Thread: Study Break: Undocumented students face hurdles to higher ed

Study Break: Undocumented students face hurdles to higher ed

By ANDRÉ GALLANT AND NICK COLTRAINNEWS@ONLINEATHENS.COM – updated Saturday, March 9, 2013 - 11:17pm

Joana Estrada moved to Athens from Los Angeles as a 9-year-old. She moved to L.A. from Michoacan, Mexico, at the age of 2.Estrada attended Clarke County schools through middle and high school, graduating from Cedar Shoals High in 2011.A stand-out in her school’s JROTC program, in which she says she wasn’t taught to be a soldier, but a better citizen, Estrada graduated with the rank of cadet captain and a 3.2 GPA. She loved being a member of the school’s raider team, which competed nationally in endurance tests that mimicked basic training. Estrada’s grandfather made a career out of military service in Mexico and she wanted to carry on the tradition here.Estrada’s teachers and JROTC leaders thought her grades and conduct made her an excellent choice for college scholarships, she said. She wanted to make her mother proud and go to college, but also follow her own dream of becoming a military police officer. But when she began to fill out the scholarship applications, one question ended her hopes: “Are you a U.S. citizen?”“I’m not from here,” Estrada said, “because they tell me I’m not. But I’m not from there. I’m neither. I’m in the middle.”STUDENT IN THE SHADOWSEstrada is one of the untold numbers of young people living in the United States without papers. They are illegal and undocumented in what in many cases is the only home they’ve ever known.Brought to Georgia as children, taught in state schools, they now find their educations ending with high school mortar boards, barred from attending Georgia’s top public universities and unable to afford out-of-state tuition to the rest.The University System of Georgia Board of Regents, a 19-person body appointed by the governor, adopted a rule in 2010 that prohibited undocumented students from enrolling in any state college that previously turned away academically qualified U.S. citizens in the prior two years. In effect, it bars undocumented students from the top schools in the state, including the University of Georgia, while leaving them the option of the state’s other universities, colleges and technical schools —provided they could afford the double or quadruple cost of out-of-state or international tuition.John Millsaps, spokesman for the Board of Regents, said the new policy came after a task force asked three questions about undocumented students in the university system: Were they paying in-state tuition? Were they being subsidized by state taxpayers? And were they taking seats from U.S. citizens?The analysis found about 500 undocumented students in the entire system, none of whom were paying the in-state tuition. And the out-of-state tuition — whether it’s paid by an Alabama citizen or an undocumented student — doesn’t cost taxpayers a dime, Millsaps said.“That cost not only covers the cost of education, but also in a small way goes to subsidize the cost of education for a Georgia resident,” he said.But about 42 of those students were taking classes at universities that had turned away the academically qualified in prior years. And with the concern of U.S. citizens missing opportunities because of undocumented students, the ban was passed for the competitive schools.Some state legislators, though, wished them barred from all higher education.“They made it sound like we were flooding the gates,” said Melissa Padilla, a student and activist protesting against the Regents’ ban.COMING OUTAs a rising senior at Cedar Shoals, Estrada said news of the ban threw her into a depression. Estrada had come out as undocumented to her teachers and classmates back in middle school, and she was well aware of how hard it would be to attend college, “but when I heard I couldn’t get scholarships with my grades, I thought, ‘Why am I working so hard?’”Her grades started to drop, she said, until a mantra from JROTC echoed in her head: Do not quit. But not all students were able to rebound. Following the ban, some students dropped out, not as a direct response, but as a final straw, said Cedar Shoals English teacher and soccer coach Matt Hicks.Georgia’s anti-immigrant law empowered local law enforcement to inquire about legal status and, among other things, made working and living in Georgia more difficult for undocumented immigrants.That law, Hicks said, was the real impetus to give up. It also was yet another blow, he said, and now fewer undocumented students make future plans, not knowing what laws will come next.Estrada, along with a small group of like-minded students who would become the first students at a free school for undocumented students called Freedom University, refused to let the ban hold them back, at least not permanently.“As a Latino girl in Athens, you see a lot of girls getting pregnant,” Estrada said. “I don’t want to be a statistic.”Feeling shut out of her first options, but not wanting to abandon her mother, Estrada turned to Athens Technical College to continue her education. But the international tuition she was forced to pay — four times that of in-state — ended those hopes as well.Mike Light, spokesman for the Technical College System of Georgia, said an audit of that system a few years ago found less than 1 percent of the 190,000 students were classified as international students, a group that includes the undocumented. At Athens Technical College, there are 94 international students out of the 4,490 enrolled this semester, of which 21 are paying the four-fold tuition rate reserved for those who don’t prove their residency. Spokesman Don Nelson stressed that it doesn’t mean those students are undocumented; they could merely have privacy concerns.Like the university system, the more expensive tuition typically more than covers the cost of their education, Light said, especially in less costly fields of study, such as early childhood education.Also similar to the university system, the technical colleges will push undocumented students, and all international students, to the back of the line for programs with more limited classes, such as nursing. That fits with the technical college system’s mission of training the in-state workforce, he said, noting that the system isn’t competitive like top-tier universities.“We’re open admission anyway,” he said. “Anybody who wants to attend, they can.”FREEDOM UNIVERSITYThe Regents ban and the passing of House Bill 87, the anti-immigration law, kicked off round after round of protest from Georgia’s immigrant population and its supporters.Students like Estrada comprised the very public opposition that risked arrest, and succeeded at getting arrested, on Atlanta’s streets by blocking traffic, quite symbolically, on Martin Luther King Blvd.Inspired by the action taken by their students, a number of professors from the University of Georgia asked the young protestors what they could do to help.“Teach a class,” Pamela Voekel, an associate professor of history at UGA, said the undocumented students told her.So Voekel and a handful of professors formed Freedom University, a program providing rigorous college-level teaching for all students, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.Estrada said her Freedom University courses prepared her more for any college career than high school did.“It’s teaching me what college really is,” she said.Students from as far away as Atlanta are offered rides to and from the Sunday classes here in Athens; classes often swell to 40 students. Donations pay for their textbooks.“They’re great students,” Voekel said. “They should be here.”Freedom’s professors lobbied the Board of Regents to have their courses count as college credit if ever these students matriculated at a traditional university, but to no avail.Voekel said that undocumented students have the “universal support” of UGA faculty, but that the administration “has remained shamefully, shamefully silent.”UGA Admissions officials said at a Wednesday protest that their hands were tied when it comes to enforcing the regents ban.DEFERRED ACTIONPresident Barack Obama offered the nation’s undocumented youth a glimmer of hope last summer when he announced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a memorandum that gave a temporary legal status, but not a pathway to citizenship, to undocumented immigrants who meet certain qualifications.The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has received more 400,000 DACA applications since the program’s August 2012 beginnings. As of Feb. 14, it had approved about 200,000. About 30 of the roughly 13,000 applications sent in from Georgia so far were filed with help from the Hispanic outreach nonprofit Casa De Amistad in Athens. Executive director Alex Borges heard much hopeful mumbling once DACA was announced.“At the beginning I saw people who were thinking it was a set-up and that it wasn’t true,” Borges said.The application isn’t complicated, he said, and as long as the filer has a clean criminal record, the process is pretty fast. But the vast majority of applicants whom Borges helped were far from criminals. Most were high school kids who wanted to go to college or get a good job to help their family.Borges said the Regent’s ban never came up in conversation.“I got the sense that most were interested in finding a job,” he said. “I don’t think we ever had that conversation.”Though many thought DACA meant an override of the Regents ban, the temporary legal status is, essentially, just a work permit.DACA recipients are given lawful presence, but not legal status, meaning they can obtain driver’s licenses in most states.Regents have stated that lawful presence isn’t enough to grant entry into Georgia’s top public universities. But immigration lawyer and UGA professor Charles Kuck said, “If you read (the Regents) position, you can come to no other conclusion that DACA kids can attend Georgia universities.”For undocumented students hoping to attend Georgia’s top public colleges, DACA won’t open the doors because of how the state interprets the difference between legal status and lawful presence.Millsaps said that DACA doesn’t change state or federal law, leaving the Regents’ policy in place.“If you have that status, you still are not a U.S. citizen,” he said.An earlier federal ruling leaves the relationship between universities and undocumented students up to the states to define.If the laws were to change, he said the regents and the university system would comply. He wouldn’t speculate on what, short of those changes, it would take for the Regents to revisit the policy.Kuck thought the Regents instituted the ban to keep the state Legislature, perhaps not satisfied with HB-87, from enacting laws that would ban undocumented students from every institution of higher learning. Millsaps said the Regents “enacted this policy on their own” following a recommendation from the task force.If the Regents’ motive was to steady the Legislature’s law writing hand, the plan may have already backfired.HB-125, a bill meant to ease increases in the Secretary of State workload caused by HB-87, recently passed the state House and was read in the Senate. While the intentions of HB-125 appear simple, lawyers like Kuck, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Georgia Association of Elected Officials are warning that hidden within the legislation are drastic changes to how the state defines a public benefit.Under the proposed law, a driver’s license is considered a public benefit, as is welfare and private and public loans, and a public benefit requires certified legal status as granted by Homeland Security. Essentially, only passports stamped with a non-immigrant designation, meaning a temporary status, could apply for a license. Under this bill, the state would reverse course by not considering a DACA grantee legal enough for a driver’s license; a DACA grantee can work, they just can’t legally drive to work.In addition, the bill adds the University System of Georgia and the Technical College System of Georgia to the institutions that require the non-immigrant designation.HB-125’s rethinking of public benefits, and reworking of other language, Kuck said, could take the Regents ban even further, barring undocumented students from all public higher education.STILL DREAMINGWith college out of the question, Estrada shifted her focus back to the military. Throughout high school, she proudly wore her JROTC uniform on Wednesdays, and her Class A green camouflage on Fridays. When Go Army ads ran on TV, she said her family always pointed at the screen and said, “There’s Joana.”Thinking the armed forces would accept her without papers, she called the Marines, Navy, Air Force and the Army. None would enlist her. Even though she received her DACA status, they told her she needed a green card.She was legal enough to work, but not to study or serve her adopted country.She recognized that she, like many other young immigrants, mistook DACA for the DREAM Act, a bill that would confer permanent residency on childhood arrivals like Estrada. But it has only been adopted in certain states, not by the U.S. Congress.“It’s not the promise that Obama made us,” she said. “But at least it’s one step.”Unable to legally work, Estrada said she’s been stuck at home, helping cook, clean and care for her younger siblings.But Estrada’s investment in Freedom University is beginning to pay dividends. This month, as she celebrates her 20th birthday, she’s applying to Berea College in Kentucky with the help of her professors. Students accepted at Berea College receive a full scholarship, and must only pay for room and board.UGA will always be her first choice and she’d welcome any chance to study in Athens, but she’s not scared of leaving home to learn.“Every Latino family, well, all families, really, is united,” she said. “It’s going to be really hard. But you have to leave the nest. It’s a way for me to grow up.”

Study Break: Undocumented students face hurdles to higher ed | Online Athens

re: "Estrada’s grandfather made a career out of military service in Mexico ". What? Did he kill Americans serving under Pershing, collaborate with Nazi or Russian spies (1940s/1950s), or simply do _NO_ fighting at all (what the Mexican Army does BEST)?