One question more
Here’s a pathetic story that wouldn’t have appeared in a newspaper not too many years ago. Karina De La Cruz is an illegal immigrant from San Pedro who got into UCLA. (She’s evidently not living “in the shadows.”) She rides the bus four hours to her classes, we are told by the LA Times:
De La Cruz faces fairy tale odds. She’s an illegal immigrant, so she isn’t eligible for most forms of state and federal financial aid. The University of California system, by policy, does not require applicants to disclose their citizenship status: Officials say their goal is to find the best students, not to enforce immigration law. UCLA officials say they aren’t even sure how many undocumented students are on their campus.
The 18-year-old De La Cruz graduated barely in the top 20% of her San Pedro Highclass and is competing against students with much higher GPAs and test scores. She probably doesn’t have enough money to finish her first year of classes.
She has almost no safety net: She doesn’t know her father, and her mother, who lives across the street, didn’t get up to wish her good luck. She met a few people during orientation but doesn’t have anyone she would consider a friend.
UCLA officials acknowledge that some freshmen are admitted for reasons other than their grades and test scores, that some students come from dramatically different backgrounds than many of their peers but show academic promise…
The average UCLA freshman boasted a 4.22 GPA in 10th and 11th grades, according to the most recent data posted by the school, and De La Cruz had a 3.365 at San Pedro High when she applied. She got a 21 out of a possible 36 on the ACT college admissions exam, ranking her in the 48th percentile in California. She scored 380 out of a possible 800 on an SAT subject test, putting her in the third percentile nationwide. But on March 8, De La Cruz opened an e-mail from UCLA, and a congratulatory banner popped up…
Her friends urged her to think carefully. How about another school, like Cal State Long Beach? She’d been admitted and it would be cheaper and closer, they said, not mentioning that she would be less likely to fail there.
It would appear that De La Cruz’s friends have more common sense than the girl, her family, and the entire admissions committee and administration of UCLA. We have all the usual questions about a situation and an article like this, but this one comes to mind especially: whom did UCLA reject for admission in order to make this mistake?
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:53 am
One further question: since they have her name, her school, and presumably her San Pedro neighborhood, why doesn’t ICE pick her and her family up and escort her back to where she would be illegal?
In all the rush to give the government more power to run our economy, why does no one notice that much of the government’s current job goes undone?
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
Sorry, “would NOT be illegal.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:06 am
Is anyone else beginning to be confused about what laws are optional? So far I’ve got immigration, and income taxes if you happen to be a Democrat and a politician.