SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California lawmakers on Monday passed the nation’s first legislation requiring public universities to hire undocumented students without work permits, sending Gov. Gavin Newsom a politically risky proposal during an election year.
David Alvarez, a San Diego Democrat, filed Assembly Bill 2586 in February in response to the University of California’s decision to reject a similar proposal. The UC cited legal risks to the system and its students, but was also privately pressured by the Biden administration not to pursue the idea during his re-election campaign, in which border security was a major vulnerability.
“We’re going to help students who are struggling every day to stay afloat financially while they get their degree. That’s really life-changing,” Alvarez said Monday in the Assembly.
The legislation would apply to the nation’s largest four-year university system, the 23-campus California State University, and the nation’s largest higher education system, the California Community Colleges. There is still debate over whether it would apply to the UC, which has constitutional autonomy from the legislature.
Newsom, a top Biden surrogate before the president dropped his reelection bid, appointed many of the UC administrators who refused to test federal law in January by hiring students without work permits. He has not yet taken a position on the legislation.
California officials this year have again pushed for expanded access to government programs and services for undocumented immigrants, including government-subsidized mortgages, despite some Democrats nationally shifting to the right on immigration.
Universities would have to begin hiring the students, many of whom have been ineligible for jobs in the U.S. since the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was frozen, by Jan. 6, 2025.
The UC has not formally opposed the idea, but has argued in legislative hearings and briefs that the law could make both students and university employers criminally liable for participating in an illegal labor arrangement. A campaign led by student activists and law professors at the UC and elsewhere counters that the federal law banning the hiring of undocumented workers does not apply to state government employers, such as universities.
Newsom has until the end of September to decide on the bill.
