California's community colleges sue Betsy DeVos over exclusion of undocumented students from relief

The California Community Colleges system has sued the Education Department over an intentional decision to block about 70,000 undocumented students, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, from emergency pandemic grants. But the chancellor’s office told the Los Angeles Times that because of the criteria set by the department, in fact hundreds of thousands of students enrolled in the system could be affected.

“Those excluded include veterans, students with disabilities, and students training to be healthcare workers and first responders, the chancellor’s office said,” the Times reported. “’Many students who may be most in need of relief will be deprived of assistance during this public health crisis,’ the lawsuit states.”

Education Sec. Betsy DeVos has flat-out lied in defense of her decision to block undocumented students from emergency grants, claiming she’s “here to follow the law.” But Sanaa Abrar of immigrant youth-led advocacy group United We Dream told Inside Higher Ed that “the bill, as it was written, would have provided aid to all students, regardless of immigration status. Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education made a wholly unnecessary and callous decision unilaterally. She is the sole reason undocumented students are left out of this much needed aid.” 

”The lawsuit, in which the Foothill-De Anza, Los Angeles, Los Rios and San Diego community college districts are also named plaintiffs, argues that the Department of Education overreached,” the Times said, also blocking out thousands of students without high school diplomas, students enrolled in noncredit programs, and students who never applied for FAFSA. “’Congress provided higher education institutions with unfettered flexibility to distribute the relief to affected students as they deemed appropriate, imposing no eligibility limitations,’ the lawsuit states.” 

When the Trump administration has even blocked U.S. citizens from stimulus checks because they’re married to an immigrant, it’s no shock at all DeVos made a decision to block DACA recipients from help. In fact, an Education Department spokesperson sounded like a straight-up Trump lackey in defending the decision, saying: “It is absurd that special interests want the department to fabricate a basis to send U.S. taxpayer money to noncitizens, especially given how many American students are in need of this emergency relief,” according to the Times.

The administration is refusing to help students in need, but others have been stepping up to lead, with both the University of California and California State University systems saying they’ll use a portion of their own funds to mitigate some of the damage caused by DeVos. “[T]hese students will not be left empty-handed,” University of California spokesperson Sarah McBride told Inside Higher Ed. “The University will leverage other institutional funds to replace financial support that these students have been unfairly restricted from accessing.”

from Daily Kos https://ift.tt/2XeVfGH