GOP Drops Plan to Deny Aid to Immigrant Students

After protests from colleges and universities, congressional Republicans have backed off a plan to deny higher-education aid to legal immigrants, a published report says.

GOP welfare legislation would limit, and in some cases deny, the right of legal immigrants to receive most kinds of federal aid, including food stamps, Medicaid and short-term child welfare.

But after protests from campuses that education is not welfare, a House-Senate conference committee decided last week to drop the proposed ban on immigrants’ receiving Pell grants, which provide aid to college students, the New York Times reported Sunday.

Much of the pressure came from colleges and universities in states with large numbers of immigrants, especially California, Florida and New York, because they feared that the limits would cost them students.

“Education is a fundamental tool of being successful, and everyone should have equal access to it,” said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-Fla.).

The conference members decided instead to require that a citizen co-sign immigrants’ federal college loans, the paper said.

Still included in the welfare legislation, however, is a plan to limit access to the Head Start preschool program for the youngest legal immigrants.

The conferees agreed that legal immigrants could take part in Head Start but that their access should be restricted by counting not only their parents’ income but also the income of whomever sponsored them as immigrants, in determining whether they are poor enough to be eligible.

President Clinton’s aides have said he will veto the welfare bill because of other aspects, including reductions in spending for child nutrition and aid to the disabled.