{"id":4606,"date":"2012-02-01T14:49:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T19:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=4606"},"modified":"2012-02-01T15:22:19","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T20:22:19","slug":"florida-senate-kills-bill-granting-in-state-tuition-to-u-s-born-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/02\/01\/florida-senate-kills-bill-granting-in-state-tuition-to-u-s-born-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Senate Kills Bill Granting In-State Tuition To U.S.-Born Children"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Florida Senate<\/p>

Sen. Steve Oelrich, R-Gainesville, objected to a bill granting the Florida-born children of undocumented immigrants access to in-state tuition rates.<\/p><\/div>\n

A bill that would allow Florida-born U.S. citizens to pay in-state college tuition fees regardless of the immigration status of their parents, died yesterday in the Florida Senate committee on Higher Education.<\/p>\n

Sen. Steve Oelrich<\/a>, a Gainesville Republican who chairs the committee, interrupted a 20-year-old Miami Dade College student,\u00a0Carla Montes, during her emotional testimony.<\/p>\n

Montes was born in Miami and graduated from Ronald Reagan High School in Doral. But her parents are undocumented, so she has to pay the\u00a0out-of-state college tuition rate which is three times higher. Montes told the committee the policy is unfair because she is a lawful Florida resident.<\/p>\n

“No, no, no, we’re talking about your parents,” Oelrich interrupted, according to the Associated Press. “That’s how we establish residency in the state of Florida, by the status of your parents.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Montes responded by saying, “With all respect, the person who is sitting in the classroom, the person who’s giving back to this economy is me, not my parents.”<\/p>\n

As StateImpact Florida reported earlier<\/a>, the Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the Florida education commissioner and university system chancellor on behalf of \u00a0five Florida students<\/a>\u00a0in the same situation as Montes.<\/p>\n

\n

“With all respect, the person who is sitting in the classroom, the person who’s giving back to this economy is me, not my parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

-Miami Dade College student Carla Montes<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n

Tania Galloni is the managing attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center\u2019s Florida office. The last time we spoke with her, Galloni said Florida\u2019s policy discriminates against U.S. citizens and violates the Constitution.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the fundamental principals of our country is that a U.S. citizen is a U.S. citizen is a U.S. citizen. It doesn\u2019t matter who your parents are or where they came from,\u201d Galloni said. \u201cSo these students are U.S. citizen, but they\u2019re being treated differently from all other U.S. citizens.\u00a0And the only reason they\u2019re being treated this way is because their parents don\u2019t have immigration status.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what is the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition?<\/p>\n

For a four-year bachelor\u2019s degree program at Miami Dade College, the in-state rate is $1,400 per term. The out-of-state rate for Florida born U.S. citizens with undocumented parents is\u00a0$6,246 per term — a $38,767 difference for a student taking eight semesters to earn a degree.<\/p>\n

And that figure doesn’t include summer school courses required of many Miami Dade College students.<\/p>\n

Youths with Students Working for Equal Rights (SWER)<\/a> are now turning to the Hispanic Caucus, asking them to support two similar bills in the legislature, SB106<\/a> and HB81<\/a>, that would grant undocumented students in-state tuition\u00a0privileges.<\/p>\n

What’s your view on allowing Florida-born children of undocumented immigrants or undocumented students access to the lower in-state tuition?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill that would allow Florida-born U.S. citizens to pay in-state college tuition fees regardless of the immigration status of their parents, died yesterday in the Florida Senate committee on Higher Education. Sen. Steve Oelrich, a Gainesville Republican who chairs the committee, interrupted a 20-year-old Miami Dade College student,\u00a0Carla Montes, during her emotional testimony. Montes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":4614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[1105,1012,274,1047,273,1046],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4606"}],"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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4622,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4606\/revisions\/4622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}