Since 1986 with the passage of the federal Immigration Reform & Control Act (IRCA), undocumented workers without work authorization have been barred from being able to legally work in the United States. Since then, the federal government has continued to restrict the ability of employers to hire undocumented workers including with the introduction of eligibility verification processes like E-Verify. 

In higher education, this means that undocumented students are blocked from countless opportunities that their peers with permanent residency, citizenship, or at least work authorization are able to access freely. Due to the hiring ban, undocumented students are turned away from a wide range of incredible educational opportunities, including internships, fellowships, student leadership positions in campus organizations, and graduate student research and teaching assistant positions. This harmful treatment severely limits educational experiences and professional development opportunities for these students, and ultimately forces them into second-class status within their institutions, affecting these students’ financial, physical, and emotional wellbeing, and their prospects for retention within the university. 

But it does not have to be this way. 

Working with immigration law experts at the UCLA School of Law's Center for Immigration Law & Policy (CILP), undocumented student organizers have identified that states and certain state entities are not bound by IRCA's hiring restrictions and can legally employ undocumented workers. As their analysis shows, because the University of California is an arm of the state, it faces no legal restriction on hiring undocumented workers.  This reading of the 1986 law has now been endorsed by twenty-eight of the most knowledgeable immigration law professors in the country.

Undocumented workers, including students, form the backbone of the University, providing the institution with the prestige of educating cohorts of great thinkers and innovators while the University gets to relish in its status as an immigrant-inclusive institution. As a public university system, and by their own commitments, the UC Office of the President  is responsible for the provision of equal opportunity and success for all of its community members. In denying undocumented workers access to a variety of experiences, the UC is egregiously violating its own values and mission. In doing so, the UC continues to enable the on-going marginalization of undocumented workers here in California and across the country. 

As the world’s leading public research university system, the University of California must honor its role as a national leader and support undocumented workers directly and holistically. Currently, there are countless students across the UC who are blocked from achieving their full educational and professional potential when there's no reason they should be. Read our full letter to the University of California Office of the President here, where we further detail the stories of Undocumented UC Students  affected by this issue and demand that President Drake and the UC Office of the President allow UC campuses  to hire and employ undocumented workers: https://bit.ly/Read-O4All

Sign onto the letter for your organization, department, or yourself, and tell President Drake to allow the UC to hire these students and other undocumented workers. Tell President Drake today, it's time for UC to guarantee opportunity for all.