Via The College Fix comes a disturbing new first for American colleges and universities.

The Loyola Phoenix, a campus newspaper of Loyola University Chicago, reports that the university’s Stritch School of Medicine will begin accepting applications from illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.

For the first time, the Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood is accepting undocumented students as doctors-in-training. The decision, announced in June, makes Stritch the first medical school in the country to allow students to apply under President  Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals order, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Under the new DACA executive order, adopted on June 15, 2012, individuals under the age of 31 who arrived in the United States illegally at 16 years or younger are now able to apply for a work permit, social security card or other such documents while working toward becoming a legal United States citizen.

DACA is an extension of the Dream Act, passed in December 2010, that provides conditional permanent residency to some immigrants of “good moral character,” who have graduated from United States high schools and lived in the U.S. since they were minors.

Dr. Linda Brubaker, dean and chief diversity officer of the Stritch School of Medicine, says that she has been receiving inquiries about accepting undocumented students under the Dream Act for years, but it wasn’t until DACA was adopted that the school was finally able to find a way to admit them.

“We didn’t think that they’d be able to get a [medical] license and without that we thought running up the tuition bill for medical school — which is easily $200,000 plus living expenses — would be inappropriate,” Brubaker said. “So once they have that [DACA] status they are eligible for a work permit and once they have a work permit they can get a Social Security number legally. And once they have a Social Security number they can become licensed physicians in the state of Illinois,” said Brubaker…

 


 
 0 
 
 0