Thread: NC-Students gear up to ?ght anti-immigrant policy

Students gear up to ?ght anti-immigrant policy
By: Rebecca Putterman, Assistant State & National EditorIssue date: 8/29/08 Section: State & NationalPrintEmail Article Tools Page 1 of 1 Instead of merely regrouping after a three-month vacation, a student group found itself planning a summit on college access for undocumented immigrants at its first meeting of the year.

When the Coalition for College Access members left in May, their strategy for fighting anti-illegal immigrant education policy had some loose ends.

But one member spent part of his summer planning a statewide conference and sprung the event on the group at Thursday night's meeting.

"I know that's not what you expected tonight," the member, senior Nick Anderson, told the group as members delegated responsibilities for the summit.

"No, this is what I wanted," said junior Ron Bilbao, a coalition member.

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper's controversial opinion that N.C. community colleges should ban illegal immigrants came days after the spring semester closed, making it difficult for Coalition for College Access to take immediate action.

"We scrambled in May because we were worried about the summer session," Bilbao said. "Now, we have a second chance."

Some group members lobbied legislators and attended N.C. Community College System meetings during the summer. They returned excited about getting involved again.

"Our administration and elected officials aren't going to stand up for this, so students have to lead this effort - so that our friends, our peers and people we don't even know, in the future will have the same education that we had," Bilbao said.

The coalition, composed of ESL tutors, Latino mentors, migrant farm worker advocates and immigrants, is scrambling to plan a statewide convention at N.C. Agricultural and Technical State University in two weeks.

Members plan to reach out to all 16 UNC-system college campuses to recruit a delegation from each school for the conference.

"We need students to take a stand - choose a side," Bilbao said. "The conference is a great idea to see each other across the state."

The coalition also plans to bring a petition advocating higher education access for undocumented immigrants it circulated last semester at UNC and other campuses.

The group hopes to use the summit for forming small enclaves of students who will lobby the N.C. General Assembly in January and present legislators with the statewide petition from UNC-system students.

The coalition also wants to lobby N.C. Community College System board members before the reconvenes in January. The board voted earlier this month for a closed-door policy toward undocumented immigrants until it conducts an independent study on the issue.



Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.


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Yes, let's get illegal criminal aliens out of the four year colleges, too.

No more jobs for illegals; no more college to illegal criminal aliens.

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