Immigration Reform 2013: No Flip-Flop On In-State Tuition For Young Undocumented, Says NJ Gov. Chris Christie

About three weeks before New Jersey's gubernatorial elections, Gov. Chris Christie came out in support of in-state tuition to state colleges and universities for young undocumented immigrants who went to high school there. On Nov. 5th, the governor won with 60 percent of the state's voters, including over half of Latinos. But when the state Senate passed a bill later in November which would extend that right to in-state tuition to undocumented students, Christie said he would veto it unless certain features of it were amended. "The bill is the bill that's been sitting there since June," state Senate president Stephen Sweeney told NorthJersey.com, saying Christie was "looking for excuses to back out of supporting a bill that he supported during the campaign."

At a Statehouse news conference on Monday, Christie defended himself against accusations that he had flip-flipped on the issue in order to shore up extra votes. "I didn't support any particular piece of legislation, and I still support tuition equality," he said, according to the Washington Post. "Here's what I don't support: I don't support tuition aid grants in addition to in-state tuition rates; never said that I did, and don't as we stand here today." According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, in addition to opposing expanded access for undocumented students for financial aid from the state, Christie listed two other objections: first, that a provision in the state Senate's bill which would allow boarding school students who live in neighboring states to pay in-state tuition as well as to the bill's lack of restrictions on students who immigrate illegally to the United States in the future.

The governor said the bill should limit the right to in-state tuition to students who arrived in the United States by 2012, pointing to the cutoff date which is part of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program signed by President Barack Obama in June 2012 which offers a reprieve from deportation and work authorization for young undocumented immigrants. "I am not for an open-ended commitment not even the president of the United States was willing to grant," Christie said, adding that he would sign the bill if lawmakers in the state Senate and Assembly amended it to address those concerns.