Proposed bill threatens to repeal the Texas Dream Act

More than 150 people gathered in Austin April 7 to voice their protests at the Texas Senate subcommittee hearing of Senate Bill 1819, which would render undocumented students ineligible to continue receiving the benefit of paying in-state tuition fees.

The Texas DREAM Act, which was signed into law under HB 1403 in 2001 by then-Governor Rick Perry, was the first of its kind that made undocumented students eligible to receive in-state college tuition rates at public colleges and universities.

These students, now touted “DREAMers,” are eligible to receive in-state tuition rates provided that they have graduated from a Texas high school and have lived in Texas for at least three years prior to attending a Texas public college or university.

In addition, DREAMers would be required to sign an affidavit promising to seek legal citizenship once they have met the all of the federal eligibility guidelines.

If the bill being proposed by Senator Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels) passes, charging undocumented students out-of-state tuition would translate into a tuition increase of two to three times more than the in-state tuition fees that DREAMers are now paying.

For example, at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, an undergraduate DREAMer attending full-time (12hrs) now pays an in-state tuition fee of around $7,000 per semester.

Under the new bill, these same DREAMers will have to pay over $5,000 more each semester with out-of-state tuition, costing $12,000 per semester for a full-time undergraduate.

“It’s bad policy that awards illegal immigration in perpetuity,” said Campbell defending her bill in Tuesday hearing.

Texas is one of 17 states – California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin – that has extended provisions of in-state tuition rates to undocumented students through state legislative measures.

Former Gov. Perry said that passing the Texas DREAM Act was lawful because hindering any child’s opportunity to attain a higher education was unethical and went against American values.

“To punish young Texans for their parents’ actions is not what America has always been about,” said then-Gov. Perry in his first New Hampshire interview during the 2012 campaign.

SB 1819 proposes ending resident tuition rates for undocumented students by the beginning in the 2016 school year, but would grandfather in DREAMers who have accumulated at least 30 credit hours and allow for them to continue paying in-state tuition costs.

Proponents supporting the current Texas Dream Act law argue that the more educated people are, the more likely they will be better able to serve society in beneficial ways.

“This is something that if you take away from them, you’re not only hurting the immigrant community, you’re hurting the state as a whole because now you’re going to have all of these students who want to go to college, who want to educate themselves, who want to better the state that they live in, the state that they’re from, but then the idea of college is going to become unaffordable, it’s going to become unrealistic, especially given the fact that Texas has the second highest undocumented population in the country,” said Mario Carrillo, spokesperson for United We Dream.

“So many of these young people who have been living in Texas for years, right – have grown up in Texas; they’ve gone to Texas high schools, they’ve grown up in the state – in this culture, and they feel like they are residents of Texas,” he said.

Conversely, Campbell and those in opposition of the current law still feel that available funds should be afforded first to legal Texas citizens.

“We cannot afford to subsidize tuition and grants for non-citizens at the expense of Texas citizens,” Campbell said. “By the year 2020, Texans will be subsidizing $100 million worth of grants and tuition benefits for undocumented students due to a porous border and a failed immigration system. This number will continue to rise in perpetuity unless we secure the border and start enforcing existing laws on our books. Having kept our promise to the children who were here in 2001 when the original policy was put in place, it’s time to renew our focus on encouraging a safe and functional immigration system that incentivizes legal immigration and rewards following the law.”

If SB 1819 passes through the Senate, it will have to pass through the House before becoming a law. Opponents of the bill are speculating that it will pass in the Senate, but will meet with opposition in the House.

“There’s a lot of support and you’d be surprised, there’s a lot of support from conservatives in the state too who realize the benefits of allowing DREAMers to have access to education,” Carillo said. “So, I think it’s a fight that ultimately in the end we’re gonna end up winning, but it’s currently one that’s still being raised obviously.”