Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Arthur Anderson ruled on Tuesday that undocumented youths who came to the United States as children, known as DREAMERs are eligible to pay the same in-state tuition as other Arizona resident student at state schools. Anderson found that it is the federal government that determines who, and who is not, in the United States legally.
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office argued that that those accepted into the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program are in the country legally. DACA currently allows undocumented youths to apply for work permits. It does not currently grant DREAMERs citizenship.
Anderson ruled: “The state cannot establish subcategories of ‘lawful presence,’ picking and choosing when it will consider DACA recipients lawfully present and when it will not.”
Anderson found that illegal youth who have employment authorization documents, have an “appropriate documentation of lawful presence.”