Undocumented student advocates sue UC over hiring ban – CalMatters

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 today 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.

via calmatters.org

This wouldn’t be a problem if California were its own country. But then it would have other problems.