DESERET MORNING NEWS (Salt Lake City) January 29, 2007 Education dilemma for illegals Some pinning hopes on passage of DREAM Act By Deborah Bulkeley and Erin Stewart
Deseret Morning News Anne isn't naive. She knows her undocumented status could prevent her from taking the bar exam, which is key to her dream of becoming an immigration attorney.
She also knows the 2002 law that allows her to pay in-state tuition in Utah is under attack this year. She'd be grandfathered in, but the thought of her younger brother's potential obstacle to higher education brings her to tears.
"We talk about how cool it is to go to the university, how he's going to play football and how he's going to be an architect," she said. "How am I going to tell him he can't go? It makes me really sad."
Anne asked not to be identified for fear of losing the retail job she's working to help pay for school and save money for her family. She lives in an apartment with her brother, older sister, mother and grandmother. Her sister and mother work factory jobs as they save to someday purchase a home.
Yet, despite all the obstacles she faces, Anne, 18, is hopeful for her future as she pursues a political science degree at the University of Utah, along with minors in business and ethnic studies, and works toward law school. She's an avid reader and enjoys playing soccer.
"I'm optimistic. The DREAM Act, that's what I'm hoping for," she said, referring to a federal proposal that has yet to become law that would allow undocumented youths who have lived here at least five years to earn legal status through higher education or military service.
Anne sees it as her only shot for a green card.
"I came without a passport, without documents," said Anne, who moved to Utah from Mexico at age 13. The move came after her parents divorced and sold the grocery store they had opened together. "They lost all the money."
The law allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition if they attend a Utah high school for three years and graduate was passed in 2002 in anticipation of the federal DREAM Act. But that federal law has failed to materialize since students were first admitted under the waiver in 2003.
Last year, the provision was included in the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform measure, but the House and Senate never reached accord on immigration.
Bad DREAMS
Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, said he is sponsoring HB224 to repeal the in-state tuition benefit in large part because of the DREAM Act's repeated failure. The bill is likely to be debated on the House floor this week.
"We can't afford to give these students 'gotchas,"' Donnelson said. "The best thing I can do is repeal this so we don't get caught in a bind. We're selling them false hope, and because of that we're wrong."
But Claudia, an undocumented engineering student at the U., doesn't think her hope is empty. She hopes that her U.S.-citizen grandparents' application to sponsor a visa for her will come through. If that fails, she's also hopeful of the DREAM Act.
"I don't want to think too negative," Claudia said. "With the hope and the assurance that no matter what happens, I know God will get me through it somehow, some way. He would never put me through something I can't handle."
However, even if her status remains unchanged, she says she'll be better off with a degree. She could, if all else fails, return to Mexico, where she hasn't lived since she was 6 years old. Her degree may not transfer, but her skills and English fluency could help her find a job.
During a recent committee hearing on HB224, U. student Jose Rodriguez tearfully pleaded with lawmakers to keep the dream alive for his little brother.
For most of the undocumented students, that dream lies in federal action. President Bush renewed a call last week in his State of the Union address for comprehensive immigration reform, and pundits say Democratic control of Congress will make such reform more likely.
U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who is co-sponsoring an agricultural jobs bill and has been a key advocate of Bush's guest-worker proposal, predicts Congress will act this year.
"I'm quite sure there will be the essentials of the DREAM Act," said Cannon.
Those include removing a federal provision that some interpret as prohibiting states from allowing undocumented students to attend college and allowing those who establish themselves as good students to apply for permanent residency.
However, the DREAM Act's original sponsor, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement that it's unlikely that such a measure would pass on its own.
"Our immigration system is fundamentally broken, and Congress is examining the entire system to find a way to fix it," Hatch said. "Second, the intent of the DREAM Act was to help Utah and other states that wanted the explicit right to help immigrant students.
"When the bill was introduced, Utah's Legislature was strongly seeking that right. Support has steadily declined since then," he said.
Visa difficulties
Meanwhile, Anne is among undocumented students nervously eyeing HB224. Anne says even working 30 hours a week at $7.50 an hour, she needs her private scholarships to be able to afford her education. Two semesters cost in-state students $4,663. Out-of-state tuition, with fees added, is $14,593.
And the undocumented students are not eligible for any type of government financial aid, said Deneece Huftalin, vice president of student services at Salt Lake Community College.
"I have friends with lower GPAs who were able to get scholarships that I couldn't even apply for," says Claudia.
Donnelson suggested the students would be better off returning to their home country and applying for a student visa or other form of legal re-entry.
Anne says she has already considered that option.
"But it is so hard to get a visa. You need a job, you need property, you need a bank account," she said. In Mexico, she has none of those things.
Under current federal law, she'll be subject to a 10-year bar on re-entering the United States if she lives here illegally for more than a year after turning 18, unless she can qualify for a waiver.
However, in order to qualify for a student visa, she'd need to prove she has ties to Mexico and doesn't intend to immigrate. She'd also have to show financial ability to pay for her education — $24,500 at the U.
"It's very difficult, if not impossible, for these students to go back to their country of origin and attempt to go through the student visa program," said David Doty, assistant commissioner of higher education.
So for now, Anne and Claudia are hoping. Beyond being able to work, Claudia says legal status would allow her to visit cousins back in Mexico that she hasn't seen since she moved here. It would also allow her to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
'Better to be poor'
For now, Claudia asks that her name not be used because of the stigma. Most of her friends don't know her status.
She pauses as she remembers one of her longtime friends saying, "undocumented people don't have any rights, they don't have citizenship, they should be sent home. ... That was really hurtful."
As she recalls her upbringing in a "one-bedroom shack," Claudia wonders if those who stigmatize her realize the reality of situations such as hers.
"It's better to be poor in America," she says. Her mother works as a seamstress, her father in construction, so that she and her sister will "never have to work in a sweat shop."
Claudia remembers little about Mexico, and her younger sister remembers even less, speaking Spanish with an American accent.
Meanwhile, Anne considers herself "both" Mexican and American, but she wants to stay here so she can use her degree to help other immigrants. But she worries about her future if no federal law materializes.
"Then what? Will I work in a factory my whole life?" she wonders. "That's not why I'm going to school."
And every day as she leaves her house she worries. For herself and her family.
"I really like this place," she says. "But the issues going on. ... It's really scary. Every day I pray nothing will happen to us."
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