(NAME-MCE) Colleges ordered to admit students without documentation

[Anselmo Villanueva]

North Carolina's community college system, responding to reports that some
of its institutions were denying admission to students without the proper
documentation to legally remain in the United States, has told college
officials that they must admit such students if they have graduated from
high school or are at least 18 years old, *The Charlotte
Observer*<http://www.charlotte.com/breaking_news/story/380407.html>reported.
Twenty-two of the system's 58 colleges had either written or
unwritten policies barring admission of such students.

http://www.charlotte.com/breaking_news/story/380407.html
Posted on Tue, Nov. 27, 2007

 Colleges must admit illegals MARK JOHNSON mjohnson at charlotteobserver.com

RALEIGH North Carolina's community college system has ordered its 58 schools
to admit illegal immigrants, overturning policies established at more than
one-third of the heavily enrolled colleges.

David Sullivan, the system's top lawyer, dispatched a memo November 7
telling the community colleges that state regulations require the schools to
admit undocumented applicants who meet the basic requirements of either
graduating from high school or being 18 years of age.

Among the colleges, 22 had either written or unwritten policies barring
admission to illegal immigrants. Central Piedmont Community College did not
maintain such a policy. The state's community colleges focus on training and
retraining the workforce, usually through skills and trade education.

The ruling came after an unverified complaint that an illegal immigrant was
dismissed from one of the colleges and after a Duke University class's study
questioned the system's policy on illegal immigrants.

Sullivan said the schools had been abiding by guidance the system's
administration issued in 2004. Administrators, though, reviewed that
guidance this year and discovered that a 1997 opinion by then-Attorney
General and now Gov. Mike Easley said that the community colleges cannot
impose nonacademic criteria for admission.

"We thought through the policy again," Sullivan said, "and concluded our
earlier guidance was in error."

Robert Luebke, an education policy analyst with the conservative Civitas
Institute in Raleigh, said the new directive orders the colleges to ignore
the fact that the prospective students are breaking the law.

"These students cannot legally work in North Carolina," Luebke said in a
prepared statement. "Subsidizing the education of students who can only work
using a forged or stolen Social Security card is absurd."
 ------------------------------

*Read tomorrow's Charlotte Observer for more details on this developing
story.*
 ------------------------------
 ------------------------------
 Community colleges ordered
to let in illegal immigrants Decision won't cost N.C., officials say, but
critics say colleges shouldn't ignore broken lawsMARK
JOHNSONmjohnson at charlotteobserver.com


North Carolina's community college system has ordered the state's 58
campuses to admit illegal immigrants, overturning a policy of letting the
heavily enrolled schools set their own rules for handling undocumented
applicants.

David Sullivan, the system's top lawyer, dispatched a memo this month
telling the community colleges that state regulations require the schools to
admit illegal immigrants who meet the schools' basic requirements of being
either a high school graduate or an adult in need of skills training.

"That's just wrong," said state Sen. Richard Stevens, a Raleigh Republican
and co-chair of the higher education committee. "The law ought to be
changed."

Rep. Winkie Wilkins, a Person County Democrat who chairs the House committee
on community colleges, said he was "blindsided" by the news.

The state's community colleges focus on training and retraining the work
force, usually through skills and trade education. Melinda Wiggins is
executive director of Student Action With Farm Workers, which helps children
of migrant farm workers get into high school and college. She said barring
illegal immigrants from community colleges penalizes youths who were brought
to the United States as children.

"North Carolina is their home. It's where they've been raised and lived,"
Wiggins said.

"By denying them an education, we're really creating an underclass of folks
here in the state who cannot contribute to society."

N.C. public schools must accept children of illegal immigrants under federal
regulations. The University of North Carolina system admits undocumented
applicants, but a bill to provide in-state tuition to some was quickly shot
down in 2005.

*Decision won't cost N.C.*

Community college executives said the admissions guidelines won't cost the
state. Illegal immigrants must pay out-of-state tuition, $7,465 for a full
class load, which is more than the actual cost of providing the education,
$5,375, the officials said.They also emphasized that under the old policy,
with most schools admitting undocumented applicants, 340 of the 270,000
students last year -- or about one-tenth of 1 percent -- were illegal
immigrants. If that figure quadrupled, the system could handle it, Sullivan
said.

"Colleges should immediately begin admitting undocumented individuals,"
Sullivan wrote in the Nov. 7 memo.

It's unclear how many schools prohibited illegal immigrants from enrolling.

A study this year by a Duke University graduate-level class listed 22
campuses as having a written or unwritten policy to bar undocumented
applicants. The Observer contacted the three schools nearest to Charlotte,
McDowell Technical, Cleveland and Stanly community colleges. All said they
had no such policy and had been admitting illegal immigrants.

Central Piedmont Community College has been admitting illegal immigrants.

Wake Technical Community College, in Raleigh, was among the schools that had
to change its policy after the recent memo.

"We had just always required appropriate documentation," including legal
residency, said Laurie Clowers, the school's public relations director.

*After review, a policy change*

The new policy memo came after an unverified complaint that an illegal
immigrant was dismissed from one of the colleges and after the Duke class's
study. The study was prompted by an unrelated research request from the
community colleges.

The community colleges are required to keep an open-door admissions policy,
but were allowed in 2004 to set their own regulations on illegal immigrants.

Sullivan said administrators reviewed that practice this year. They
discovered a 1997 advisory letter from the office of then-Attorney General
and now Gov. Mike Easley that, while not addressing illegal immigrants
specifically, said that the community colleges cannot impose nonacademic
criteria for admission.

"We thought through the policy again," Sullivan said, and concluded they
were wrong to let schools reject undocumented applicants.

Easley's current staff deflected any comment on whether the community
colleges were correctly interpreting the 10-year-old letter.

"You're going to have to ask the current attorney general that," said Sherri
Johnson, Easley's communications director.

*Questions of legality *

Robert Luebke, an education policy analyst with the conservative Civitas
Institute in Raleigh, said the new community college directive orders the
schools to ignore the fact that the prospective students are breaking the
law."These students cannot legally work in North Carolina," Luebke said in a
prepared statement. "Subsidizing the education of students who can only work
using a forged or stolen Social Security card is absurd."

N.C. Sen. Fred Smith and Salisbury lawyer Bill Graham, both Republican
candidates for governor, both said they oppose admitting illegal immigrants.

"People can't pick and choose which laws they're going to follow," Smith
said, "and which laws they're not going to follow."

Mike Taylor, president of Stanly Community College, said the out-of-state
tuition expense effectively serves as an exclusion for illegal immigrants,
since many cannot afford the extra cost. That means members of that
community can't get job training.

"We're put between a rock and a hard place on this," Taylor said. "These
same people we can't admit without paying out-of-state tuition can graduate
as valedictorian from any high school in Stanly County."
------------------------------
*Ryan Beckwith of The (raleigh) News & Observer contributed.*