With the inability to financially support a college education every year 63,000 of undocumented immigrant children face a dead end after graduating from California high schools. If passed the California legislative bill SB 1301 would give these children the opportunity to apply for financial aid without having to use the established Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) or the California grant system (CAL grant).
Currently undocumented students are only able to obtain legal status through their parents whether they are naturalized or not. In many cases, if they are brought here illegally, they are unable to become citizens.
Undocumented students are often blocked from higher education after high school because current immigration laws prevent them from any state funding towards college.
SB 1301, also known as the California Donahoe Higher Education (DREAM) Act, is a proposal to reform to the current financial aid system in the state. In California undocumented students may attend a California college without having to pay an out of state fee however they are ineligible to apply for financial aid.
Introduced into the legislature this year on Feb. 28, by Senator Gilbert Cedillo(D-Los Angeles) the bill would allow the states’ legal students as well as qualified AB 540 undocumented students the ability to apply and strive for financial aid from California universities and colleges without having to use the FAFSA or the CAL grant.
The bill would be financed through the state’s general fund; colleges and universities would be able to grant any amount of financial aid to the qualified student unlike the current FAFSA which is federally funded.
Eric Guerra staff member to Senator Cedillo said that SB 1301 is needed because with the baby boomers currently reaching the age of retirement and leaving the workforce there is a necessary demand for talented educated individuals to replace these vacancies. He said that in order to do so the state must develop an education system that rewards hard working and intelligent individuals and not just because they are U.S citizens. SB 1301 would give AB 540 students an opportunity to gain a higher education and would also create a competition and a strive to do well amongst students, “We should reward achievement and not advantage,” he said.
AB 540 was signed by former California Governor Gray Davis in 2001. It made community colleges more financially accessible to undocumented students. Before AB 540 in order to attend a community college undocumented students had to register as out of state students and had to pay high fees compared to in state students.
According to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), which is a national Mexican American educational outreach and advocacy organization that helps pass laws and legislation dealing with Latino civil rights, stated on their website that in California there was a 171 dollar difference between in state and out of state student fees in community colleges, a 9,556 dollar difference between in state and out of state fees in the CSU system, and a 16,363 dollar difference in the UC system.
AB 540 has allowed undocumented students to register without having to pay out of state fees if they meet four qualifications: 1.Undocumented students must have attended a California high school for three or more years 2. Students must have graduated high school or received a general education diploma 3.They must be enrolled in any of California’s public universities or community colleges and 4. Undocumented students are required to sign a statement with they university or college which states that once they are eligible to apply for residency they will do so.
Proponents of the DREAM Act argue that students will be able to serve their communities and be more invested in society if they can obtain means of a higher education.
Countries like Canada are already supporting legislation similar to SB 1301, Liz Cruz founding member of La Raza at the University of California Davis, which is an organization developed to educate students and other individuals around the UC Davis campus about Chicano political, cultural and social issues, said that Canada supports immigrant students and often grants them full ride scholarships as well as citizenship.
“A lot of undocumented workers apply to universities in Canada for PhD’s. Canada offers them full rides and will process the papers so they can stay in Canada…There is a big wave of Latinos moving to Canada, they are a lot more tolerant up there. They want to bring Latinos to educate so they can help support the wave,” said Cruz.
Beau Parkhurst, an officer for La Raza Prelaw at UC Davis, calls the DREAM Act a “step in the right direction,” adding “I think undocumented immigrants would rather have citizenship though.” Parkhurst, a member of La Raza since 2006, says that he has seen students lose major scholarships because of their legal status. An estimated 65,000 undocumented students are unable to move on to higher education each year.
SB 1301 is also supported by some of California’s private universities like Santa Clara University and Loyola Marymount as well as the San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento chambers of commerce.
For those who oppose AB 1301 they argue that the bill grants amnesty to undocumented individuals and rewards illegal immigration.
Bob Dane press secretary and director of communications for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) said, “…It’s an amnesty plan disguised as an education initiative. Whether the national DREAM act or any similar concepts that we’re seeing at the state level, it’s really another way to piecemeal amnesty. We’d be giving away higher education to illegal aliens at the expense of US citizens.”
He also said that the DREAM Act would be a setback to immigration reforms and that it would act as an incentive for people crossing the borders illegally, “There has to be a common sense limit, otherwise this honey pot of benefits continues to get bigger and bigger, the incentives to come here, hop the fence and sneak your way in gets bigger and bigger,” said Dane.
Although the bill has been around and modified many times Senator Cedillo’s staff is sure the bill will pass again in the California legislature however the approval from the governor is still up for debate. In both 2006 and 2003 it was passed in the state’s senate and gained 28 senators as sponsors but vetoed by both Governors, Davis and Schwarzenegger.
Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed SB 1301 in 2006 because he said that there were 100,000 legally residing students who qualified for financial aid in the state and that funds were limited in providing them assistance in paying for higher education, he vetoed it again when it was introduced in 2007.
Photos taken from California Senator Gilbert Cedillo's website and San Diego's FOX 6 News "www.fox6.com/content/news/review/day.aspx?con..."
Reporting done by Fernando Gallo and Walter Engman
Writing done by Anna Torres
(While interviewing staff member of Senator Cedillo, Eric Guerra, he revealed to us a collection of post cards e-mails and other various controversial materia below Fernando wrote about what was discovered.)
Working with controversy
By Fernando Gallo
Controversial issues often incite hateful actions among people - illegal immigration is no exception. The office of Sen. Gilbert Cedillo (D – Los Angeles) has been bombarded with hate mail and angry phone calls for years, including occasional death threats, according to staff member Eric Guerra.
“It used to be everyday - the calls would be consistent,” Guerra said. “They’ve kind of died down after the years, just because they know we’re not going anywhere. But every time we have a hearing and get in the news we’ll get like a solid month of letters coming in.”
Cedillo’s staff used to simply discard the seemingly endless hate mail his office received until Guerra decided to do something a little more unconventional with it.
Beginning in 2003, the staff began collecting all of the hate mail and putting it into a binder that Guerra bemusedly refers to as the “Hate Binder.” Inside is a wide array of postcards, hand-written notes, typed letters, faxes, e-mails and news clippings sent in by citizens who disagree with Cedillo’s position on undocumented immigrant legislation. The pieces range from the mildly offensive to the unabashedly bigoted.
“Most of these people use words like, ‘you are a parasite, you’re a traitor,’” Guerra said.
The binder contains hundreds of letters and postcards that are mostly addressed to Cedillo, although some hate mail is sent to his staff members as well. While much of the mail is hand-written and sloppy, some of it is typed on official stationary and comes from regular writers.
“The reality is that they’re bullies,” Guerra said. “I’m sure that if I encountered some of these people in public, they wouldn’t have the gall to say that publicly.”
