RALEIGH, N.C.
North Carolina’s community college system said last week it would continue to bar illegal immigrants from enrolling until officials can review a federal opinion that could allow it to drop the policy.
“This is an important issue for our colleges and our students, and given that authority, our State Board needs the opportunity to review and discuss these findings with the care and thoroughness they deserve,” system president R. Scott Ralls said in a written statement Friday.
The policy will be reviewed at the board’s next meeting Aug. 15, said system spokeswoman Chancy Kapp.
The decision came shortly after the Attorney General’s Office released a letter it received from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that said “individual states must decide for themselves whether or not to admit illegal aliens into their public post-secondary institutions.”
In the absence of any state policy or legislation, schools must approve their own policy and use federal immigration status standards to identify illegal immigrants, the letter said.
The debate was triggered when the community college system decided to allow illegal immigrants into all of its 58 schools, loosening a policy that had left the decision to individual schools.
