A bill working its way through the California Legislature seeks to allow any undocumented student at a public college or university to work an on-campus job, even without a work permit.
Undocumented students granted DACA status, an Obama-era program that offers eligible individuals a temporary reprieve from deportation, are given temporary work permits that they can use to apply to jobs.
However, the Department of Homeland Security, which reviews and approves DACA applications, stopped processing new applications in 2017 after former President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded the program. Now, only renewal requests are approved, which means that students who don’t already have temporary work permits through DACA are out of luck when it comes to working on campus; federal law prohibits undocumented people from being hired.
That would change under legislation introduced by Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, which would prohibit UC and Cal State schools as well as community colleges “from disqualifying a student from being hired for an employment position due to their failure to provide proof of federal work authorization,” unless that proof is explicitly required by federal law, such as in federal work-study jobs.
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The idea behind the legislation is that public colleges and universities in California should be exempt from the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act passed by Congress in 1986 that bars employers from knowingly hiring undocumented workers.
Some scholars, lawmakers and organizations, including Alvarez and the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy, argue that the prohibition on hiring undocumented people does not apply to state government entities, including public colleges and universities.
“When Congress passed IRCA, Congress did not curtail states’ historic power to determine the employment qualifications of state employees,” faculty co-directors of the UCLA Center for Immigration Law and Policy wrote in 2022 in a memo signed by faculty from several law schools across the country.
If Alvarez’s legislation is successful, each of the 10 UC schools, 23 Cal State universities and 116 community colleges will be required to implement the law by Jan. 6, 2025.
Approximately 45,000 undocumented students in California cannot apply for student employment opportunities due to their status, according to Alvarez.
“America has always promised that if you work hard, you will have the opportunity to succeed,” he said. “These students have fulfilled their obligation and are ready to be our future teachers, scientists, doctors and public servants. This bill will provide them with the opportunity to work.”
Dubbed the “Opportunity For All Act,” the legislation — co-authored by Assemblymembers Avelino Valencia, D-Anaheim; Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton; and Blanca Pacheco, D-Downey — comes after the UC Board of Regents in January voted to delay hiring undocumented students for on-campus jobs.
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In a statement following the vote, UC President Michael Drake said after several months of consulting numerous law firms and legal experts, the board concluded that “the proposed legal pathway” of allowing undocumented students to work on-campus jobs is not “viable at this time.”
Some of the concerns the UC system has regarding the legislation include the potential exposure of undocumented students and their families to criminal prosecution or deportation. The system is also concerned about civil fines and criminal penalties if the institution is found to be in violation of IRCA, according to the Assembly’s analysis of the bill.
The Assembly Appropriations Committee predicted that UC and CSU may have to foot a one-time cost in the mid-hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement the law, cover potential litigation costs and sustain significant losses of federal funding. It could cost community colleges up to $2.4 million statewide.
The bill recently cleared a key bill deadline — passing the house where it was introduced — and is awaiting action in the Senate.
