Highlands students say immigration status has cost them aid

Montse Oceguera, 23, a Highlands student who attends classes at the school’s Albuquerque campus, had a similar experience with the university’s financial aid office. “I remember being on my porch at night crying because I had no idea how I was going to pay for school,” she said.

When Calzadillas applied to Highlands in May 2015, she didn’t think her immigration status would be an issue. Under an 11-year-old state law, known as SB 582, anyone who has graduated from a New Mexico high school or received a GED certificate in the state has the right to in-state tuition at a public college or university and state-funded financial aid, regardless of their residency status. That includes tuition coverage through the state’s popular Legislative Lottery Scholarship program — which helped Oceguera attend classes for two years at Santa Fe Community College.

But New Mexico’s 14 public universities and colleges operate independently from one another, and their policies regarding immigrant students vary. According to interviews with students and school officials from around the state, Highlands imposes some of the toughest barriers. But some of the problems immigrant students encounter may be largely because staff members are not informed about the state law.

“Sometimes front-line people are not trained in this,” said Armando Bustamante, a student program specialist at The University of New Mexico who initially took it upon himself to help undocumented students at UNM navigate the system. Now part of his job is to provide training for both students and staff on SB 582.

Bustamante said another problem is that the state Higher Education Department lets each institution interpret the law however it wants. “The issue with the law is that it’s a simple, two-paragraph law that has no implementation policies,” he said.

Robert McEntyre, a spokesman for the Higher Education Department, said in an email to The New Mexican that the state’s schools set their own enrollment policies, but they must follow state and federal immigration laws.

Calzadillas was able to enroll at Highlands and receive in-state tuition, like other New Mexico students. But when she filled out the university’s general scholarship application, her lack of legal residency became a problem. The scholarship application asked about her immigration status but only gave her the option of stating whether she was U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident.

She told Highlands’ financial aid staff that she had a work permit through the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, which offers temporary protection from deportation to certain young undocumented immigrants. President Barack Obama initiated the program in 2012 by executive order.

“I told them I’m not a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident, but I’m a DACA student, and they just seemed very confused,” Calzadillas said. “I got nowhere with them. They just kept saying, ‘You have to pick one or the other.’ ” And then they told her she wouldn’t be considered for any state-funded aid.

Calzadillas said she gave up trying to explain that under state law, she was allowed to apply for any state-funded scholarships the school offered.

Oceguera, who is now working toward a master’s degree in social work, first enrolled at Highlands in 2014 to complete her bachelor’s degree.

“I called the financial aid office and told them that I am a DACA student, and they said, ‘We don’t know what that means. The only thing you can do is fill out the general scholarship form,’ ” she said.

She filled it out, leaving blank the question about her immigration status. Her online application says it is under review, but she suspects it never got processed.

A friend gave her a $2,000 loan to help her cover tuition for her first semester at Highlands. As the second semester approached, she became dismayed, unsure of how she would pay the $2,700.

Eventually, the state Children, Youth and Families Department gave Oceguera a $10,000 stipend to pay for the last two semesters of her undergraduate degree. After she completes her master’s degree, she will work for the state agency as part of the stipend requirements.

Highlands spokesman Sean Weaver said the university doesn’t have specific enrollment policies regarding undocumented students. It should be following the state law, SB 582, he said, but there is no designated office or staff member to ensure that happens.

Still, Weaver said he was surprised to hear that Highlands students were having trouble with their immigration status, and he said all scholarship applications should be processed. “If they’re having issues, I’d like to hear from them so we can get their issues resolved,” he said.

Sometimes when Highlands staff aren’t sure how to help an undocumented student, they will refer the student to Eric Romero, an assistant professor of Native American and Mexican-American studies at Highlands’ Las Vegas campus.

“They usually send them to me because they know I’m going to be attentive,” Romero said. But he said the university should hire or train someone to focus on helping undocumented students navigate the school’s system.

Highlands isn’t the only school where immigrant students encounter confusion about the state law that allows them to enroll as regular, in-state residents. UNM and New Mexico State University both have programs designed to ease the enrollment process for immigrant students, but a study last year showed that some staff members at each school were still misinformed.

“Misinformed staff can deter students from pursuing higher education in the initial stages of college enrollment,” said the study, released in May 2015 by the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California in Los Angeles. Such challenges also can create mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and a sense of isolation, the study says.

Laura Gutierrez Spencer, director of a program at NMSU that helps low-income and first-generation college students, including undocumented immigrants, said NMSU processes all scholarship applications, regardless of a student’s immigration status. If the student is not a citizen or legal permanent resident, she said, the university makes sure he or she is only considered for state-funded scholarships, rather than federally funded aid.

NMSU, which lies about 50 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, also started a program this year that offers students from Mexico a lower tuition rate. A full-time Mexican student pays about $5,000 per semester, compared to the school’s regular out-of-state tuition rate of $10,600 a semester. The school’s in-state tuition rate is about $3,400 per semester.

At Western New Mexico University in Silver City, DACA students from Arizona, Colorado and El Paso can qualify for in-state tuition, even before they are considered state residents.

New Mexico is one of 18 states in the country that allow all residents, regardless of immigration status, to pay in-state tuition. Three states — Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia — prohibit undocumented immigrants from attending public colleges or universities. In Arizona, voters approved a referendum in 2006 requiring undocumented students to pay out-of-state tuition at public schools. But the referendum is becoming moot as more colleges and universities there are creating their own policies that allow students to pay in-state tuition if they have applied for special status under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Many of the estimated 200,000 undocumented college students across the country believed their immigration status would be less of a barrier after the Obama administration created the program. Those who qualify under DACA can receive a renewable, two-year work permit and a Social Security number for tax and work purposes.

But expansion of the program has faced legal challenges, and House Republicans have voted to halt it. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump also has attacked the program, saying he will get rid of it if he is elected.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has said she would continue the program until Congress passes a bill creating a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.

Meanwhile, many students in the state and nation with this quasi-legal status continue to struggle.

Miri Garcia, 29, who has a work permit and Social Security number through DACA, has experienced the disparities among New Mexico schools’ policies regarding undocumented students.

Garcia and her husband moved to Albuquerque from Phoenix eight years ago. She enrolled at Central New Mexico Community College and graduated in May 2016 — after six years of classes.

The reason it took so long, she said, is that she could only attend part time without paying the higher costs of out-of-state tuition.

The community college’s policy is that undocumented students, even New Mexico residents like Garcia, must pay out-of-state tuition if they take more than six credit hours per semester, unless they’ve graduated from high school in the state or received their GED here.

Earlier this year, Garcia enrolled at Highlands’ Rio Rancho campus to continue working toward her degree. During an orientation, she met a financial aid worker and asked about her options as a DACA student.

The employee’s response surprised her, Garcia said. “She told me that I shouldn’t even be allowed to enroll at the school. … When she said that, I thought, ‘There’s not going to be any support for me here.’ ”

Later, she received an email saying she would have to pay out-of-state tuition at Highlands. University staff never gave her a reason, but she suspects it was because of her immigration status.

She appealed the decision and gave the university documentation proving she has lived in New Mexico for the past eight years. Eventually, her tuition costs were lowered.

“Even though I’m paying out of pocket, it’s still a relief,” said Garcia, the mother of two boys, ages 12 and 10.

Calzadillas and the other Highlands students are concerned that they’re not alone in the troubles they have faced at the school.

“I’m sure I’m not the only person that feels cheated out of aid,” Calzadillas said.

She said she feels added pressure to make it through Highlands because her long-term goal is to go to law school and then build a career that allows her to support her parents, who are both undocumented residents. She is particularly concerned about her aging father, who works on a farm in Kansas.

“They will not receive Medicaid or retirement or any benefits whatsoever, even though my dad has been living here for over 20 years,” Calzadillas said.

“It makes me really emotional to think he has given so much to this country, and he will get nothing in return.”

Contact Uriel Garcia at 505-986-3062 or ugarcia@sfnewmexican.com. Follow him on Twitter @ujohnnyg.