PHOENIX — Arizona filed a lawsuit Tuesday to block one of the nation’s largest community college systems from providing reduced tuition to young immigrants granted deferred deportation by the Obama administration. Obama administration. -Search using:News, Most Recent 60 DaysBiographies Plus News
The lawsuit underscores Arizona’s tough stance on illegal immigration and marks its latest legal challenge to the federal program that has allowed more than 365,000 immigrants nationwide to avoid deportation since it was unveiled by President Barack ObamaBarack Obama -Search using:News, Most Recent 60 DaysBiographies Plus News a year ago.
Arizona officials argue that extending reduced tuition to those youths violates state law, which prohibits any immigrant without legal status from receiving public benefits. Attorney General Tom Horne’s office had been threatening to sue the school system over its tuition policy for months.
Officials from the school district had directed Horne in April to seek clarity from a judge on the state law to avoid conflicting interpretations. They said the students are legal immigrants and should receive reduced tuition.
“We feel that it’s too bad that he felt the need to do this and spend public funds, actually, it’s double public funds since we are a public entity, and so are they,” said Tom Gariepy, the school district’s spokesman. “We still think that our policy will be upheld and that the judge will see things our way.”
Arizona law doesn’t define what constitutes a legal resident. It does, however, list a work visa as sufficient evidence of legal status. Young people in the Obama administration’s Obama administration’s -Search using:News, Most Recent 60 DaysBiographies Plus Newsdeferred deportation program are eligible for work visas, but Gov. Jan Brewer has said they are not lawful residents under state law.
The Maricopa County Community College District adopted its in-state tuition policy in September. It has roughly 230,000 students. Immigrants must prove that they live in the state and have legal status to receive in-state tuition.
