Educating Minnesota's immigrant students

This report supports educating all students, whether they are citizens, legal or illegal immigrants. This is the way it should be. - - Donna Poisl

By Mary Turck, TC Daily Planet

“Immigrant students have been at the center of a political firestorm,” says the Citizens League report Educating Minnesota’s Immigrant Students. At a panel presentation of the report on February 27, study committee member Matt Musel said that they found “little data, but lots of politics and passion” surrounding the issue of immigrant students. The Citizens League is a non-partisan, citizen-based and multi-issue organization working to shape public policy in Minnesota since the 1950s.

In this report, the Citizen’s League strongly supports education and higher education for Minnesota’s young immigrants, regardless of their immigration status. Unsurprisingly, a strong dissent argues against education for undocumented immigrant youth.

Minnesota’s immigrant youth include both documented and undocumented students. A heated debate over whether and how to educate undocumented youth has raged for years, often focusing on proposals for state and federal DREAM act legislation, which would allow undocumented youth to pay resident tuition while attending college (state legislation) or to become permanent residents and citizens (federal legislation.)
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