The Wall Street Journal - 22.08.2019

A4| Thursday, August 22, 2019 PWLC101112HTGKBFAM123456789OIXX ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.**

the government from keeping

children with their parents in

immigration detention centers

for longer than 20 days.

“This new rule flies in the

face of years of clear direction

from the courts, and follows

this administration’s disturb-

ing pattern of attempting to

restrict or outright eliminate

legitimate pathways for immi-

grants to come to the United

States legally,” said Todd

Schulte, president of Fwd.us, a

pro-immigration lobbying

group.

The government must next

file a brief on the legality of

its plan with a federal court in

Los Angeles overseeing the

continuing implementation of

families to deter others from

crossing the border, though it

quickly dropped the practice

for the most part after a pub-

lic outcry. A federal judge in

San Diego also barred the

Trump administration from

carrying out a family-separa-

tion policy and ordered the

government to reunite thou-

sands of children with their

parents.

Immigration officials have

pledged since then to try to

detain families together. But

authorities have separated

more than 900 children from

their parents in the past year,

some based on claims of abuse

or gang ties, according to gov-

ernment data that the Ameri-

can Civil Liberties Union cited

in a court filing.

The administration has also

tried to deter asylum claims

by requiring many families

seeking asylum to wait in

Mexico while their requests

are adjudicated or to lodge

claims before reaching the U.S.

in countries such as Guate-

mala. Courts have allowed

those policies to go ahead for

now.

The government argues lon-

ger-term detention is neces-

sary in part because families

who are released from Cus-

toms and Border Protection or

ICE custody tend not to ap-

pear in court when they are

summoned. But according to

immigration-court statistics

analyzed by Syracuse Univer-

sity, about six in seven fami-

lies released from custody do

attend their hearings.

—Alicia A. Caldwell

and Louise Radnofsky

contributed to this article.

Trump said Wednesday.

The administration’s new

detention rules seek to bypass

a 1997 settlement known as

the Flores agreement, which

governs the treatment of im-

migrant children in govern-

ment care. A court ruling on

the settlement during the

Obama administration barred

ContinuedfromPageOne

U.S. Seeks

Indefinite

Detentions

U.S. NEWS

Arizona universities are

considering expanding access

to a special tuition rate for cer-

tain illegal immigrants, in a de-

bate that has been percolating

in this border state since 2006.

For years, undocumented

students in Arizona who are

part of the Deferred Action for

Childhood Arrivals program

and graduated from a state

high school have been able to

pay university tuition fees that

are above the in-state tuition

rate, but still lower than the

out-of-state fee.

But since President Trump

in 2017 sought to cancel the

Obama-era program that

shielded young immigrants

who came to the country ille-

gally as children from deporta-

tion, the number of DACA-en-

rolled students has dwindled.

Now, Arizona’s Board of Re-

gents, which governs the

state’s three large universities,

is set to decide Thursday on a

plan to expand the tuition pro-

gram’s eligibility requirements.

The proposed revision

would remove the requirement

for students receiving the

slightly higher tuition rate to

be part of DACA, since new

applications to the DACA pro-

gram aren’t being accepted.

The amendment would also

allow students who have

moved away from the state to

receive the special tuition rate

as long as they graduated

from an Arizona high school

and had spent at least three

years at a state high school.

“The board has a strong in-

terest in facilitating access to

higher education for all stu-

dents in Arizona, within the

limits of applicable state and

federal law,” said Board of Re-

gents’ Chairman Larry E. Pen-

ley. “Arizona has made a sig-

nificant investment in students

who attend and graduate from

Arizona high schools. This tu-

ition rate is intended to en-

courage students to return to

and remain in Arizona to con-

tinue their education and con-

tribute to Arizona.”

Currently, students who

qualify pay 50% above the in-

state tuition rate, which cov-

ers the average cost of atten-

dance, according to the Board

of Regents.

Disagreements over Ari-

zona’s higher-education tu-

ition rates date back more

than a decade. In 2006, a

voter-passed proposition made

it illegal to allow students

without lawful immigration

status to pay in-state tuition

in Arizona.

But after President Obama

established the DACA pro-

gram, schools started charging

in-state tuition for the

“Dreamers” who were Arizona

residents. In 2013, then-state

Attorney General Tom Horne

sued the Maricopa County

Community College District

over the fees, citing the 2006

referendum, and the Arizona

Supreme Court last year ruled

in the state’s favor.

Earlier this year, a bill in-

troduced in the state’s GOP-led

Legislature would have al-

lowed the Board of Regents to

set reduced tuition rates for

any student that graduated

from a high school in the

state. The bill stalled in the

House.

BYTALALANSARI

Arizona

Mulls Low

Tuition for

Migrants

North Carolina Gov. Roy

Cooper vetoed a bill that

would require sheriffs to coop-

erate with federal immigration

authorities, the latest clash

over an issue that has trig-

gered fierce debate nationally.

Under the measure, law-en-

forcement officers would be

obligated to comply with re-

quests by Immigration and

Customs Enforcement to hold

illegal immigrants subject to

deportation until agents can

pick them up. Officials who

fail to cooperate would be

subject to removal from their

positions.

The state Senate approved

the bill in June, followed by

the House on Tuesday.

Supporters of the measure

said it was needed to protect

the public, while opponents

argued it would diminish

safety by spreading fear

among immigrants and dis-

couraging them from cooper-

ating with law enforcement.

“This legislation is simply

about scoring partisan politi-

cal points and using fear to di-

vide North Carolina,” Mr. Coo-

per, a Democrat, said in his

veto message. “This bill, in ad-

dition to being unconstitu-

tional, weakens law enforce-

ment in North Carolina by

mandating sheriffs to do the

job of federal agents.”

Republican legislative lead-

ers assailed the governor’s de-

cision and accused him of sid-

ing with illegal immigrants

over the state’s citizens.

“Today we found out North

Carolina has a sanctuary gov-

ernor,” said Republican state

Rep. Destin Hall, primary

sponsor of the measure.

Sanctuary policies generally

refer to those that limit coop-

eration with federal immigra-

tion authorities, according to

the National Conference of

State Legislatures.

Tenstateshavelawspro-

hibiting sanctuary jurisdic-

tions, while 10 others and the

District of Columbia have mea-

sures supporting them, ac-

cording to the NCSL.

In June, Florida Gov. Ron

DeSantis signed into law one

of the strictest bans in the U.S.

against sanctuary cities.

The measure requires local

law-enforcement agencies to

cooperate with federal immi-

gration authorities and honor

requests to hold illegal immi-

grants.

The issue has become polit-

ically charged in North Caro-

lina. Last week, ICE arrested a

Honduran migrant in Mecklen-

burg County, home to Char-

lotte, who had previously been

arrested on rape and child-

sex-offense charges. The

agency said the Mecklenburg

County Sheriff’s Office refused

to honor an ICE request two

months earlier to hold the mi-

grant, who it said was in the

U.S. illegally, and released him.

Mecklenburg County Sheriff

Garry McFadden responded

that the migrant was released,

as required by law, after ful-

filling court-ordered condi-

tions including paying a bond.

Though the North Carolina

Sheriffs’ Association backed

the bill vetoed by Mr. Cooper,

some sheriffs, including Meck-

lenburg County’s, spoke out

against it.

BYARIANCAMPO-FLORES

Bill Requiring ICE Cooperation Is Vetoed

‘This legislation is simply about scoring partisan political points

and using fear to divide North Carolina,’ says Gov. Roy Cooper.

GERRY BROOME/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent stood next to migrants who crossed illegally into El Paso, Texas, to turn themselves in and ask for asylum late last month.

JOSE LUIS GONZALEZ/REUTERS

have argued the Flores agree-

ment’s 20-day detention limit

has driven up the number of

immigrant families traveling

together expecting to be re-

leased into the U.S. Mr. McA-

leenan said Wednesday that

475,000 immigrants traveling

as families crossed the border

illegally since the start of the

government’s fiscal year in Oc-

tober, up from 107,000 through

all of the previous fiscal year.

The Wall Street Journal has

reported that smugglers in

Guatemala offer steep dis-

counts to migrants bringing a

child, catering to the belief

there that a child is a ticket to

enter the U.S.

“People have caught on,

people know that bringing a

family is a free ticket into the

U.S.,” a senior DHS official

told reporters on Tuesday.

The DHS official also sug-

gested inaccurately that the

housing facilities the govern-

ment would use under its new

plan aren’t locked, and de-

tained migrants can leave if

they choose. The government’s

current family-detention facili-

ties are ringed by fences and

locked gates, and unarmed se-

curity officers control the en-

trances.

Last summer, the govern-

ment briefly began separating

New rules aim to

discourage Central

American families

from seeking asylum.

the Flores agreement. The

judge in question, U.S. District

Judge Dolly M. Gee, most re-

cently ordered the government

in June to drastically improve

the conditions of children in

its custody, saying among

other things that it must pro-

vide the children soap and

toothbrushes.

The current 20-day deten-

tion limit specifies that the

government may not detain

children beyond that period

unless they are housed in a

state-licensed facility. The two

largest facilities designed to

house families, both in Texas,

aren’t licensed to house chil-

dren beyond 20 days.

To circumvent that require-

ment, the new set of rules

would enable DHS to create its

own licensing system, effec-

tively allowing the govern-

ment to house families in any

of its detention facilities

through their court proceed-

ings until they are either

granted asylum, paroled into

the U.S. or deported.

Mr. Trump also said he was

once again considering an exec-

utive order to end what is

known as birthright citizenship,

the automatic right to citizen-

ship granted to anyone born in

the U.S. regardless of their par-

ents’ citizenship status.

“We are looking at that

very seriously,” Mr. Trump

said. “You walk over the bor-

der and have a baby, congratu-

lations, the baby is now a U.S.

citizen.”

Mr. Trump, who first raised

the idea last year, didn’t offer

further details, but most legal

scholars have dismissed such a

move as unconstitutional.

Birthright citizenship, widely

seen as a pillar of U.S. immi-

gration law, is protected by

the Constitution’s 14th

Amendment and unbroken Su-

preme Court precedent.

The Trump administration

has wrestled for more than a

year with a surge in families

fleeing Central America, largely

due to gang violence and eco-

nomic woes, and seeking U.S.

residency. They arrive at the

U.S. border and almost always

turn themselves in to border

agents and claim asylum rather

than attempting to sneak into

the country. The care needs of

the children have posed a par-

ticular challenge to facilities at

the border.

Mr. Trump and Republicans

Central American migrant families released from detention were

at a new humanitarian respite center in McAllen, Texas, in July.

LOREN ELLIOTT/REUTERS

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