{"id":12651,"date":"2012-09-04T18:05:36","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T22:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=12651"},"modified":"2012-09-05T13:04:56","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T17:04:56","slug":"fla-department-of-education-reviews-decision-on-in-state-tuition-for-students-with-undocumented-parents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/09\/04\/fla-department-of-education-reviews-decision-on-in-state-tuition-for-students-with-undocumented-parents\/","title":{"rendered":"Fla. Department of Education Reviews Decision on In-State Tuition for Students with Undocumented Parents"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Florida Immigrant Coalition<\/p>

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. <\/p><\/div>\n

Today marks a big win for U.S. born college students with undocumented parents.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The decision\u00a0overturns a state Department of Education policy to charge students higher, non-resident tuition rates when the citizenship of their parents can’t be determined.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs in this case<\/a> were five U.S. citizens whose parents could not prove their own American citizenship.<\/p>\n

Jerri Katzerman is a lawyer from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which filed and won the case in Miami federal court.<\/p>\n

“The importance of the case is the judge has said this violates the U.S. constitution,” he said. “We do not treat U.S. citizens differently from other U.S. citizens.”<\/p>\n

In Miami, advocates for immigrants welcomed the ruling, which they said could apply to thousands of people.<\/p>\n

Maria Rodriguez is the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition. She said the children of undocumented immigrants who live in Florida deserve in-state tuition as much as any Florida resident.<\/p>\n

“Those who live in Florida pay sales tax, property tax and participate in the local economy,” she said. “They should be afforded the in-state tuition rates and should not be linked to immigration.”<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Education said in an email statement that the decision by U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore is under review and refused farther comment.<\/p>\n

Back in February, a proposed bill that would have allowed Florida-born U.S. citizens to pay in-state college tuition fees regardless of the immigration status of their parents, died in the Florida Legislature.<\/a><\/p>\n

During testimony for the bill,\u00a0Sen. Steve Oelrich, a Gainesville Republican who chairs the Florida Senate committee on Higher Education, interrupted a student who said Florida’s policy was unfair because she’s a legal residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, no, we\u2019re talking about your parents,\u201d Oelrich said, according to the Associated Press. \u201cThat\u2019s how we establish residency in the state of Florida, by the status of your parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Its not yet clear how the Florida Department of Education will interpret the federal ruling.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: In an earlier version of the story we\u00a0misspelled lawyer Jerri\u00a0Katzerman’s last name.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u00a0overturns a state Department of Education policy to charge students higher, non-resident tuition rates when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1053,663,1046],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12651"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12681,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12651\/revisions\/12681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}