Education for Undocumented Students Essay

Approximately 200,000 to 225,000 undocumented immigrants enroll in American institutions of higher education and represent 2 percent of all students in college (Suarez-Orozco, Katsiaficas, Birchall, Alcantar, & Hernandez, 2015). Undocumented students have low rates of enrollment to programs of higher education in comparison to documented students. When undocumented students begin college, they go through struggles to adapt and assimilate to college life. As a result of feeling disconnected to the campus they attend, undocumented students may look for different options for support, such as clubs and centers offered for students. In recent years, there have been legal changes set in place to support the success of undocumented students enrolled in higher education, which include in state tuition, financial aid, and scholarship opportunities. These changes have given undocumented students more choices and access to

In “Undocumented students’ Access to College: The American Dream Denied,” Chavez, Soriano and Olivia (2007) have stated that millions of students who live in United States are undocumented immigrants; most of them come to U.S at a very young age. They completed their high school and achieved great academic success, some of them even got admitted by well know universities. From 2002 onwards , Assembly Bill 540 (AB 540) , authorized by the late Marco Antonio Firebaugh , allows any student who has completed three years high school, and received a high school diploma or equivalent in California, regardless of their immigration status, are legally allowed to attend colleges and universities (Chavez,Soriano and Oliverez 256).Even though they are eligible to apply and be admitted to universities, but they are not eligible to apply for federal financial aid, without the help of financial aid, it is extremely difficult for them to afford tuition. In this case, it severely limits undocumented student’s chances for upward mobility.

Undocumented immigrants are foreign nationals who entered the United States without authorization or entered legally but remained in the United States without authorization. However, undocumented youth and students usually have no role in the decision to come to this country. They are usually brought to this country by their parents or relatives, generally due to economic hardship and they have spent more years in the United States than in their country of birth. (Baum, Flores, 2011) Over the years, undocumented immigration has grown tremendously in the United States. “Among the nearly 12 million undocumented immigrants, a

In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) which prevented undocumented students to receive postsecondary educational benefit on the basis of residence in a state unless U.S. citizens a were eligible for the same benefit (Frum, 2007). However, the act did not prohibit states from granting in-state tuition to undocumented students; rather, the act mentioned that out-of-state U.S. citizens must also qualify for the same benefits. According to Olivas (2004), the IIRIRA gives states the authority to determine state residency for tuition purpose.

Undocumented students are becoming a growing outrage in the United States. It has been a constant battle amongst the students, the schools, and the Government. According to collegeboard.com, statistics shows that 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools each year (collegeboard.com).After graduating high school they face legal and financial barriers to higher education. This paper will address the importance of this growing outrage and discuss the following that corresponds to it.

In 1981, the parents of several school aged children of Mexican Origin filed a suit against Superintendent James Plyler, of Tyler, Texas, regarding immigration status. The Plyler v. Doe (457 U.S. 202 (1982)) case decision could not have happened prior to 1982, if numerous cases had not paved the way. Some of the significance cases were Vlandis v. Kline (412 U.S. 441 (1973)), which denied an individual an opportunity to present evidence they were a resident entitled to in-state-rates. In Weinberger v. Salfe (422 U.S. 771 (1975)), denied social security benefits to be paid to a mother and child after her husband died. In Toll v. Moreno (441 U.S. 458 (1978)), a student was financially depend upon a person who held a G-4 visa, granted to officers or employees of international organizations. In Elkins v. Moreno (435 U.S. 647 (1978), the student was refused in-state-status, whose parents were lived in Maryland.

When one thinks about Hispanics, all too often the image of a field full of migrant workers picking fruit or vegetables in the hot sun comes to mind. This has become the stereotypical picture of a people whose determination and character are as strong or stronger than that of the Polish, Jewish, Greek, or Italian who arrived in the United States in the early 1900's. Then, the center of the new beginning for each immigrant family was an education. An education was the "ladder by which the children of immigrants climbed out of poverty into the mainstream." (Calderon & Slavin, 2001, p. iv) That ideal has not changed, as the Hispanic population has grown in the United States to large numbers very quickly and with little fanfare. Now, the

deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."The supreme court assures that the fourteenth amendment guarantees that that education would be the same for all .. that education will be equal for every person no matter the color, where they came from how they look, and who they are. In this case, any child denied an education would not succeed in

The first state to adopt a law allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at public universities was Texas. This law is so-called “The Dream Act.” To qualify for this act an immigrant student must have graduated high school or received a GED in Texas, must live in the state for three years, and sign an affidavit confirming that they are seeking legal residency. According to the Education Commission of the States, since 2001, Washington, Utah, Oklahoma, New York, New Mexico, Kansas, Illinois, and California have adopted similar laws. Some conservative Texas legislators have filed to repeal The Dream Act. Their opinion is that it is unfair to legal U.S. citizens from other states that are required to pay out-of-state tuition. This act also requires taxpayers to pay higher education costs for undocumented immigrants. Others argue that many come to America through no choice because their parents illegally came to the country. They believe it is unfair to punish the students for their parents’ decisions. Bills that have tried to take away the Texas Dream Act have failed thus far. ("Tribpedia: Dream Act | The Texas Tribune." The Texas Tribune. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 July 2015.)1

The number of undocumented workers in the United States has increased since the rise of our economy. An undocumented worker is a person in a country, like the United States, without the right documents to be proven to be allowed in the country. Many reasons are blamed for the increase of these undocumented workers. Undocumented workers increased because the change in law of the United States made it impossible for foreign workers to go to the country (Zoltan). These laws made a chain of problems that the United States is still suffering today. One example of a problem is the decrease of American jobs. The problems of the United States caused by undocumented workers can be solved by supporting Mexico and other countries to make more jobs

Significance: Since 2001, state legislatures have been battling over the issue of whether or not to provide undocumented students, who have lived in this country for many years, a chance at a low-cost college education.

Most minors are placed under the care of the Department of Health and Human Services which offers education rights. After a while the child will be released into the United States with a family member or other “Guardian,” the child will still have education rights. So why wouldn 't they be allowed to attend school? They have the right to go, why not use it? Americans are just lazy, but complain when illegals come here and get a job. There are so many American people that depend on the system, and live off it that are perfectly fine to work. Those are the first to complain about the immigrants and the children getting an education, saying they can’t get a job because of the illegals ,and the undocumented children are taking his/her child’s education away. All children are entitled to a public education.

Supreme Court decided in Plyler v. Doe that the equal protection provision of the Constitution's 14th Amendment requires public schools to admit illegal alien children, on the presumption that denial of public education to children whose parents brought them illegally to the United States is not a rational response to states' concerns about illegal immigration. 1 The opinion, however, was based on specific circumstances that could change and it did not apply to education beyond mandatory public schooling (qtd. in Stewart, par. 8).

Children of undocumented immigrants are entitled to public education, because the U.S. constitution guarantees that migrant children and children born in the U.S. have equal educational opportunities. European immigrants migrated to the United States without question of their legal status, and were able to easily blend in, however, in the current time, race plays a great part in how people perceive undocumented migrants. Children are the future of our country and their education shouldn’t be determined by their parent’s legal status. I plan to use this article to explain how immigrants are treated differently than they were in the past, and how race may play a role into it.

Thousands of children cross the US-Mexico border a year without a guardian. On May 8, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to local and state school officials around the country stating that minors who are in the country without proper documents must be allowed to enroll in schools. If the children or teens live in a particular school district, they are supposed to go schools in that district. However, even if they can't prove they live in the district say, no parent shows up with them at school or they don't have valid identification, school officials have been directed to treat them as homeless students, this means that they are allowed to go to that school without providing a home address. Also, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that children, regardless of whether they are here legally or not, must have access to public elementary and secondary education, so this is nothing new. As of right now, the United States spends approximately twelve thousand dollars a year to educate each child in a public school. The children who currently live here illegally add to the costs. This is because more teachers need to be hired, and because many students don't speak English, more bilingual teachers and resources need to be brought in. From 2009, taxpayers have spent over $440 million on English classes for children, some of whom are here legally, some