Put tuition for ‘Dreamers’ to a vote

President Biden has promised an overhaul of the nation’s immigration system that would include legalizing the roughly 700,000 young immigrants known as “Dreamers.”

But Biden can’t get support in the evenly divided Congress to legalize them, let alone anyone else.

We can only hope that the president eventually drums up enough backing, but we shouldn’t wait idly for that to happen.

Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers can give “Dreamers” a dose of hope. He can’t legalize them, of course, but he can at least let his fellow state lawmakers vote on a proposal aimed at giving “Dreamers” and all other undocumented Arizona high school graduates access to in-state college tuition.

It’s baffling why Bowers is sitting on the Senate-approved SCR 1044, which would ask voters in 2022 to offer in-state tuition for non-citizens who have graduated from Arizona high schools and been in the state for at least two years.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 1044, sponsored by Republican Sen. Paul Boyer of Glendale, seeks to repeal a section of Proposition 300, which prohibits undocumented immigrants from getting public benefits. It would specifically ask voters to exempt post-secondary education.

Proposition 300 should be repealed all together, but short of that, Bowers at least must allow his fellow lawmakers in the House to decide the fate of SCR 1044.

There is no guarantee that even all Democrats, who are usually sympathetic to immigrants, will support the legislation because some prefer a full Proposition 300 repeal. But that should be up to them — and, ultimately, voters — not Bowers.

More than 130 business and faith leaders sent a letter to Bowers last week urging him to bring the resolution to the House floor for debate and a vote.

“Every Arizona student deserves an opportunity to succeed, and business and faith leaders alike recognize that this type of commonsense, economically smart policy is crucial to the success of our communities, our economy and our state,” said Dallin Adams, director of the Intermountain American Business Immigration Coalition.

Reyna Montoya, the founder and CEO of the youth-led community organization Aliento and a DACA recipient who has been pushing to get the resolution approved, said an estimated 2,000 “Dreamers” graduate each year from Arizona high schools.

“Time after time I see students leaving our state due to the lack of opportunities in Arizona,” she said in a statement. “Yet, this can change and it is up to House Representatives to give voters a chance to support dreamers.”

Fully repealing Proposition 300 and passing federal comprehensive immigration reform is the way to go.

However, political reality is painfully sinking in once again. The “Dreamers” who were brought to this country as children have for too long been caught in a bitter political fight between Democrats and Republicans in Washington, D.C., and Arizona.

Locally, instead of helping these young immigrants improve theirs and the state’s future with a college education, politicians mounted a legal fight to force them to pay astronomical out-ofstate tuition.

In 2018, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled against giving in-state tuition to “Dreamers,” in part, because state law didn’t allow it. Subsequently, the Arizona Board of Regents that oversees the state’s three public universities set a policy to charge those students about 150% of in-state tuition.

Still, Montoya argues it is difficult for “Dreamers” to pay such high tuition and that there are many undocumented students who don’t qualify because they aren’t part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Both Democrats and Republicans have used them as political pawns, forcing them into a life of uncertainty, fear and anxiety. The least they can do in Arizona is to give them the chance pay instate college tuition.

What’s the harm in that?