Bills Regarding Immigrant Students Being Heard in Committee Today

Three bills relevant to immigrant students, HB 1857, HB 2001, and HB 2004, are being heard in subcommittee today, Tuesday January 31st 2017. With the Trump administration holding power at the federal level, this is not a good time to let legislation hostile to immigrants slip through at the state legislature. 

My summaries are below. 

HB 1857 would give some eligible people (undocumented immigrants already involved in deferred-action programs like DACA for childhood arrivals, people applying for citizenship) access to in-state tuition. This is especially necessary because, under the current administration, the future of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals is uncertain. 

HB 2001 would mandate that university officials cooperate with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), making universities enforcement zones. This would render higher-education environments, currently "sensitive sites" where ICE is not supposed to focus their activity, hostile to immigrants, documented or otherwise. Universities should be safe havens in this climate of growing anti-immigrant sentiment, and they can't be if ICE is around. 

HB 2004 would require schools public institutions to release data annually on their non-citizen students. This kind of disclosure makes anti-immigrant actions easier. 

Here is a guide, which discusses these bills, provides a list of people to call, and provides a script to tell you what to say. 

The bills will be heard at 4pm in the Higher Education subcommittee, which is meeting in the 5th floor east conference room of the Virginia General Assembly Building (201 North 9th St, Richmond, VA). 

Petition VCU's President Rao to Affirm Protection of the Immigrant Community

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is an immigration policy implemented by the Obama administration in 2012, by executive order. DACA allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in the USA as children before 2007 to apply for renewable work permits, and have some protection from deportation. Trump has made ending DACA and deporting previously-protected undocumented immigrants a priority of his administration. 

In light of this, this petition is calling on President Rao to support VCU's undocumented community by opposing anti-immigrant policies like those proposed by Trump. Everybody with an affiliation with VCU is encouraged to sign: students, alumni, staff, faculty, and members of the Richmond community.

This op-ed by Miguel Molina, an undocumented childhood arrival and current student at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana, was published today in the New York Times. It describes what an end to DACA would mean for the up to 1.7 million undocumented people who arrived here as children, often fleeing violence and poverty in their countries of origin. 

Please sign and pass it on.