As we mentioned in this post, the California Supreme Court in Martinez v. Regents of University of California, upheld AB 540 (Ed. Code, § 68130.5), the statute allowing undocumented students and other nonresidents to pay in-state tuition for postsecondary education if they attend and graduate from a California high school. Opponents of the law had challenged AB 540, claiming it violates Title 8, United States Code, section 1623, which makes undocumented students ineligible for post-secondary education benefits under certain circumstances.
In the wake of the Court’s ruling, today’s UCLA Daily Bruin has an article that discusses the importance of AB 540 to the educational prospects of undocumented students, as well as an assessment of some of the policy considerations weighing in favor of and against the law. As we noted in our earlier post, the U.S. Supreme Court could soon choose to decide whether such state statutes allowing in-state tuition for undocumented students violate current federal law. The Daily Bruin article suggests that passage by Congress of the federal Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act would put the issue finally to rest. The article notes: “Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education, has called for passage of the DREAM Act to benefit undocumented students. In a teleconference with student journalists last week, Duncan said passage of the act would benefit around 55,000 students each year nationwide.”
One student who would benefit from the DREAM Act is Pedro Ramirez, student body president at Fresno State, who immigrated to the U.S. illegally with his parents when he was three. As discussed in this Fresno Bee article, Ramirez “has become a national focal point of the immigration debate in recent days . . . .”
