By Staff Reporter |
Financial aid forms offered by the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) asked students to disclose their parents’ citizenship status.
Discovery of this detail drew the ire of those seeking to apply who have noncitizen family members.
The citizenship disclosure questions were part of an affidavit that dependent domiciles were directed to fill out.
One student, Penelope Medina, reportedly declined to complete the form out of fear that her parents could face adverse consequences over their immigration status. Medina attends Mesa Community College.
Medina took her complaint to The Mesa Legend, Mesa Community College’s student-run newspaper where she works as an editor. The college issued its first $5,000 grant this year to graduating student journalists who work with the paper.
The original form from MCCCD required students to disclose their citizenship status: whether they were a citizen, refugee, permanent resident, or “other.” It also required students to divulge details about when their residency in the county and the state began, where in the state they reside, and their most recent state or country of residence prior to moving to Arizona.
MCCCD has since revised the form to make those disclosures optional, and directed the student journalists to contact the administrators at Mesa Community College for further questions about it.
Mesa Community College officials advised The Mesa Legend that the citizenship disclosure doesn’t factor into determinations of whether a student receives in-state tuition.
Citizenship isn’t a requirement for in-state tuition in Arizona — though that could change, depending on the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice against the state in August.
Arizona voters approved in-state tuition and state-funded financial aid for noncitizens in 2022 through Proposition 308. The proposition came before voters through a Democratic-led effort helped along by several Republican state lawmakers, all of whom have since left the legislature.
The DOJ argued in its filing that the law illegally favors illegal aliens over U.S. citizens, and that federal law preempts such treatment.
“Arizona law rewards an illegal alien with eligibility for in-state tuition, based on residency within Arizona, while explicitly denying eligibility for resident tuition rates to U.S. citizens who are not Arizona residents,” stated the complaint.
The DOJ estimated that the total cost of attendance for noncitizen students represented more than $10 million in reduced tuition. The agency also sued New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington for granting similar financial incentives to noncitizens not available to citizens.
Attorney General Kris Mayes has fought against the lawsuit. Mayes previously stated through a spokesman that the DOJ’s interpretation of the law was flawed. The case is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
“Proposition 308, as written and approved by Arizona voters, doesn’t condition eligibility on residence, which is what the government alleges,” stated Mayes’ office. “It conditions eligibility on whether a student attended and graduated from an Arizona high school (or homeschool equivalent). That’s the standard the voters wrote into law — tied to where a student attended school and where they graduated, not their residency.”
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