Looks Like the Regents Will Respond to Calls for Hiring Undocumented Students

We noted earlier that the agenda for the Regents this week appears to include taking up the calls for UC hiring of undocumented students. There is a legal theory that such hiring by a state entity would not violate federal law. (There were calls for such hiring at yesterday's meeting of the Regents' Investments Committee during public comments.) From EdSource:

Following months of urging by undocumented students, the University of California next week will consider a proposal to allow the hiring of those students for jobs across the 10-campus university system. If the UC board of regents takes that step, UC would become the first known institution to argue that a federal statute’s ban on the hiring of undocumented persons does not apply to states. The issue could result in a court challenge, experts said.

If the proposal is adopted, the students say it would greatly benefit undocumented immigrant students who currently can’t work on-campus jobs because they don’t have legal status. Not only does that make it more difficult to afford college, but those students also miss out on job opportunities that are critical to their learning experiences, such as research positions and internships.

Since last fall, a coalition of undocumented students and legal scholars has been calling on UC to authorize those students to work across the university system. They say UC is free to do so because, in their view, a 1986 federal statute that bans the hiring of immigrants without legal status doesn’t bind states and their entities like UC. That’s because, according to the theory, states historically have had the power to determine qualifications for state employees, and the 1986 statute only specifies that it applies to federal entities...

UC’s Office of the General Counsel, which didn’t make a representative available for an interview, hasn’t yet publicly taken a stance. Privately, lawyers with the office haven’t disagreed with the theory but have expressed some wariness...

Full story at https://edsource.org/2023/university-of-californias-undocumented-students-push-for-right-to-work-campus-jobs/690413.

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Note: As always, we will be preserving recordings of Regents meetings and discussing them as time permits.