Holder Renews Call for Immigration Reform on Brown v Board Anniversary
By Dan Roberts May 16, 2014
Attorney general Eric Holder used the anniversary of US school desegregation to call for a fresh push for immigration reform, saying it remains vital to reducing inequality among future generations of American children.
Addressing a Friday lunch to mark the 60th anniversary of Brown v Board of Education – the supreme court judgment that outlawed the separation of white and African American pupils – Holder listed a number of ways in which “the fight goes on”. The anniversary of the ruling is Saturday. But his comments about immigration reform mark an unusual linkage of the civil rights movement and more recent efforts to ensure citizenship for the millions of undocumented, and mostly Latino, immigrants currently living under the threat of deportation. |
Undocumented Migrants in U.S. Gaining Improved Access to Higher Education
By Amanda Holpuch August 28, 2013
While the US Congress struggles with passing immigration reform, many lawmakers and educators around the country are finding common ground on initiatives that improve undocumented students' access to higher education.
Republicans in Colorado have demonstrated support for a proposed bill that would grant undocumented immigrants in-state tuition at the schools' public universities. University of Notre Dame announced last week that it would consider undocumented applicants the same as domestic applicants. Loyola medical school in Chicago waived legal residency as a requirement in July and is working to improve financial aid for these students. |
This Immigration Reform Bill Isn't a 'Latino issue', it's an American One
By Michael Ramos-Lynch June 13, 2013
The senate's vote on Tuesday to debate the immigration plan pushed forward by the "Gang of Eight" is a small step in the right direction. But I'm worried it won't pass, mainly because we can't seem to get past the same misleading rhetoric that consistently accompanies the general conversation on immigration in this country.
As both a former high school teacher with a large number of undocumented students in my classroom and as a proud Mexican-American born in Texas whose mother was born in Mexico City, I'm fearful that this legislation will get lost in a false debate – that it will get packaged as simply a "Latino issue". I'm nervous that Republicans who are considering supporting this legislation are mainly driven by the growing number and consequent voting power of Latinos. This isn't a "Latino issue" or an "immigrant issue" – it's an American one. |
Bill on College Financial Aid for Undocumented Students Seems Stalled in Albany
By Kirk Semple May 24, 2013
As immigration legislation moves forward on Capitol Hill, generating widespread debate and providing glimpses of an emerging bipartisan consensus, a less ambitious effort in Albany is playing out differently.
With less than four weeks to go in the legislative session, a bill that would open up college financial aid to undocumented immigrants in New York seems stalled. The measure, the New York State Dream Act, passed overwhelmingly in the Democratic-dominated Assembly this week, with voting along party lines. But the bill’s supporters acknowledged that its chances were slim in the Senate, where Republicans share control in a coalition with breakaway Democrats. |
“I hope we can come together and negotiate a bill that gives these young people a chance to get a college education,” -Senator Jeffery D. Klein |
Debates Persist Over Subsidies For Immigrant College Students
By Joseph Berger December 12, 2007
Go to college, we urge our children. College is the new high school, and without an undergraduate degree, they will be doomed to low-earning, second-rate lives.
Yet we send the opposite message to thousands of young people because they have been brought into this country illegally by their parents, sometimes when they were toddlers, or remained beyond their visa deadlines. About 65,000 persevere well enough every year to graduate from high school, according to the Washington-based Urban Institute, but once they do, we make going to college hard if not impossible. Ysaira Paulino was a slim, dark-haired 13-year-old in 1998, when her mother put her and a younger sister aboard a plane leaving the Dominican Republic. It was her mother’s frank hope that her daughters could blossom in America’s public schools. As a frightened newcomer speaking little English and living sometimes with an aunt and sometimes with a grandmother, Ysaira weathered eighth grade. |