US citizen denied scholarship due to mother’s immigration status

Фото: Depositphotos

Natalia Villalobos is a US citizen who was born and raised in the District of Columbia.

After graduating from school in 2015, she planned to go to college, study business and child development, and then open a kindergarten, writes The Washington Post.

In order to be able to pay for her studies at Montgomery College, she applied for a city educational grant and was refused because her mother is not a US citizen and does not have a permanent residency in the country.

According to her, she can not pay for college without financial assistance, now the girl filed a lawsuit that the conditions of the program violate his civil rights.

The lawsuit alleges that the program’s rules prohibit it from accessing thousands of dollars of state aid, which is available to most of her classmates. This assistance would allow her to go to college, that is, the program indirectly prevents her from getting a higher education.

Lawyers also argue that the principle of equality of US citizens, who, regardless of the status of their parents, must have equal rights is at stake. Similar claims have also been registered in Florida, South Carolina, Georgia and New Jersey, in which US citizens with illegal parents are fighting for equal access to government student assistance programs.

In the Villalobos case, a mother who fled war and violence in her native El Salvador was initially granted temporary asylum status in the United States, working legally and paying taxes for two decades, but this was not enough for her child to receive educational assistance, given that that her daughter is a US citizen.

Congress created a student assistance program in 1999, for which one student can be allocated up to $ 10 thousand per year to cover education expenses.

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