Maricopa County Community College District will allow in-state tuition for immigrant students who are granted federally issued work permits obtained by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals -- despite an order from Gov. Jan Brewer that such individuals be denied public benefits.
"This is one of the greatest days of our lives, because we have been fighting for our education and it is an important component of our advocacy for young immigrant's rights,” said Dulce Matuz, chairwoman of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, in a press release. “Also because we are taxpayers in Arizona and this is an acknowledgement of our monetary contributions. It is also great news for the future of our state, for the prosperity of Arizona, because we need a better educated workforce to be able to attract good employers for Arizona and create businesses.”
Employment authorization documents, more commonly known as work permits, have always been used to obtain instate tuition, said Tom Gariepy, MCCCD spokesman.
“Basically we are relying on a number of documents and one of them is federal work permits,” he said.
Following the announcement for DACA, a larger group of people were granted access to federal work permits.
But then Brewer issued an executive order Aug. 15 that people who received deferred action through DACA would not be eligible for state public benefits. So the community college district began looking into its policies, Gariepy said.
“We needed to study what she had to say,” he said.
To establish in-state tuition at MCCCD, students must be residents of Arizona for a year and live in Maricopa County for at least 50 days prior to the start of the semester they are enrolling. They must also show proof of citizenship, residency or lawful status.
An accepted document to meet that requirement is a “United States citizenship and immigration services employment authorization document or refugee travel document,” according to the district’s website.
“If the law changes and these documents are no longer valid, then we will change the way we treat those students,” Gariepy said, calling the issue hugely complicated.
However, until then, the largest community college district in the nation will be accepting work permits as part of its residency process, Gariepy said.
“To the best of my knowledge, it hasn’t happened yet where someone used (DACA) to get in-state tuition,” Gariepy said.
However, he said, they would not know during the registration process how a student obtained a work permit. They would only know that a student had one, he said.
Contact writer: (480) 898-5645 or sspring@evtrib.com
Juggernaut8000 posted at 12:00 pm on Thu, Sep 13, 2012.
This is a terrible decision. So an American from another state has to pay more for an education when a foreign student pays less. You liberal morons make no sense.
DonMey posted at 1:27 pm on Thu, Sep 13, 2012.
And this is exactly why Obama ignored the Constitution when he passed this "Executive Order". He went well beyond the legal limits of his office by pretending he was Congress.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 3:51 pm on Thu, Sep 13, 2012.
THE MARICOPA COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT MAKES THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY AND EVEN SANTA CRUZ LOOK LIKE....ORAL ROBERTS UNIVERSITY OR BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY.
I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED OF THE MCCCD'S "SISTER" COLLEGES WEREN'T THE UNIVERSITY OF HAVANA, THE UNIVERSITY OF PEIKING OR THE UNIVERSITY OF MOSCOW............[sad]
samkat posted at 5:13 pm on Thu, Sep 13, 2012.
I want equal representation. Allow out of state and district students to pay resident tuition fees. We will get more bang for our buck. I also want a rebate on my property taxes since the MCC obviously has too much money if they can just give it away to illegals.
CD7 posted at 8:51 am on Fri, Sep 14, 2012.
"To establish in-state tuition at MCCCD, students must be residents of Arizona for a year and live in Maricopa County for at least 50 days prior to the start of the semester they are enrolling. They must also show proof of citizenship, residency or lawful status." I believe this means once out of state and district students meet the SAME requirements they too will get instate tuition. Geez people so snarly...drink some coffee and relax. Education for anyone is good thing... better to have smarter people living in our valley than more uneducated ones!
chuckles3 posted at 2:37 pm on Fri, Sep 14, 2012.
Another great decision. We should cut the MCC budget by the exact amount they give away in reduced tuition to illegals. And add 10% more for stupidity.
DonMey posted at 2:40 pm on Wed, Sep 19, 2012.
You really can't blame MCC for this. They are simply following their own policies. Obama is the one who is forcing institutions to reward law breakers.