An Arlington-based nonprofit that intervened in Virginia’s federal court case over in-state tuition for undocumented students is now awaiting a judge’s decision.
The Dream Project is watching the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia after a joint agreement challenging Virginia’s law was invalidated last Friday, Zuraya Tapia-Hadley, the nonprofit’s CEO and an Arlington School Board member, told ARLnow.
The U.S. Justice Department targeted the state law, which allows undocumented immigrants to receive in-state tuition, on Dec. 29. A day later, Virginia’s then-Attorney General Miyares (R) joined the DOJ in seeking to have the court declare the Virginia Dream Act of 2020 invalid and prevent it from being enforced.
Miyares made a joint agreement with the DOJ in a bid to invalidate the law before leaving office. However, new Attorney General Jay Jones (D) filed a motion to withdraw from the agreement as one of his first actions.
The Legal Aid Justice Center and ACLU of Virginia had filed a motion to intervene on behalf of the Dream Project in support of the Virginia Dream Act. But now that the joint agreement between DOJ and Virginia has been invalidated, so has the motion to intervene.
“We no longer need to be a party to that suit, so that’s why our motion to intervene was denied,” Tapia-Hadley said. “Which is actually a very good thing, because at least now there is someone defending the law at the state level.”
Tapia-Hadley said the case’s timeline moving forward is unclear.
According to court documents, a federal judge will hear from Virginia and the DOJ during a pre-trial conference on March 18. Depending on how the case proceeds, the Dream Project could file an amicus brief in support of the Virginia Dream Act.
The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case’s status.
Tapia-Hadley said the Dream Project intervened in the case to ensure the in-state tuition guideline wouldn’t immediately end. That was what happened in Texas, where there was no challenge to the federal challenge against in-state tuition rates for undocumented immigrants.
“We wanted to ensure that the judge understood that there’s certainly a community who would be severely harmed by this, including us in our organization, our very mission statement,” Tapia-Hadley said. “Our mission would have been jeopardized, and so we wanted to step in to protect our kids.”
The Dream Project was founded 15 years ago by Emma Violand-Sanchez, an Arlington Public Schools teacher and later School Board member, and parents. The nonprofit started with small fundraisers to fund scholarships for disadvantaged students. Today, it has awarded $2.6 million in scholarships to over 300 undocumented and other immigrant students who live in Virginia.
Many scholarship recipients come from Northern Virginia localities like Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax County, Loudoun County and Falls Church. Along with providing scholarships, the Dream Project coaches students on the college application process and has a mentoring program with career counseling.
“We’re giving away on a yearly basis about 100 scholarships with a value of $4,500 each scholarship,” Tapia-Hadley says. “So basically, [it is] most of the tuition for community college or a big support for someone going to a four-year institution anywhere in the country.”
The Dream Project was one of the organizations that had worked with state legislators to pass the Virginia Dream Act in 2020. According to Tapia-Hadley, 87 percent of the Dream Project’s scholars rely on in-state tuition rates to afford attending college in Virginia.
Undocumented students are not eligible for federal student loans but can apply for state financial aid through the Virginia Alternative State Aid process.
With the Virginia Dream Act court case in progress, in-state tuition rates remain in place for immigrant students. Tapia-Hadley says the in-state tuition rates are based on whether the students attended a Virginia high school. Federal law requires K-12 enrollment to be open to all students regardless of immigration status.
“This is not a taxpayer-subsidized program for undocumented individuals,” Tapia-Hadley said. “It is a program paid for by their own taxes, by people who have a tax ID number or Social Security number and have paid taxes into the state of Virginia and have graduated from a Virginia high school and met a number of other residency requirements according to educational law.”
