SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL

LENGTH: 557 words

HEADLINE: Immigrant students rally for in-state tuition

BYLINE: By BONNIE PFISTER, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: TRENTON N.J.

BODY:


About 200 students rallied in front of the Statehouse in Trenton Thursday in support of proposed state and federal legislation allowing some undocumented immigrant students to attend colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates.

For the third time since 2002, state Sen. Ronald Rice, D-Newark, has introduced a bill offering in-state tuition to students who have graduated from a New Jersey high school after attending for at least three years. Assemblywoman Nilsa Cruz-Perez, D-Camden, has introduced similar bills.

Rice called it unfair that children who have grown up in New Jersey would have to pay double tuition to attend the same colleges as their U.S. citizen classmates.

"They've been here all these years. If we're not going to get them out which we're not then how do we find a mechanism to make them not only an asset to themselves but to the community in which they live?"

Among those who would benefit from such a change is Marisol Conde-Hernandez, who has lived in New Jersey for all but the first 18 months of her life, when her mother smuggled her across the southern U.S. border from their native Puebla, Mexico.

Her mother broke the law, but Conde-Hernandez said she has worked hard to make positive contributions to the only home she knows. Before graduating from South Brunswick High School in 2005, Conde-Hernandez served on two honors societies one specializing in French language and was active with the HiTOPS teen leadership organization.

She said she's carrying 13 credits this semester at Middlesex County College with a 3.8 grade-point average, working 35 hours a week at a restaurant she declined to name, and hopes to one day study law at Rutgers University.

But with out-of-state tuition at almost $15,000 a year double the in-state rate the 19-year-old said that goal is out of reach.

Following several weeks of street demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters across the country, Rice said his bill might have a better chance this session.

"People are starting to understand. Nationally things are starting to happen," Rice said. "Now there's a national debate."

The stumbling block in the past has been the reluctance of Education Committee Chairwoman Sen. Shirley Turner to allow debate on the bill. In a statement Thursday, the Trenton Democrat reiterated her concern that such a New Jersey initiative could run afoul of federal immigration law.

Supporters point to the nine other states that allow some undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates. Proposed federal legislation, called the Dream Act, would enact similar changes nationwide.

However, the state laws are facing legal scrutiny, with the dismissal of a federal lawsuit in Kansas under appeal, and a state court challenge filed in California.

Not all the students showing support for the bill Thursday were undocumented immigrants.

Ricardo Medina and Andrew Porter, both U.S.-born members of Latino-based fraternity Lambda Theta Phi, came from Philadelphia's Temple University to show their support.

"There are a lot of people who are going to school who don't appreciate what they have," Medina said. "Everyone should have the opportunity to get an education."

Added Porter: "Any one of us could have been born in their situation."

On the Net:

Assembly Bill No. 245, Senate Bill No. 436: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us

LOAD-DATE: March 31, 2006