Young, undocumented immigrants are finding it increasingly hard to attend college as South Carolina and other states restrict in-state tuition or ban them altogether |
The Trump administration’s aggressive deportation policies have heightened stress among the country’s approximately 14 million immigrants who are living in the U.S. without legal authorization.
The sharp rise in dramatic arrests and deportations of immigrants over the past year has received widespread media attention.
A less publicized issue is that many young, undocumented immigrants are also finding it harder to apply to and stay in college.
As someone who researches teacher training and was a high school teacher in South Carolina, I have researched how restrictive education policies make it harder for immigrant students, particularly undocumented students, to receive a college degree.
In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled that students could not be discriminated against based on their immigration status.
This ruling ensured that immigrant students could not be denied entrance to public K-12 schools.
The caveat is that the ruling did not extend to higher education.
In 1996, Congress approved the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act, which made it harder for undocumented immigrants who are deported to reenter the U.S., among other changes to increase border security.
This law also said that states could not provide in-state tuition to undocumented students at public universities, unless they gave the same benefits to out-of-state American citizens.........