All immigrants in same bind

Yonari Guzman is the kind of high achiever that most any college or university would want as a student.

The 17-year-old Bonanza High School senior quit her basketball team to sign up for the Community College of Southern Nevada's Nursing Assistant Program, for which she got a scholarship.

She works as a secretary at the college, volunteers at a nursing home and is doing all she can to become a nurse.

That's all while maintaining a 3.4 grade-point average.

But Guzman faces a problem that could make it more difficult to reach her goal: Although she is in the United States legally, she isn't a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident.

If a bill passed by the state Senate this week is approved by the Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Jim Gibbons, she won't be able to get a price break on CCSN tuition or receive a Millennium Scholarship.

Senate Bill 415, which would deny the Millennium Scholarship and in-state tuition breaks to illegal immigrants, would also deny those benefits to some legal residents like Guzman.

Guzman moved to the United States eight years ago from El Salvador. She holds temporary protective status here because of two large earthquakes in her home country.

She lives here legally, is fluent in Spanish and English, and has applied for permanent residency, which her father has already obtained for himself. She faces an eight-year wait to become a permanent resident, and even more time to become a U.S. citizen.

Because of her legal status, she's not eligible for federal student aid, immigration attorney Vicenta Montoya said.

But she meets all of the requirements to receive the Millennium Scholarship and in-state tuition. Even though she can get help from her parents, losing in-state tuition would set her back considerably.

"I looked at how much the difference is, and it's thousands of dollars," Guzman said. "It would have a big effect. It would take me a while longer to graduate" from college.

Montoya is high on Guzman. "She's the kind of student that universities and colleges want to attract," she said.

Montoya is critical of the intent of the legislation that could affect more legal residents like Guzman.

"They (legislators) think this is the Band-Aid that's going to take care of the immigration problem. It's not," she said.

Sen. Joe Heck, R-Henderson, who introduced SB415, said he was merely bringing Nevada into compliance with a part of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

The federal act requires states to provide critical medical services to illegal immigrants, but not nonessential state services like higher education benefits, professional licenses and unemployment benefits.

Legal "nonimmigrants," like Guzman, and other people who live in the United States temporarily also are excluded from those benefits.

However, the act allows the states to make their own decisions on offering state benefits to illegal immigrants and nonimmigrants.

Ten states have adopted provisions that allow illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition, according to the National Council of State Legislatures.

Illegal immigrants in Utah, for example, can receive in-state tuition by filing an application to legalize their immigration status or promising to do so.

Such a requirement is contained in another immigration Millennium Scholarship bill being considered in Nevada, Senate Bill 52, which was approved by the Senate this week.

Heck said that those 10 states are violating the intent of the 1996 law and that lawsuits are pending against three of them.

"There is certainly a debate over that," Dirk Hegen, policy associate with the National Council of State Legislatures, said of the federal law. "It is a bit of thin ice."

Heck said the issue came down to whether illegal immigrants should receive "taxpayer-funded benefits."

"It's unfortunate if there's people caught in the middle if the federal government hasn't looked at those other worker statuses," Heck said of Guzman's situation.

Higher education system Vice Chancellor Jane Nichols told legislators that about 447 illegal immigrants attend Nevada colleges and universities, of which 94 receive Millennium Scholarships. But she said those are rough estimates.

"We don't know that there are that many," she said.

The Board of Regents opposes any changes to the Millennium Scholarship, she said.

Nichols said questions have been raised about how the state would enforce SB415. The secretary of state, which awards the Millennium Scholarship, would handle checking scholarship eligibility for students.

For in-state tuition benefits, she said, the higher education system hasn't determined how they would enforce the bill.

Arizona passed a bill last year to restrict similar state benefits. Nichols said officials there are having difficulties enforcing it.

Like other college requirement changes that come up, Nichols said, SB415 would demand additional administrative duties at the colleges.

"But more importantly," she said, "it's an additional hurdle for our students for going to college in a state where it's already a struggle to get students to go to college."