Colleges must admit illegals
MARK JOHNSON
mjohnson@charlotteobserver.com

RALEIGH North Carolina's community college system has ordered its 58 schools to admit illegal immigrants, overturning policies established at more than one-third of the heavily enrolled colleges.

David Sullivan, the system's top lawyer, dispatched a memo November 7 telling the community colleges that state regulations require the schools to admit undocumented applicants who meet the basic requirements of either graduating from high school or being 18 years of age.

Among the colleges, 22 had either written or unwritten policies barring admission to illegal immigrants. Central Piedmont Community College did not maintain such a policy. The state's community colleges focus on training and retraining the workforce, usually through skills and trade education.

The ruling came after an unverified complaint that an illegal immigrant was dismissed from one of the colleges and after a Duke University class's study questioned the system's policy on illegal immigrants.

Sullivan said the schools had been abiding by guidance the system's administration issued in 2004. Administrators, though, reviewed that guidance this year and discovered that a 1997 opinion by then-Attorney General and now Gov. Mike Easley said that the community colleges cannot impose nonacademic criteria for admission.

"We thought through the policy again," Sullivan said, "and concluded our earlier guidance was in error."

Robert Luebke, an education policy analyst with the conservative Civitas Institute in Raleigh, said the new directive orders the colleges to ignore the fact that the prospective students are breaking the law.

"These students cannot legally work in North Carolina," Luebke said in a prepared statement. "Subsidizing the education of students who can only work using a forged or stolen Social Security card is absurd."


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