After the state legislature failed to grant illegal immigrants in-state tuition in last spring's session, Delegate Victor Ramirez (D-Prince George's) defended the proposal in a speech on the campus yesterday.
Ramirez is the co-sponsor of a bill that grants students who have spent two years in Maryland high schools in-state tuition regardless of immigration status. The bill passed the House of Delegates in March but was stalled in a Senate subcommittee as the legislative session drew to a close.
"A lot of the time you've got mothers and fathers whose kids were born in the U.S.," Ramirez said yesterday. "We have to help these kids."
Ramirez's speech, titled "State Options for Immigration Absent Federal Action" was part of the Academy Talks series hosted by the campus-based James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership. The speech was held in the Lucille Maurer Leadership Library in Taliaferro Hall. Ramirez represents the House of Delegates' 47th District, which includes areas south and west of the university. The delegate was born in El Salvador, came to the United States when he was 5 and has lived in Prince George's County ever since.
State immigration laws are becoming part of the national debate, Ramirez said.
"We're not even talking illegal immigration," he said. "We're talking state issues like university tuition, residency and sanctuary states and cities."
As the "white elephant in the room," the widespread presence of undocumented immigrants is becoming hard to avoid, Ramirez said.
"Undocumented immigrants live in our neighborhoods, ride the buses with us and go to school with us," Ramirez said. He cited census figures that said there were 12 million illegal and undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
Illegal immigrants have also done their duty in serving their country, Ramirez said.
"We have kids fighting in the war [in Iraq] that aren't documented," he said. "One of the first casualties in Iraq was an undocumented immigrant who came to California when he was young and went to high school there. He's probably not the last one."
About 30 people were in the audience, said Tyrone A. Stewart, program coordinator for the Rawlings Undergraduate Leadership Fellows Program.
Sophomore general business major and Rawlings Undergraduate Fellow John Nash said Ramirez was a "good speaker."
"He was informative and showed a lot of practical emotion," Nash said. "He didn't beat around the bush and was real down-to-earth."
newsdesk@dbk.umd.edu
Be the first to comment on this article!
Log in to be able to post comments.