Policy change to Texas DREAM Act likely to be approved by higher Ed board

Texas Dream Alliance activist Jose Luis speaks during protest at the capitol.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will likely implement a policy change this week to the so-called Texas version of the DREAM Act, which allows undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition while attending college in Texas. In a meeting scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 26, at the THECB offices in Austin, the board will likely approve new rules which govern the implementation of the law by colleges and universities.

Under the law undocumented students that sign an affidavit to pursue citizenship and otherwise qualify as a resident of the state are eligible for in-state tuition. In fiscal year 2010 colleges and universities in Texas reported that 16,476 students had filed affidavits. This represents about 1% of total enrollment at institutions of higher education in Texas, and about 12,000 of those students attend community colleges. The number of undocumented students in Texas colleges for fiscal year 2011 will likely be available later this spring after the numbers have been certified.

“There are two provisions that are going to be added to our rules,” said Dominic Chavez, the Senior Director of External Relations for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Chavez told the Texas Independent that the first policy change is one to make it clear that institutions are responsible for maintaining the affidavits that the students sign, and the second is to remind students of the obligation to seek legal status.

According to the new policy, which has been placed on the consent agenda for the meeting, institutions will be required to “retain the signed affidavits permanently, and to instruct students when they are admitted, annually while they are enrolled, and upon graduation of their obligation to apply for permanent resident status.” The new rules also call for the institutions to “refer students to the proper federal agency” for instructions on how to apply for legalized status. “This is a message saying that we take this thing very seriously, this is not just a piece of paper that they sign,” said Chavez.

According to Chavez, the policy change came in large measure due to the amount of public debate surrounding granting in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants, specifically during the Republican presidential primary. “During the presidential election, when the dialog became so white hot, our board decided that there could be changes to the way the law is implemented,” said Chavez.

“One of the questions that comes up constantly was who controls these documents and who maintains these documents,” said Chavez. “There was a lot of disparity in the maintenance of these documents by institutions.” If the documents are not maintained according to the board’s policy there are not any penalties incurred by the institutions. “The worse thing that could happen would be a negative finding on an audit,” said Chavez.

Students themselves are not the focus of the policy changes, as Chavez explains that the board does not believe that they will have noncompliance from undocumented students. “These students know their status, and they know their situation very well,” said Chavez. Chavez acknowledges that without federal legislation, undocumented students may not be able to regularize their immigration status. “Ultimately this issue has to be addressed at the federal level,” he said.

Greisa Martinez, a Texas A&M graduate and DREAM activist, described the policy change as “simply pointless.” Martinez points to the problems that the new policy could cause by forcing institutions with little expertise on immigration issues to track the status of individual students. “Requiring institutions to handle a case-by-case scenario would prove inefficient, costly and could potentially delay the admission process of the student,” said Martinez. “Higher education institutions are not knowledgeable in immigration law and would not know how to approach a federal agency about a student’s situation without putting in peril their privacy. For institutions of higher education to handle this without prior training is in fact, an unfunded mandate.”