By George Stockburger | ABC-27 (PA) | FEB. 3, 2023 | Photo by Jose Luis Magana
(WHTM) — A Pennsylvania lawmaker is proposing allowing undocumented Pennsylvania students who were brought to the United States as an immigrant to be eligible for in-state tuition.
State Rep. Kevin Boyle (D-Philadelphia) said in a memo to House members that he plans to introduce legislation that would make an undocumented individual eligible to pay Pennsylvania resident tuition rates at any PASSHE institution, community college, or state-related university, provided they meet standards.
Boyle says those requirements would include but are not limited to, graduation from a public or nonpublic secondary school in the state, payment of state income taxes for at least three years before college enrollment, and providing an affidavit to the college or university that the student will apply to a become a permanent resident.
“Nearly all these students had no choice in entering the United States, often being too young to decide, or even to remember,” said Boyle. “Most have lived in this country without incident for most of their lives and this is the only country they have known.”
In October 2022 a federal judge ruled that the current version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children can continue, at least temporarily.
In 2016, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 over an expanded DACA and a version of the program for parents of DACA recipients. In 2020, the high court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration improperly ended DACA, allowing it to stay in place.
