Illegal immigrants aren’t a new issue for the Utah government, but how to handle undocumented students’ college education amid a budget crisis is.
The U is facing a 17 percent budget cut from the Utah State Legislature in spring, which would diminish the school’s resources at the same time the U is struggling with record enrollment8212;about 30,000 this semester, the highest it’s ever been. Some advocates want the Legislature to allow undocumented students to apply for scholarships, a privilege available only to U.S. citizens. But critics argue that a strained higher education system can’t afford any new influxes in enrollment.
“We’ll have (undocumented students) taking advantage of the system,” said Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo.
Herrod was one of four panelists at the U’s illegal immigration debate Thursday night. He was joined on the debate team’s panel by Tony Yapias, former director of the Utah Office of Hispanic Affairs; local resident Wally McCormick, who patrolled the United States-Mexico border as a minuteman; and Dee Rowland, government liaison for the Utah Catholic Diocese.
Only a handful of states allow undocumented students to apply for scholarships, and Utah isn’t one of them. Last spring, Utah lawmakers passed Senate Bill 81, which forbids illegal immigrants from receiving scholarships, even private ones, through a public university. It was a bittersweet session for undocumented students, since it was the same one that allowed universities to offer them in-state tuition through House Bill 144.
Advocates for undocumented students intend to debate this issue at the Legislature this spring.
“We will see to it that they have access to grants and loans they don’t have right now,” Yapias said.
Herrod did not comment specifically on the proposal to grant undocumented students access to scholarships at Thursday’s debate at the Fine Arts Auditorium. But he said he is against creating incentives for internationals to illegally immigrate into the country. The availability of jobs in the U.S. workforce for undocumented workers and an absence of cracking down on companies that hire them are like a juicy apple that needs to be taken away, he said.
Although Herrod said an influx of undocumented students is a burden that an inevitably crippled college system can’t afford, Yapias countered with a much-applauded, “They still pay tuition.”
Illegal immigration and its sea of implications have never been an easy debate. The panelists spent more than an hour fielding questions from about 120 students and local residents in attendance on almost any imaginable topic, ranging from whether illegal immigrants pay taxes to the dangerous implications of checking their citizenship status if they report a crime to the police.
Audience members jeered and laughed mockingly at Herrod and McCormick’s accusations that illegal immigrants threaten the nation’s integrity or that universities show a racist bias toward granting Latino immigrants access to higher education. Some audience members lambasted Yapias and Rowland for defending the gradual allotment of citizenship and privileges to a demographic comprising what the Sutherland Institute says is an estimated 4 percent of the state population, according to the Sutherland Institute.