After Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have allowed undocumented students to be hired on public universities, a legal effort has been launched to force open this doorway.
On Tuesday, a UCLA alumnus and a lecturer filed a lawsuit accusing the University of California system of discriminating against students based on their immigration status. They are seeking a court order requiring the system to consider undocumented students for on-campus jobs.
“As an undocumented undergraduate student at the University of California, I experienced firsthand the pain and difficulty of being denied the right to on-campus employment,” said petitioner and UCLA alumnus Jeffry Umaña Muñoz on Tuesday. “Losing these opportunities forced me to extremely precarious and dangerous living situations, always moments from housing and food insecurity.”
The suit argues that federal law barring the hiring of undocumented people does not apply to public universities. A UC spokesperson said on Tuesday afternoon that the university system had yet to be served with the filing but will respond as appropriate when served.