Florida Immigrant Coalition

Students and immigrant rights activists wore graduation caps during a sit-in at Rep. Carlos Lopez Cantera's office in Tallahassee back in February 2012. They were asking the House Majority Leader to push forward a bill in the Florida legislature that would have granted college tuition equity. But the bill died in a committee.

Today marks a big win for U.S. born college students with undocumented parents.

A federal judge in Miami ruled Florida students will not have to pay out-of-state tuition rates at state Universities just because their parents aren’t citizens.

The decision overturns a state Department of Education policy to charge students higher, non-resident tuition rates when the citizenship of their parents can’t be determined.

It could be worth thousands of dollars a year to some students who have been paying double or triple the cost of the resident tuition rates.

The plaintiffs in this case were five U.S. citizens whose parents could not prove their own American citizenship.

Jerri Katzerman is a lawyer from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which filed and won the case in Miami federal court. Continue Reading →