Increasing Access to Higher Education For Asylum Seekers

INCREASING ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION

FOR ASYLUM SEEKERS

IMAN SIDDIQI*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ......................................... 950

I. APPLYING THE COURT’S REASONING IN PLYLER V. DOE . . . . . . . . . . . 953

A. Plyler v. Doe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953

B. Is Education a Fundamental Right?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 954

C. Extending the Plyler v. Doe Analysis................ 955

II. THE ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION REFORM AND IMMIGRANT RESPONSIBILITY

ACT’S LIMITATION ON QUALIFYING FOR IN-STATE TUITION RATES . . . 960

A. Are Asylum Seekers Rightfully Present Under the IIRIRA?. 960

B. Getting Around the IIRIRA: In-State Provisions. . . . . . . . 962

III. THE CHALLENGE OF MEETING AB 540 REQUIREMENTS AND

QUALIFYING FOR THE CALIFORNIA DREAM ACT ............. 963

IV. SOLUTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 965

A. Judicial Level: Allow Asylum Seekers to Enroll in Higher

Education Institutions and Access In-State Tuition Rates . . 965

B. Federal Level: Allow Asylum Seekers Access to In-State

Tuition and Federal Student Aid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 965

* Iman Siddiqi, J.D., 2021, UCLA School of Law. She is the founder of the Refugee Students

Scholarship Program, the first scholarship program for refugees and asylum seekers in the University of

California and California State University systems and the first student-led scholarship program for refu-

gees and asylum seekers in the country. She is also a member of the steering committee for the University

Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk Migrants’ Student Voices for Refugees Network to curate resources to

promote scholarships for forcibly displaced students at U.S. universities. Thank you to the editors of the

Georgetown Immigration Law Journal for their helpful feedback on this piece. All errors are my own. ©

2021, Iman Siddiqi.

949

C. State Level: Allow Asylum Seekers to Access State Aid . . . . 966

D. Educational Institutions ......................... 968

E. Alternative Private Models....................... 968

1. Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students:

A Model for Supportive Universities .............. 968

2. Refugee Students Scholarship Program: A Model for

Student Leaders & Supportive Community Members . . . 969

3. WUSC and the Oxford Students Refugee Campaign: A

Model for a Supportive Student Body. . . . . . . . . . . . 970

V. CONCLUSION ...................................... 971

INTRODUCTION

Salam

1

fled Aleppo, Syria in 2015, at the age of 16, as the regime-led of-

fensive on rebel-held Eastern Aleppo escalated and took the lives of her fam-

ily members. Salam noted:

We left because my parents wanted me to be able to walk to school

without worrying about me not coming back. We left because my

parents wanted to live to see me graduate college. We left because it all

became too real when my uncle got shot in his own home in front of

my cousins.

2

Shortly after Salam and her family arrived in California, they applied for

asylum. Asylum is protection granted to foreign nationals already in the

United States or at the border who meet the legal definition of a “refugee”—

someone who is “unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protec-

tion of [their country of origin] because of persecution or a well-founded fear

of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a par-

ticular social group, or political opinion.”

3

Salam began eleventh grade at a

public high school, and like most displaced students, she faced the challenges

of learning English in her high school’s ESL program, discrimination from

her neighbors and a few of her high school classmates, and difficulties bal-

ancing her studies with her several minimum wage jobs after acquiring a

work permit.

Despite having to flee her home and leave behind her family members,

Salam was lucky in many ways. She was passionate about human rights ad-

vocacy. She dreamed of going to law school, and she now had the chance to

pursue her dreams safely. During the Syrian civil war, the regime targeted

1. Pseudonym to protect the student’s identity.

2. From Salam’s application to the Refugee Students Scholarship Program (June 7, 2019) (on file

with author) [hereinafter Salam’s Application].

3. Immigration and Nationality Act § 101(a)(42), 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a) (2021).

950 GEORGETOWN IMMIGRATION LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 35:949