Under the latest ruling, California colleges (California State University, the University of California, and California Community Colleges) have been given the green light to offer tuition breaks to illegal aliens and deny the same benefit to U.S. citizens from other states. The case is available at the California courts website.
As explained in a recent Center for Immigration Studies Memorandum, the University of California may already be passing up U.S. citizens for legal foreign students as a result of an extra $15,000-a-year payment from the federal government every time it admits a high-tech graduate student from overseas. When combined with today’s ruling it seems that U.S. citizens are at a greater disadvantage than ever before when it comes to securing a seat at a California college.
The federal law that some believe California is violating reads as follows:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident. [8 U.S.C. § 1623]
The plaintiffs – headed by the Immigration Reform Law Institution (IRLI), whose complaint is online – argued that California is violating this federal law by offering in-state tuition breaks to illegal aliens while denying the same benefits to countless U.S. citizens who have attended or are attending a California university campus.
http://www.cis.org/feere/california-instate-tuition-ruling
