PRESIDENT ANNOUNCES IMMIGRATION REFORMS
By Leon Thompson and Miriam Raftery President Barack Obama last night announced immigration reforms, just as Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush before him took unilateral actions to expand protections for immigrants after Congress failed to act. President Obama ‘s plan will offer temporary relief from deportation to the parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for more than five years, work and pay taxes. He will also extend a program that already allows undocumented migrants brought here as children to stay in the country. The reforms are temporary, however, and could be undone by a future President and Congress. Besides offering protections for a limited number of immigrants already in the U.S., the President also announced plans to strengthen enforcement at the border and prioritize enforcement resources to focus on deporting criminals who have convicted felonies, not families or working parents of U.S. citizens. In his prime-time address to the nation the President said, “Are we a nation that tolerates the hypocrisy of a system where workers who pick our fruit and make our beds never have a chance to get right with the law? Or are we a nation that gives them a chance to make amends, take responsibility, and give their kids a better future?” Reforming immigration was always on Obama’s mind from the moment he took office. A president who believes he was elected twice to engineer change determined not to give up when Congress obstructed what many view as a mandate from voters who swept Obama into office. “Are we a nation that accepts the cruelty of ripping children from their parents’ arms? Or are we a nation that values families, and works to keep them together?” the President asked. The United States Senate passed an immigration reform bill in June 2013. It was up to John Boehner and the House of Representatives to put a new law on Obama’s desk to sign. Throughout this time Obama felt heat from immigration activists, so much so that he made statements suggesting he couldn’t fix immigration on his own. Those comments — intended to give the House space to do its work — have instead come back to haunt him and are ammunition for Republicans who say Obama knows he is breaking the law. But the White House says its legal counsel has assured that the President’s actions are legal and in fact, the President stopped short of broader actions sought by immigration reform advocates such as outright amnesty. The President elaborated on his plan: “So we’re going to offer the following deal: If you’ve been in America for more than five years; if you have children who are American citizens or legal residents; if you register, pass a criminal background check, and you’re willing to pay your fair share of taxes — you’ll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily, without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law.” For years, Republican leadership said immigration reforms would have to wait until the border was secure. But despite billions spent on beefing up border security and a major decrease in illegal immigration, Republicans in control of the Congress have refused to embrace comprehensive immigration reforms. According to CNN, a senior White House official said Thursday that the administration had concluded there was no point waiting any longer because Boehner would not promise to bring up a new bill in the new Congress. The President went on to quote the Bible. “Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger — we were strangers once, too. My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too. And whether our forebears were strangers who crossed the Atlantic, or the Pacific, or the Rio Grande, we are here only because this country welcomed them in, and taught them that to be an American is about something more than what we look like, or what our last names are, or how we worship. What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal — that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.” The President announced he would wield executive power to patch up the system as best he could, temporarily shielding up to five million people from the threat of deportation. The plan also aims to protect workers from corporations that prey on undocumented immigrations and to assure that those who are here and working hard are contributing taxes to boost the economy. Republicans wasted no time in accusing Obama of abuse of power by acting like a king rather than a president. Those accusations ignore history. The Reagan administration unilaterally acted to prevent deportation of family members of immigrants who had been granted amnesty. The first President Bush, George H.W. Bush, established a “family fairness” action to prevent deportation of family members living with an immigrant going through the legalization process. These actions kept millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. George W. Bush, by contrast, did not take actions to enact immigration reforms, leading to broad support among Latino voters for President Obama, who won his first election by a landslide on the heels of immigration marches that swept the nation. When immigration reform died in Congress this year, Obama, like Bush, asked his lawyers if he could change the system on his own. The Obama White House legal team concluded that he could. So, more than 500 days since the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill, Obama unveiled his plan to go it alone.
EDITORIAL: STUDENTS AND PARENTS CAN’T AFFORD ANY MORE UC TUITION HIKES
By Miriam Raftery, Editor University of California’s Regents just voted to hike tuitions 25% over the next five years. As a graduate of the UC system and a parent of two recent UC graduates, I have seen first-hand the negative impacts of recent tuition hikes. I fear the latest hikes will make college an impossible dream for many students and an onerous burden for many more. As a student decades ago, I was able to graduate from UC by working during the summers, with some help from my parents.My husband, whose father died young, also managed to afford a UC education with help from family and later, I worked to help put him through law school at UC Davis. Later, as parents ourselves, we saved for over 20 years to set money aside for our children’s college funds, based on what financial experts advised would be enough when they were born. But it wasn’t even close, due to the staggering tuition increases at the UC campuses that have already occurred in recent years. Our piggy bank, so to speak, was soon empty. Our oldest son had to work a part-time job throughout his school years and thankfully qualified for some scholarships to complete his education at UC Berkeley. By the time our daughter went to UC San Diego, tuitions were so high that she had to work multiple jobs and take six years to complete her higher education, taking the minimum number of units each semester and also going back to community college to complete some courses that were cheaper. She’s now in grad school and will graduate saddled with debt. Tuition hikes came on top of unjustifiable increases in other college costs. It’s now more expensive to live on campus than to rent an apartment off campus. Back in my era, off campus living was the most affordable option. It should not be a money machine for the campus, but rather a way to assure access even for students of limited means. Similarly text book prices have skyrocketed, with some costing several hundred dollars apiece. At the same time we’ve seen elegant new buildings built on campus and executives receiving generous raises. Those are luxuries that should not come on the backs of students. Meanwhile student debt has skyrocketed, with the average college graduate taking years to pay off debts that in some cases as high as our parents’ generation owed for mortgages on their first homes. That’s partly due to soaring college costs and partly to jacked up interest rates that in some cases sound more like loan-sharking than low-cost college loan rates. This is a shameful situation. Moreover, many recent grads have not even found jobs in their fields due to a struggling economy, further dimming their future prospects of getting out of debt. The high cost of college may discourage many of our best and brightest students from even seeking a university education, forcing some to settle for low-wage jobs, trade schools or the military instead as their only options. The state, too, bears some burden for reducing its investment in higher education over the years – in particularly conservatives in the Legislature who have overall been downright miserly when it comes to investing in our children’s future, and liberals who approved generous pension deals without planning how to pay for them. Taxpayer revolts over the years also forced cuts in government spending but at a high cost for students. Taxpayers did approve Prop 30 to increase funding for education—and the Governor should assure that the UC system receives its full fair share of that pie. Some nations in the world provide free university education for all deserving students. Many others seek to make it as affordable as they can. Here in the U.S., California once led the nation in high quality and affordable college and university education. But now the UC system is becoming a haven for the wealthy, not an institution with doors open to all who pass academic muster. Some leaders such as Speaker Toni Atkins are now speaking out, seeking to boost funding to the UC system and see tuitions rolled back to once again restore affordable higher education for California students. That deserves an “A” for effort, but whether she can win passage and force the Regents to not simply take the money and keep jacking up tuitions remains to be seen. Our state and the UC Regents should stop balancing their budgets on the backs of already overburdened students and work to improve college affordability. To do otherwise amounts to a failing grade for those charged with assuring access to our UC system for the students of California.
UC REGENTS APPROVE 25% TUITION HIKE OVER 5 YEARS UNLESS STATE BOOSTS FUNDING
By Miriam Raftery November 21, 2014 (San Francisco)—Ignoring protests from students, opposition from the Governor and legislative leaders, University of California’s Board of Regents voted Thursday to approve Tuition hikes. The increase will be 5 percent a year over the next five years – 25 percent total—at all UC campuses . For the 2015-2016 school year, tuition will be $12,804 and by 2019, students will be forced to pay $15,000 a year in tuition. Some Regents indicated that if that state increases funding, they would vote to reduce tuitions. Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) has pledged to introduce a measure to boost funding for the UC system. She had urged the Regents to reject any tuition or fee hikes. Atkins, an ex-officio Regent with voting rights, called the fee hikes “unacceptable” adding, “California students and their families have faced too many fee increases already.” Atkins wants to provide an extra $50 million in funding from the state’s general fund and adopt pension reforms for new employees. Her proposal would cut fees for middle income families by over 20 percent and increase tuition on out-of-state students by$5,000, also capping enrolling on out-of-state students to the current levels and increasing by 10,000 the number of California students who would be admitted. In addition, she would also impose limits on pay raises for UC executives. Regent Sherry Lansing said she was “saddened” to vote for the tuition hike and blasted the state for giving the UC system less money from Prop 30 than was expected, despite strong support for the measure from students, alumni and faculty members. UC President Janet Napolitano said that the tuition increases are needed to help with employee pay and pensions, hire more faculty and raise the number of California undergraduates by 5,000 over five years. The opposing votes were cast by Gov. Jerry Brown, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, State Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, student regent Sadia Saifuddin and two new regents appointed by Brown earlier this week, former Assembly Speaker John Perez and Long Beach City College President Eloy Ortiz Oakley, the Los Angeles Times reports. As Regents convened to vote, students gathered outside chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, tuition hikes have got to go.” A protest a day earlier at UC San Francisco became confrontational, with students engaged in pushing matches with police and a window broken. At UCLA, a planned bonfire before a football game was cancelled due to concerns over protests. On Tuesday, a peaceful protest was held at the UC San Diego campus, drawing about 400 protesters in what UC professor Jorge Mariscal called “a beautiful day for a student uprising.”