ASU president seeks immigration reform

Arizona State University President Michael Crow pressed policymakers to reform current American immigration laws in an effort to enhance collegiate-level educations in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

According to The Chronicle, Crow, alongside the presidents of Cornell University and Miami Dade College, sent a letter Tuesday asking over 1,200 colleagues to collaborate with their effort to improve U.S. immigrants’ education in the STEM fields.

Our classes help shape the next generation of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, creators of culture, and thinkers, while our labs help bring the next great ideas to life. Too often, however, our ability to educate and our ability to innovate are frustrated by US immigration laws. Particularly in the innovation-rich fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), we train many of the brightest minds of the world, only to have those students sent abroad to compete against us because our immigration laws do not provide a viable path for them to stay.

The letter added that illegal immigrants living in the U.S. and being denied college access has become an ever-growing academic issue as well.

Many foreign-born students arrived in our country as children but are prevented from attending college because of their undocumented status. As we deny young people in our country who are qualified to attend college access to higher education, we deny our country the talent we very much need.

The three university presidents noted that these topics will be directly addressed at their respective campuses on April 19, according to the letter.