MIAMI — Young immigrants called on Florida Republican lawmakers to not repeal a decade-old law that has allowed thousands of undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates for higher education in state colleges and universities.

At a press conference on Tuesday in front of the Miami-Dade School Board building in downtown Miami, several South Floridians directly pleaded with Gov. Ron DeSantis and Tallahassee legislators to keep the policy in place.

Idalia Quinteros, a first-generation immigrant from El Salvador, said that when she started applying for college, “it felt like every single door was slammed in my face.” She couldn’t apply for financial aid, qualify for most scholarships, take out loans, or get a job without a work permit.

“The light at the end of the tunnel was the in-state tuition waiver. It made college more affordable and gave me the opportunity to pursue my dreams,” said Quinteros, who now has an associate’s and a bachelor’s degree.

The bipartisan measure, signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott in 2014, adjusted residency requirements for higher-education purposes so that having access to in-state tuition rates was no longer tied to immigration status.

Educators, activists, and community leaders fear that if the policy is repealed thousands of undocumented youth in Florida will no longer be able to afford going to college. About 13,000 undocumented seniors graduate high school in the state annually, according to the President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a university leaders’ group that advocates for immigrant students and conducts research on the effect of immigration policies on universities. There are also over 43,000 undocumented college students in Florida.

Demands to keep the in-state tuition policy come after Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed state lawmakers in recent weeks to repeal it. Republican legislative leaders have drawn up their own immigration proposal, which DeSantis has criticized, but it includes a provision that would eliminate in-state tuition for undocumented students.

Under the current law, undocumented students in Florida can get a waiver and pay Florida-resident tuition fees at public and state colleges as long as they meet certain requirements. They must have gone to high school in the state for at least three consecutive years and enrolled in college within two years of high school graduation. The 2014 legislation also benefited the children of veterans, students without reliable housing or living in abusive households, and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the immigration program that lets some undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children to work..

Florida Lieut. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez, who advocated for the law a decade ago as a state representative, recently said she no longer supports the policy, saying that the U.S. looks “very different today than it did then.”

“It’s time to repeal this law. It has served its purpose and run its course. Florida will not incentivize illegal immigration through this law or any other,” she said on her X account.

Advocates disagree.

“What has not changed is that children still need affordable education … What’s sad is that they are attacking kids,” said immigration advocate Yareliz Mendez Zamora. Florida Student Power Network, American Friends Service Committee, Seeds of Resistance, and other activist organizations hosted the press conference.

Gaby Pacheco, a Miami immigration advocate that leads TheDream.US, the nation’s largest college aid program for undocumented youth, said that the waiver had enabled more than 600 scholarship recipients from their programs to go to college.

“Cutting off Dreamers’ opportunities to pursue and afford higher education is not only harmful to their future success, but shortsighted and harmful to Florida’s overall future and potential economic growth,” said Pacheco, who came to the U.S. as a child.

Valeria Maldonado, 20, a nursing student at Miami-Dade College who came to the U.S. from El Salvador as a toddler, said that her focus had always been school because of her desire to pursue a career and help her family.

“I am here to ask not only Ron DeSantis but all our representatives across the state to make a real change, and not to hinder my growth, or create more challenges for me to become a professional in the medical field,” said Maldonado. “ I do not want to drop out and nor do my peers.”

Miami Herald staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this story.

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