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UC pushed to break legal ground by hiring immigrant students without work permits

November 5, 2022
Credit: By Los Angeles Times
Students rally in downtown Los Angeles in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows certain young people without legal status to receive work permits, at a 2019 demonstration.(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

The University of California is considering a proposal to break legal ground by hiring immigrant students without work authorization in what would be a test of federal law that could dramatically alter tens of thousands of young lives.

A coalition of UC students and scholars across the nation are urging the UC system to challenge a 1986 federal law barring the hiring of immigrants without legal status by asserting a novel legal argument that it does not apply to states. California is home to 1 in 5 of the nation’s college students without legal authorization.

Such students were given a lifeline under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — better known as DACA — which granted work permits and protection from deportation to certain youth who were brought to the United States as children and are in the country without legal status. <Follow Link for More>