January 31, 1995
Settling years of disagreement between courts, a state appeals court recently ruled that illegal immigrants living in California and enrolled in the California State University system must pay out-of-state student fees.
On Jan.17 the court ruled CSU students who live in this country illegally are ineligible for the state resident fees of $1,584 per year and must pay the $7,380 per year for non-resident fees.
"It's ridiculous," said Hector Perla, the assistant speaker for SF State's Associated Student Legislature. "It all boils down to money and the easiest way to get money ... is to attack those who are least able to defend themselves."
The new fee policy will be implemented this spring for campuses on the quarter system and in the fall for those on the semester system, like SF State, according to the CSU chancellor's office.
Some immigration law professionals are concerned that the ruling is a warning sign for a growing anti-immigration sentiment in California.
Illegal immigrants cannot receive federally funded financial aid and higher fees will prevent many of them from attending a CSU, said Maria Morrison of the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles.
"It's tragic. I have so many children who come to me that want to go to college, Chicanos and Latinas, who have grown up here and don't have green cards because their parents aren't citizens," said Angela Bean, a San Francisco immigration lawyer. "Their folks are itinerant farmworkers, yet the children have done very well. They have excelled in high school and have been encouraged by their counselors, but they keep hitting these walls. It's very discouraging."
Although CSU students are not required to prove their immigration status, administrators and lawyers for the 20-campus system have estimated that 1,000 of the 320,000 students currently enrolled are illegal immigrants.
It has not yet been decided how immigration status will be verified, the chancellorŐs office said.
The ruling came after several groups, including the American Association of Women and the American Federation of Police, sued the CSU Board of Trustees claiming it was unlawfully spending tax dollars on the illegal immigrants enrolled in the CSU system. "Why would the taxpayers pay to educate people that are in this country illegally?" said Leslie Dutton, president of the American Association of Women. "They can't even work here legally. We cannot educate the world."
According to Dutton, the lawsuit will be pursued further to get CSU to restore funds to the California State Treasury. The amount requested will be based on the number of illegal immigrants enrolled in the CSU system and has yet to be determined, she said. Morrison said because so few illegal immigrants are enrolled in the CSU system, it would be an insignificant amount of money.
Richard Knickerbocker, a lawyer for the groups who sued CSU, asked to bring Proposition 187 into the case, but his request was denied.
Proposition 187, the state initiative passed last November, bars illegal immigrants from all state-supported schools and colleges, such as CSU, but it is not being enforced pending a court decision on its constitutionality.
The University of California and CSU policy states that students who have lived in California for at least one year may claim resident status.
Several undocumented immigrants challenged that policy in 1985 after they were denied resident status by the CSU system. An Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled that they were entitled to the lower fees if they meet the residency requirement. But in a 1990 lawsuit against the UC system, an appeals court ruled it was
constitutional to charge higher fees to students who are undocumented immigrants. After the 1990 ruling, the Alameda Superior Court judge allowed the CSU system to continue to abide by the earlier decision.
The CSU Board of Trustees has decided not to appeal the current ruling, the chancellor's office said.