The myth of special treatment for undocumented immigrant college students

At the high school where I teach, this time of year is always a little awkward.

Our college-bound seniors are creating their Free Application for Federal Student Aid accounts and beginning the process of collecting information and documentation to meet the December deadline. The students, many of whom have been together for four years or more, must now sort themselves into two categories: Americans and “illegals.” The U.S. citizens apply for FAFSA. The undocumented students cannot; they must fill out the California Dream Act Application instead.

It is also at this time of year that a few students get some very unwelcome news — they were not born here, but were brought here when they were very young. Their parents never told them, perhaps not wanting to burden their children, or out of embarrassment, or believing that by the time their kids graduated the immigration mess would be sorted out. These students are not citizens like their classmates; they’re not even green card holders. They have no legal right to be here.

If the Trump administration has its way, many of these will not be able to go to college.

The Department of Justice recently filed the last of 25 lawsuits against states that make undocumented students eligible for in-state tuition. These lawsuits have already succeeded in Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kentucky and Kansas.

As Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. explains, “Illegal aliens will not receive benefits denied to American citizens.” And Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate of the Justice Department’s civil division says, “This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.”

Many on the right support the Justice Department’s actions. The New York Post describes California’s tuition system as the state “paying tens of millions of dollars for illegal immigrants to attend college — infuriating Golden State natives struggling to pay their tuition.” California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton says he will cut state-funded aid for undocumented students.

A recent California Post cover story , “World Class Welfare: Migrants get aid while California kids struggle,” features two 21-year-old California college seniors who are struggling to pay for college. Rather than attend one of the state’s many public universities, they chose to go to private colleges with yearly tuition of $70K or more. Yet both still find a way to blame immigrants. One explains, “I felt like I did all the work to earn my spot in this school and yet I’m the one that’s not getting aid, and undocumented illegal aliens are instead getting that money.”

The case for offering undocumented students in-state tuition and state financial aid is a sound one. Undocumented immigrants pay a wide variety of state taxes, including sales tax, state income tax, gasoline tax, and property taxes through their rents.

There are roughly 525,000 undocumented college students in the U.S., and California, with 102,000, has the most. In so-called “Taxifornia,” everyone, including the undocumented, pay the highest sales taxes and gasoline taxes in the country. For low-income workers, both of these taxes are highly regressive.

Most undocumented workers also pay California’s income tax, which is also the highest in the country.

In addition, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants pay nearly $26 billion per year in Social Security taxes , even though most will likely never receive Social Security benefits.

In the University of California system, students paying in-state tuition are charged $15,588 per year instead of $54,858. In-state tuition for California State University students for two 12-unit semesters is $6,838, as opposed to $11,304 for out-of-state.

According to Sallie Mae, in-state tuition is lower because “residents are already supporting state schools when they pay their state taxes, so they’ve earned a discount.” This precept is hardly new. When the University of California was founded in 1868, and for a century afterward, tuition was free for California residents.

Undocumented students aren’t getting “benefits denied to American citizens” — out-of-state students are not and never have been eligible for in-state tuition.

Longtime California political strategist Jon Fleischman condemns California for “decid[ing] that being in the country illegally should not stand in the way of getting help from California taxpayers to pay for college.”

But undocumented immigrants are taxpayers. Why shouldn’t their children, for whom they have often sacrificed so much, enjoy the benefits their parents have worked to earn?

Glenn Sacks teaches social studies at James Monroe High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District. His columns on education and politics have appeared in many of America’s largest publications .