University of California Delays Undocumented Worker Hiring Plan

University of California regents will miss a self-imposed Nov. 30 deadline to issue a plan for hiring undocumented students at the university system’s 10 campuses.

Discussions about the topic have shown the working group studying the matter “how complex and delicate this issue is,” UC President Michael Drake said Thursday.

The regents launched the working group in May in response to a campaign by student organizers calling for the UC System to hire undocumented workers. That campaign was backed by a novel legal argument that a 1986 law prohibiting employers from hiring undocumented immigrants doesn’t apply to state government entities like universities.

The working group had planned to release a hiring plan by the end of the month. However, Drake said at Thursday’s board of regents meeting that the legal considerations were numerous and “we’ve concluded that it is in everyone’s best interest to study the matter further.”

That announcement came after student organizers briefly shut down the regents meeting and refused to leave until they were allowed to speak on the issue. Jeffry Umaña Muñoz, an undergraduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles and organizer with the campaign, said students were deeply disappointed by the lack of progress from the UC system leadership.

“Anything other than full, swift implementation is a delay tactic, and we will not accept it. We hope the Regents will work with us to reach a plan that works for us all,” he said in a statement Thursday. “In the meantime, we will not stop advocating and organizing until we get our first check.”

Drake, himself a member of the working group, emphasized the need for caution.

“We want to make sure that we are considering all possible alternatives and all possible ramifications,” he said. “Most importantly, we want to make sure that our undocumented students are protected in any scenario we decide to pursue.”