Arizona Court Overturns In-State Tuition for Some Illegal Aliens
Article publisher:
US News
Article date:
20 June 2017
Article category:
National News
Medium
Article Body:
The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that young immigrants granted deferred deportation status under a program started by former President Barack Obama are not eligible for lower in-state college tuition.
The ruling by a three-judge panel overturns a 2015 decision by a trial court judge that said deferred action recipients were considered legally present in the U.S. under federal immigration laws and therefore qualified for state benefits.
Instead, presiding Judge Kenton Jones wrote for the court that the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program known as DACA did not confer that status.
The court's decision takes Arizona in the opposite direction amid a push around the country — including Republican-dominant states like Oklahoma, Tennessee and Nebraska — to grant in-state tuition to immigrants in the country illegally. Tennessee recently became the 21st state to do so, earning bipartisan support from lawmakers who said it did not make sense to punish students brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents...
That leaves a 2006 voter-enacted law known as Proposition 300 in control. That law prohibits public benefits for anyone living in Arizona without legal immigration status.
There are nearly 28,000 DACA recipients in Arizona, and Tuesday's decision affects at least several hundred current state university students and an unknown number attending community colleges across the state...