump has said little about his plans for higher education, the president-elect has taken an antagonistic tone toward elite colleges and universities, saying he’ll end “political correctness” and that the government has “a lot of power over the colleges.”

— “We have to double down as an exemplar for the future of the country,” said Howard Gillman, the chancellor of the University of California-Irvine and one of the college leaders who signed the DACA pledge. “The job of a university is to educate a democracy.

That’s one of the reasons why every authoritarian or totalitarian that gains power, the first two places they go are the media and universities. Those are the two places that try to tell it like it is and that are incubators of independent thought … We need to continue to tell it like it is.” Read more.

http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/mo...tudents-217557