President Trump’s State of the Union address last night featured an issue of critical importance to higher education—immigration.
The president did not explicitly mention
postsecondary education during his speech, but the long-standing issue
of Dreamers was front and center. He advocated for legal status and a
12-year pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers in exchange for
$25 billion for a border wall with Mexico and sweeping changes to
current visa programs, including limits on family reunification visas.
The good news is that the president’s
immigration proposal provides more substantial protections for Dreamers
than previously offered by the White House. The proposal goes beyond
offering legal status to just the roughly 800,000 Dreamers who had been
enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy
when the president rescinded it last September.
However, he is conditioning
the protection for Dreamers on making significant changes to the legal
immigration system, and with little opportunity for discussion. These
proposals are vigorously opposed by many Democrats, moderate
Republicans, and pro-immigration rights organizations.
But the plan may represent progress on the
specific issue of protecting Dreamers by moving the talks forward on
Capitol Hill with an explicit list from the White House. In an editorial
this weekend, The Washington Post
posited that the president’s framework “contains the elements of an
imaginable deal. Legislators who want to get to yes should seize on
those elements and start working.”
As ACE President Ted Mitchell has said, Dreamers should not be held hostage to a political face-off. A bipartisan compromise is needed.
For more information and to contact lawmakers through the Protect Dreamers Higher Education Coalition webpage, click here.