UC says federal law prevents it from hiring undocumented students. A lawsuit seeks to change that

Members of the coalition that’s been pushing to get the University of California to hire its undocumented students for campus jobs are now suing the university system, days after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have made such employment a reality.

The suit, filed Tuesday in the California Court of Appeals, argues that as a state agency, the UC has the legal authority to hire undocumented students. That legal theory builds on the argument legal scholars at UCLA debuted two years ago that said the long held view that no U.S. employer can hire undocumented immigrants due to a 1986 federal law doesn’t apply to state employers. The suit says UC’s policy is “discriminatory” and is asking the court to order UC to comply with state law, which would mean granting undocumented students the ability to work. The legal team behind the suit is asking the court to make a ruling by Nov. 30 — the due date for UC admissions applications. The UC Board of Regents considered the advocates’ legal theory for several months before rejecting the idea to make it system policy in January. A majority of regents were persuaded by UC President Michael Drake’s arguments that hiring undocumented students could expose campus employers to civil or criminal litigation and put at risk the billions of dollars in federal contracts the system receives.

“The University of California has not been served with the filing,” wrote UC spokesperson Ryan King, in an email Tuesday evening. “When we are served, we will respond as appropriate.”

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Without the ability to work, undocumented students struggle to raise the money needed to afford the full cost of their education, including housing. While undocumented students are eligible for state grants and tuition waivers, they’re barred from accessing federal grants and loans. That pushes many undocumented students to find jobs under the table or in unsafe conditions, students and advocates have said. Students who rallied for the idea then paired with Assemblymember David Alvarez, a Democrat from Chula Vista, to create a state law that would allow all undocumented students attending a public college or university to be employed at their campuses. The Legislature passed the bill — Assembly Bill 2586 — but Newsom struck it down, echoing the UC’s concerns. State Senate staffers for the judiciary committee said the legal arguments in favor of the bill were sound, largely swatting down UC’s worries. Newsom also wrote in his veto message that the courts should weigh in on the matter before California adopts such a policy. “So today, two brave leaders have taken up the governor’s invitation,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. He’s a UCLA legal scholar, one of the architects of the legal theory and also a lawyer for the petitioners in the case — a former UCLA student and a UCLA lecturer. The suit argues that the UC is violating state law on fair employment by not hiring undocumented students. The basis for that argument is that the UC is not interpreting federal employment law in the way Arulanantham and some of the nation’s top legal minds on immigration have put forward. The suit only applies to the UC, not the other public colleges and universities in California.

The basis for the legal theory is this: Because the federal 1986 immigration law does not specifically say that state employers are subject to the law, then they’re not bound by the law. “No court has ever interpreted (the 1986 federal law) the way the regents do,” said Jessica Bansal, legal director of Organized Power in Numbers, a worker legal advocacy group. She’s a lawyer representing the petitioners. “To the contrary, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that federal laws regulating hiring do not apply to state employers unless they clearly and unambiguously say they do.” It’s possible Newsom vetoed the bill because immigration is a top — and contentious — campaign issue. Vetoing this and other bills gives fellow Democrat and nominee for president Kamala Harris cover against GOP attacks, some have argued. The former student suing the UC, Jeffry Umaña Muñoz, said at the press conference that he was “forced to have a lesser educational experience than many of my peers.” He was a student leader in advocating for the change in policy last year and this. Munoz graduated from UCLA this year and is now a master’s student at Cal State Los Angeles.

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This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.