From First Church Phoenix:
In Arizona, about 2,000 students without immigration status graduate from high school every year, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Pictured are graduates from North High School in Phoenix during a commencement ceremony on May 22, 2019. Photo by Laura Gómez | Arizona Mirror
Established in 2011 to help Dreamers pursue their education goals, the fund has been used to help North High students attend Grand Canyon University, help our own Daniel Rodriguez finish law school at ASU, and paid application fees for DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. In the last five years, funds have also been used to pay tuition for dual credit classes for high school students. We are working now, in fact, with Phoenix Union High School District staff to identify students who would benefit from scholarship support this fall.
Because of Prop 300, passed in 2006 by Arizona voters, Dreamers are required to pay out-of-state tuition at community colleges and state universities in Arizona. The costs are prohibitive. While their American citizen classmates pay about $300 for a 3-credit community college class, Dreamers pay three times as much, or $1000.
Last fall, First Church Immigration Task Force members delivered tuition checks to three Maricopa Community Colleges on behalf of Dreamers attending five different Phoenix Union high schools. These checks covered the costs of dual credit classes for a unique group of PUHSD students — Dreamers — who came to Arizona as young children with their undocumented parents. Last year, we supported 15 students; it is our hope that we are able to do the same this year.
And we are also hopeful that this is the last school year Dreamers will be required to pay out-of-state tuition in Arizona.
If voters pass Prop 308 in November, any student who graduates from a high school in Arizona (after attending for a minimum of two years) will be eligible for in-state tuition at any community college or state university.
Prop 308 was referred to the ballot by the State Legislature, with bipartisan support. If it passes, it will undo part of the 2006 Prop 300, which denies most state benefits to undocumented residents of our state.
Prop 308 will be one of 10 ballot measures on the ballot this fall. It will be up to all of us to become familiar with the ballot measures. Here is a link to them put together by our friend, Anne Schneider, who is the author of The Arizona Legislative Alert. There are 8 measures referred by the Legislature, and two citizen initiatives, one that would illuminate “dark money,” and the other that would protect Arizonans from predatory debt. The comprehensive election reform law called Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections was disallowed this past Friday by the Arizona Supreme Court for lack of sufficient signatures.
And finally, a word of thanks: If you, as a member or friend of First Church, have donated to the Immigration Scholarship Fund or supported First Church in any way over these last 12 years, you are part of the “team” that has brought life to the educational goals of our Dreamers. But our work can’t stop here. As an immigrant welcoming church, we will continue to be on the front lines at the Welcome Center, we will continue to help Dreamers with DACA application fees, we will continue to host asylum-seekers in our sanctuary suite, and we will continue to advocate for needed policy changes here in Arizona and in Washington, D.C.
Now, let’s all work to ensure that Prop 308 passes in November!
If you would like to be more involved with the work of First Church’s Immigration Task Force, contact Jane McNamara at janehmcnamara@gmail.com.