Illegal immigrants would continue to have access to state universities and community colleges under legislation filed Tuesday by Reps. Pricey Harrison, Paul Luebke and Rick Glazier.
Their bill would prevent the UNC Board of Governors and the State Board of Community Colleges from requiring prospective students to disclose their immigration status, Dan Kane reports.
The bill does not prevent the universities and community colleges from charging much higher out-of-state rates for students who are not U.S. citizens. That is current practice.
The legislation counters two other bills filed this session by Republican lawmakers that would prevent illegal immigrants from attending the state's universities and community colleges. The issue of those students' admission first surfaced late last year when the community college system announced a new policy telling all 58 campuses that they should admit students regardless of their immigration status.
The national furor over that announcement led the system to get an opinion from state Attorney General Roy Cooper's office. That subsequent opinion found that the system could not admit illegal immigrants. The system has now announced it would no longer admit them. UNC officials say the issue still isn't settled and therefore have not changed their policy to admit illegal immigrants.
Both the community colleges and the UNC system say a tiny percentage of their students are illegal immigrants.
Gov. Mike Easley has come out against barring these students from attending community colleges and UNC schools.
Harrison of Greensboro, Luebke of Durham and Glazier of Fayetteville are all Democrats.
